Is War Worn Out?

Westinor · Jan 7, 2025

There was a discussion in the #grand-hall channel in the Discord server yesterday building off of Senator John Laurens' points in the aforementioned discussion thread here, part of which included a debate over whether or not the legislation currently under review in the Senate to institute a regular review of any wars currently declared is worthwhile or not. I'd like to briefly add on to this article with a few quick, boiled down thoughts of my own from the debate and a summary of the main arguments put forward.

Proponents of the legislation have cited quite a few different concerns about the messaging and handling of the wars, which are centered around a few core issues: dissatisfaction with messaging surrounding the wars from the Executive, and frustration with the inaccessibility of the FA knowledge required to both understand the ongoings of and critique the process of war. These perceived problems are the primary reasons that some are questioning the direction and length of these wars. Core concerns with the war have included a lack of exit plan/end goal, length, and confusion as to the current status of the war and its strategy. There has also been criticism with regards to the Executive's response to questions about the war, and the hope of this legislation appears to both implement Senate-driven accountability for present and future wars, with the hope of ensuring that wars are not gratuitously long and that the citizenry remains informed and looped into the ongoing conflict and its strategy.

I do not believe the legislation will accomplish this goal. It is not unreasonable to request that the Senate direct some oversight over the Executive to ensure that wars are being properly handled, but I am concerned that this change attempts to address a problem that has since been misconstrued by opening up further holes in our ability to effectively wage war.

As has been noted, much of the debate surrounding the war has been focused on its length. We have been at war for over a year, but it is not clear if the end is in sight. I would like to push back against the idea that 'forever wars' are a realistic problem for Europeia - I worry that the repeated conflation of the term with its real life counterparts has created actual worry that these wars are actively damaging Europeia's ability to maintain regular activity or cater to other domestic or external issues. That is simply not the case - unlike real-life wars, wars on NS are generally more of a fraction of any given administration's FA portfolio, as opposed to their primary and foremost priority, which gnaws into their ability to address problems at home and other issues abroad. They do not demand an excessive focus on the military, and I would like to put forward the fact that Europeia has actually put less focus on the military aspect of these wars than may have been expected/possible, but I digress. Past wars differ from the current one in that the current war is almost cleanly set along the lines of operationally defender-aligned regions and raider-aligned regions; and even then, there have been few operations that Europeia has committed to that it would not have otherwise, with the only example I can think of being Solidarity, which was a resounding success. War is an extension and formalization of already-existing foreign policy, and so its length alone does not have any implications for a region's ability to function.

In a similar fashion, wars on NS also do not have traditional "endpoints" in the same way that traditional wars do. Again, they are largely a more forceful reiteration of existing foreign policy preferences, even when they are a reaction to an FA-shifting event - this holds true for past wars, like the one with the NPO. To that end, it is nearly impossible to expect that war follow a linear progression towards a clearly-defined end.

Some have criticized and/or ridiculed the executive's response, which has referenced terms like "attrition", narratives, and the long-term, reactive nature of wars in justifying the war's length and opposition to their premature ending. It is important to note that there is a common misunderstanding when it comes to the term "attrition". Attrition has been incorrectly understood to imply that we are going to simply sit and wait to "outlast" our enemy without taking any action whatsoever. This is true to an extent. What I understand attrition to be is the idea that we do not have control over the pace of the war - in part because our position as defenders means we are not able to actively instigate conflict without our opponents giving us the opportunity to do so. If this were true on its own, there would perhaps be some weight to the question of "Why War?" This is, however, not the case. Both we and our enemy are beholden to longer-term shifts in interregional and domestic landscapes - the strategy of attrition is a bet and prediction that we are better equipped to navigate these winds, and that they will naturally favor us in the long run. As JL himself has pointed out, this prediction has borne ripe and rotten fruit. The Communist Bloc has largely stepped back from active R/D and the Brotherhood of Malice has continued to eject friendships quicker than it can find them. At the same time, Lone Wolves United has passed treaties with several regions we are not at war with - one of which is currently a fellow member of the Modern Gameplay Compact. How we choose to navigate these developments is our prerogative. In the case of a premature exit from the war, we give it up. The narrative becomes less about an active war that we can envision shifting in our favor and more about a conflict in which we abandoned our allies and did not believe we could win, regardless of that insinuation's veracity. Remember that the war against Lone Wolves United was declared in support of our allies following the attack on A Taco Paradise, a territory of our friends in 10000 Islands; the war against the Communist Bloc came not long after the delegate tip of the North Pacific. We entered these conflicts with our allies. In exiting, we will have lost more than just a war.

That is the concern I have with this legislation. I do not mean to degrade or demean the value of the Senate - it is the institution responsible for passing Declarations of War, and as such it is also responsible for them. However, we are not always going to have foreign policy experts and active military leaders in the Senate as we do now. The Senate is also far more susceptible to political pressure on singular issues and policy than the Executive. Given the drastic consequences of a premature, unilateral, and improperly justified exit, I fear this bill opens up the potential for a brief political wind or potential bad actor to hijack our foreign policy in a moment of complacency.

The potential downsides to this bill are not the only reason I oppose it - there are simply other, more effective ways to address the core issues it seeks to mend. The majority of debate has circulated around the length, strategy, and endgoal of these wars, but these are symptoms of the issue, not the actual issues themselves. The problem lies in a gap in the Executive's messaging on the endgoals of the war and the lack of accessible FA knowledge available for the average citizen to bridge that gap easily. I don't think these problems are best addressed by mandated Senate oversight. As others have noted, oversight on the war can be and for most intents and purposes, has been conducted via other means by the Senate, and nothing is stopping the Senate from continuing to do so via regular channels. However, the base problems of FA knowledge and executive messaging are best remedied by what many might find to be a chessy copout - better reporting and education on the part of the Executive. More media articles on the war, pieces covering FA topics and exposure to external discussions and the greater implications of foreign policy decisions. The discussion that inspired this post didn't take place in #the-watch, but that channel is a great place to glean more FA knowledge - confused citizens can join the FA staff to learn more. Few other regions have the same easily accessible opportunity! The past few administrations have excelled in presenting radio coverage; radio shows on foreign topics have died down recently, but they have been covered regularly before and can be again. The EBC can be used for more purposeful coverage of the war, since regular reports in the Octagon don't gain much traction. These solutions actively engage the citizenry in a way that mandated Senate oversight does not. I'd like to implore those who feel this bill is necessary to consider redirecting your focus to instead asking for more of this sort of media content, for directly providing feedback to the Executive about what you would like to better understand with regards to these wars in as constructive of a manner as we possibly can. There are other answers, and I understand that Europeia is an incredibly vibrant political community, but they need not always be rooted in formalized rules or complex institutional solutions!

United Vietussia · Jan 7, 2025

Westinor said:
[snip]

Thanks for summarizing this! Provides great context to this ongoing debate in the community.

Vor · Jan 7, 2025

Excellent article UV, and thank you for your insightful addition, Westinor!

Westinor said:
A Taco Archipelago

A Taco Paradise*

Is War Worn Out?

Westinor

United Vietussia

Allegedly Did Some Stuff

Vor