The Concerning Rise of Defenderism

[Lime]

The Concerning Rise of Defenderism
Written by Lime ​

The South Pacific was once an ally and friend of Europeia before then President Writinglegend cut ties due to The South Pacific’s present preference for Defenderism. Since then, they have edged closer to the Defender ideology before declaring themselves as Defenders in July of 2019. However, just how sharply and utterly The South Pacific has become a full believer in Defenderism within the last 18 months, and how closely it has placed it at the heart of government policy has come as a surprise to many.

As I wrote for NationStates Today when covering The South Pacific’s Cabinet Elections in October, Defenderism dominated their entire election, with even a candidate for Minister of Culture discussing the region’s future as a Defender-aligned region. And as I covered in my last article for NationStates Today, the recent diplomatic spat between The South Pacific and The North Pacific is a clear reminder of The South Pacific’s steadfast Defender beliefs. Not only were they opposing an operation conducted by their ally, but when requested to cease their opposition by The North Pacifc, The South Pacific chose to continue their counter-operation against the quorum raids - conducted as part of The North Pacific’s anti-fascist operation.

However, The South Pacific has gone further than just making Defenderism their foreign policy objective, they have completely embedded it within the region’s culture. The South Pacific now celebrates “Defender Day” on July 17 to mark the day the region officially became Defenders, while the state run newspaper, The Southern Journal, has frequently released articles praising and promoting Defenderisim, and The South Pacific’s embrace of it. One article in particular, titled “In Defense of a New Defender Moralism '' is interesting in part due to the dramatic increase in the use of “Moralism” as an argument to promote defenderisim across NationStates. It argues the R/D spectrum has nothing to do with The South Pacific’s embrace of Defenderisim, but rather it is their belief in self-determination, and duty to defend innocent regions that drives this new Defender culture within The South Pacific. At the very least, the article is kind enough to say “raiders aren’t bad people” they just “do bad things.” However, The South Pacific’s recent actions on the world stage would suggest their actions are driven far more by politics and traditional R/D interests, than a pure desire to ‘protect the weak.’

Aside from the use of their military in purely defensive operations, and the recent dispute with The North Pacific which undoubtedly caused a severe cooldown in relations between the two regions, the most significant development of South Pacific foreign policy is the recently announced Partnership for Sovereignty between 10000 Islands, The Rejected Realms, The South Pacific, and now the Union of Democratic States. Initially announced as a World Assembly voting bloc between 10000 Islands, The Rejected Realms and The South Pacific, the bloc united arguably the three most powerful Defender regions in NationStates, and its charter made clear that the bloc would be used to promote the ideology of Defenderism within the World Assembly and beyond. It’s creation is significant not just because it unites the three most powerful Defender regions and not just because it further reflects 10000 Islands becoming increasingly less isolationist, but because presents a powerful and united front from Defenders and represents a real challenge to those opposed to Defenderism.

The acquisition of the Union of Democratic States into the Partnership is the most glaring example of this challenge. Long seen as an up and coming UCR, the Union of Democratic States has seen multiple regions from across the political spectrum attempt to pull it into their sphere of influence. While for the most part they have been able to avoid any specific “label”, the region has slowly started to embrace more alliances with defender aligned regions, despite relations with independent aligned regions. These alignments include significant regions such as Europeia, with whom the Union of Democratic States is a treaty ally. While some might argue that the Union of Democratic States admission into the Partnership for Sovereignty was an inevitability, it is nonetheless disappointing and concerning. While they may not be a fully defender region, they are certainly far closer to the defender sphere of influence now, and it is an undeniable success for defenders attempting to increase their numbers of allies.

The South Pacific, alongside their Defender allies, are clearly attempting to use the Partnership as well as general influence to reshape the gameplay sphere. After their success in pulling the Union of Democratic States within their sphere of influence, we should not be surprised to see Defenders become more aggressive in their attempts to pull more regions into their sphere. The partnership is likely to be used both symbolically and practically, in attempts to improve Defender standing while discrediting and weakening those who are not Defenders. We have already seen a symbolic and political use of the Partnership in the recent Commend HEM proposal in the Security Council. While they knew they would be unable to defeat the proposal, The South Pacific along with the Partnership, engaged in a forceful disinformation campaign attempting to brand independence as imperialism and cast HEM as the creator of an imperialist military that had raided and destroyed countless regions. The question is, how will the non-defender world respond to this emboldened Defender bloc, and how will we in Europeia seek to continue to promote independence?

 

[Andusre]

I wish to preface this reply by stating that what I post is my own experimentation & thoughts about R/D, and is not indicative of the policy/opinions held by any region with which I hold citizenship/government office. I must admit it is somewhat daunting posting this here because I know many will disagree, but hey. As I said, this is me trying out the 'theory' of R/D, and I'm open to discussion/back-and-fourth about it if anyone wants to chip in/challenge me on this.

I have been in the R/D gameplay realm for a few months now and I've been trying my best to listen to all sides: defender, independent, raider, whoever it may be. I have not made up my mind on which 'side' of R/D I find most persuasive.

This article offers a very interesting perspective. I am not the most well-read on the PfS' counter-campaign on Commend HEM, I do not intend on commenting on it and when taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, I feel it loses relevance (reason why I say that is because, as best I understand it, the crux of the counter-campaign was that HEM played a pivotal role in a "raider" organisation, that raiding is bad & thus he is not commendable - this fundamentally is not a new addition to the R/D conversation). I can understand that to many other Europeians, especially those in the Navy, Lime's words feel common sensical and wholly justified. It is not my intention to defend the PfS' counter-campaign or the POV that Independence = Raiders or that Europeia is morally bad for raiding. I am not a defender, I don't consider myself Independent, I am not a Raider - I'm not interested in that here. My focus is on optics.

I want to frame R/D gameplay in this situation as a PR war.

I think it is undeniable that in such a PR war, defenders naturally have the upper hand. They can - and do - pander to people's empathy & compassion for other players: 'raiding is infringing upon the sovereignty of other regions'; 'raiding causes distress to the natives you raid'; etc. This appeal to fundamental human emotion is incredibly persuasive.

I want to use the term "People who raid" here rather than Independent, Raider, and Unaligned as I feel it will help me avoid being misinterpreted as equating independence and raiders. I am a person who raids, so is EPSA, so is the ERN, etc.. People who raid do not have such a naturally easy ride with PR & propaganda. Whether you raid because you have determined it is in your regional interests, or you raid because it gets rid of dead weight regions, or you raid simply because it is fun - those arguments are simply not as powerfully persuasive as the "doing the right thing".

It is this imbalance which I think is important to why I bring this up. People who raid are already at a PR disadvantage. This article reads like a hit piece on defenderdom (whether that was the author's intention or not, I don't think it was though). As I said on discord, it can be read as "frothing at the mouth with hatred" for defenderdom, and to someone who perhaps isn't the most informed on R/D politics, coming across as the aggressors in an article - when you're already being painted as aggressors by defenders - does not put people who raid in a good light at all, and at the end of the day I think without being careful of the words you choose, people who raid could make their own propaganda effort considerably less convincing.

Convincing people not to be defenders may not be your intention with this article, but if you want to sway regions & people who are not defender-aligned to not go defender, this is not the tone you want to strike in my humble opinion.

I will reiterate because I really can't be bothered getting shouted at for this: not representative of the views of any government, purely my own observations from testing the waters of R/D and the politics & conversations that follow. Would very much like to hear others' opinions on it

 

[Common-Sense Politics]

I'm not sure your apprehension is warranted, Andy. Some of your points have merit. I frankly don't understand what the purpose of this article is and would be a problem if it was in the EBC and not a private outlet. Either defenderdom did something bad and you build that case or you cover these developments as hard news. This article doesn't do either of those things. Reads as sour grapes.

 

[GraVandius]

This is a great write up Lime!

I would quibble that Defenders naturally have an upper hand because I think the vast majority of people don't give a shit. Even within the game a small percentage participate in military gameplay and beyond the occasional Huzzah Europeia I personally really don't care either. R/D has consistently seemed like a lot of self-righteous bloviating about something that at the end of the day is super uninteresting. Independence makes the most sense to me because it requires the least amount of rhetorical hoop jumping to try to justify your actions as some kind of clear moral good. Literally who cares it's all just a game.

 

[Josi]

I still think it's an interesting article.

 

[SkyGreen]

I like raiding because it's fun.
I think Andy raises a fair point, as I recall in my early days of NationStates (2013) I actually found myself aligned with a defender community, simply because it felt like a logical choice.
Raiding is, by its nature, disruptive. However, I think we should remember that there is a distinction between raiding and invading. As we all should know, there is no Raider tag for a region. There is, however, the Invader tag.
Does this mean that everyone who raids is an Invader? I don't think so.
Is someone who goes tag raiding to put silly WFEs in minuscule founderless regions the same as those who raid regions with actual communities?
Again, I really doubt it.

Defender moralism, from what I understand, and I think the article Lime linked also explained it, is based on protecting native communities. So, if there is no community, is there even an issue?

 

[Maowi]

What to me is the benefit of Independence is that we don't put ourselves in a position where we have to find some sort of moral justification for what we do militarily, nor do we let our military shape our IC persona as a whole - e.g. just because we conduct raids, we are not playing an "evil" region. We raid, as far as my understanding goes, because it is in our interests to have an active, capable, well-trained military. And because of that, I think "the concerning rise of defenderdom" as a title and a premise for an article slightly misrepresents the issue at hand. Without defenders trying to counteract our raids, what kind of training or strength do we build? Interregional gameplay would be very dull and not healthy without significant ideological differences between regions, and I don't think we need to worry about TSP embracing defending as part of its internal culture so much as we would if we were a raiding-driven region.

The main thing I see as potentially problematic is the kind of rhetoric about Independent=raider, and about "anybody who raids is an enemy" - I'm not sure exactly how prominent that kind of thing is becoming but my impression is that it's at least slightly on the rise. That can lead to the kinds of situations we were seeing in the discussions arising around Commend HEM, i.e. Europeia getting criticised for "not defending enough therefore not being Independent," the main cause of which is the refusal of defenders to work with us. I don't think we need to be too concerned about that in itself, though, because the only regions criticising us for that are strictly defender regions themselves. It's just a shame when an up-and-coming region, like UDS, gets drawn into that mindset. I don't think we've seen a trend of that, though.

Either way, thanks for this article Lime - I think it's good to start a discussion like this, which we don't seem to often have as a wider citizenry.

 

[McEntire]

This whole article comes off a bit like American attempts at the "containment" of communism after WWII. An independently aligned region should not be in the business of "containing" defenderism or being concerned about its rise. And if we do let this type of concern drive our foreign policy, we are only playing into the hand of those that say that our ideology is a fig leaf. I think you're right to raise this, Lime, and you're certainly right that we have to think about how the changing global alliances impact our stance, but I hope that the conversations going on about this behind closed doors are less reflexively anti-defender.

As I wrote for NationStates Today when covering The South Pacific’s Cabinet Elections in October, Defenderism dominated their entire election, with even a candidate for Minister of Culture discussing the region’s future as a Defender-aligned region.

For instance, I thought the above quote was a little rich. Let's not paint them as propagandists for this. They're having a regional dialogue, they've chosen a path. In Europeia, we talk all the time about the linkages between military gameplay and communications, integration, and culture. A major issue of the last year has been using our strength in other areas to promote the independent ideology. Is that not the point of the Region of the Week? And finally, my friend, may I remind you that you are in fact our Culture Minister, writing this very article? If they are making a faulty line of argumentation, let's have a discussion about it all together, but let's not brand them as unthinking propagandists through these whiffs of suggestion.

The question is, how will the non-defender world respond to this emboldened Defender bloc, and how will we in Europeia seek to continue to promote independence?

If we are defining the world as defender v. non-defender, is it any surprise when defenders do the same? If anything, the danger to independence is the fact that they're furthering the argument - apparent in the opposition to HEM's commendation - that independence is a fake ideology. If that gains traction, it could lead to greater defender consolidation of allies (according to this article, already what we are seeing somewhat with UDS). A serious conversation about bolstering independence would mean countering those attacks with actions to assert our ideological independence. I would be interested to hear from our government officials, what's the answer here?

 

[Lime]

I'm still at work right now so I'll respond to most points later, however I do want to clarify the two main aims of the article.

1. And I'll admit this could have been made clearer- my concern is not the rise of defenderism, but more the rise of defender moralism. We can disagree with defenders and compete against them, and have fun doing so. This is a political simulator, competing ideologues is part of what makes it fun. However, defeder moralism regardless of how it is spun, suggests that anyone who thinks raiding is okay is a bad person. That is not a healthy ideologue. It would suggest that almost everyone in this region, and so many more in the wider NS world are bad people because they engage in a particular part of a game. We saw in the Commend HEM debate, defender moralism used as an excuse to spread blatant lies about Europeia and HEM. Again this is not evidence of a healthy ideologue.

2. The other point of the article was to highlight the quickly changing global politics, and by virtue the changing global alliances, and start discussion about how Europeia should respond to this changing environment.

I should also note, that this is a private media article and all views expressed are my own.

 

[Ervald]

To be frank, I can see how somebody can see this as a trend but folks can also see it as not being a trend. I think it concerns a lot of people because we had a treaty with UDS, their founder was active in Europeia, they based their governmental system off of Europeia, we were in contact with them, and yet, they found the defenderdom more appealing. So, I don't know if it is a huge rise but I think it is a big enough tick of the clock for us to have a conversation about this.

I thought Andusre made some interesting comments and I have been thinking all morning about this. The typical PR strategy that we have used especially in the Gameplay forum is that Independence is not inherently about raiding and the ideology is more about your region having flexibility in its foreign policy and not being tied to a R/D alliance. Independence is affiliated with raiding but there can be Independents who like to do defensive operations. I don't have a problem with defenders, it's good to have competition. I think the bigger issue at concern is that if your region want to do defensive operations, the fenda sphere will take notice and try to pigeonhole you into the bilateral and multilateral alliances they think you should have.

That PR strategy is good for the Gameplay forum and we should keep using it, we have to counteract the bullshit out there about Europeia secretly being raiders and that Independence is actually Imperialism in disguise and we're being controlled by LKE and Balder. Those are absurd and false accusations and we will continue to make it clear that they are. That helped us with Commend King HEM because we were able to get enough people who were either "Oh, they do raids but idc since HEM has good accomplishments deserving of this commendation" or "They're not raiders so these criticisms aren't even legitimate in the first place". That PR strategy is good for folks who are very engaged in NS whether very actively and/or for a very long time so they have seen all of the drama, events, and lies spreading around on the Gameplay forum. Most folks have a good idea (unless being driven by their military ideology) of who is trustworthy or not and they have seen how events unfolded.

But I do think this PR strategy may not be good for trying to mentor up and growing regions about NS. As Andy said, moralist Defenderdom feels very logical to people who have no idea of the types of folks that are involved in that sphere. Our explanation of Independence may not invoke a lot of feelings unlike defending which can utilize moralist phrases about regional sovereignty and invasions of communities. At the same time, we're seeing NS politics becoming more social and so is military culture. Unless I am wrong about military culture, I think several folks involved with the ERN told me that military culture across NS is becoming more social and casual over time. Perhaps how we should be pitching Independence to up and growing regions is "Look at all of the silly drama on the Gameplay forum. Do you really want your military operations to determine who and who you can't be buddies with?

Because let's be real, the moralist defenderdom love to tell you who you should like and who you should hate if you want to do defensive operations. That's the beautiful thing about Independence. Raid or defend, you get to determine who you want to work with. Because who you decide to be allies or partners with isn't just about a treaty. It is about regional cultures getting to meet each other. Europeia doesn't just do treaties only because of the other region's government and military framework, we also do it because we think their regional culture is one we should get to witness. And wouldn't it suck if you were a hypothetical region who did defensive operations and you didn't get to hang out with Europeia or TNP because the defenderdom told you that you couldn't do treaties with them? Let's be real, looking at the drama on the Gameplay forum, we Independents (or secret raiders as they said) are not reveling in demonry and I bet you we have a far more positive regional culture than they do.

I am aware that the defenderdom pitch their ideology to have a cultural aspect to it. I am also aware that Independence is not considered to have a cultural aspect to it. I think it should for the reasons above. I think that if our ideology was to have a cultural aspect to it, it would be far more inclusive and impactful than what defenderdom is. A culture not about how you like to do minors and majors, a culture about your region's set of values, governmental system, and the little hobbies and inside jokes your region have. Because that is how we as regions define ourselves on NS. The first thing that we Europeians think of our region isn't just Independence, it is our longevity, our robust political scene, and our undying passion for the weirdest inside jokes possible.

Let's not pitch Independence as an ideology for the containment or expulsion of the Defenderdom ideology but as a balancing cultural and political force for NS.

 

[Kazaman]

I agree with CSP and McEntire about some of the rhetorical weaknesses of this article. It doesn't go beyond stoking fear to outline what we should be worried about. But ultimately I share Lime's concerns about the medium and long term consequences of the Defenders' renewed foreign policy. It's not something to balk at or dismiss as handwringing.

Before addressing some replies to Lime, though, I want to tackle an inaccuracy in the article itself (which McEntire also pointed out).

“In Defense of a New Defender Moralism '' is interesting in part due to the dramatic increase in the use of “Moralism” as an argument to promote defenderisim across NationStates. It argues the R/D spectrum has nothing to do with The South Pacific’s embrace of Defenderisim, but rather it is their belief in self-determination, and duty to defend innocent regions that drives this new Defender culture within The South Pacific. At the very least, the article is kind enough to say “raiders aren’t bad people” they just “do bad things.” However, The South Pacific’s recent actions on the world stage would suggest their actions are driven far more by politics and traditional R/D interests, than a pure desire to ‘protect the weak.’

It's hard to give much objective weight to what people find interesting, but what struck me most about the TSJ article was not its use of "moralism." Moralistic arguments for Defender ideology have been popular since 2003, and have been "renewed" in slightly different terms every so often by new organisations (such as the FRA in 2006 and the UDL in 2011). So to see Defenders use the same or very similar arguments today isn't terribly interesting. What is interesting, at least to me, is a shift in their foreign policy and tactics. Most Defender organisations and regions have been explicitly focused on their military and intelligence apparatus. XKI has generally had a strong political culture and community, but stood out because of that, the exception that proves the rule. Most other exceptions have been very quiet, small to medium sized regions. But what Seraph suggests in this TSJ article is to expand the Defender sphere by creating Defender cultures and political communities. This is what we have seen them do with great success in UDS. Hardly the first region to turn under Defender influence, but a departure from past tactics of infiltration and subversion.

I also wouldn't read the TSJ article as separating moralism from "the R/D spectrum." An openness to including regions without a militaristic culture is not at all the same as abandoning "traditional R/D interests." It's just a different way of pursuing those interests. If there's any hypocrisy in their recent diplomatic efforts, it's instead their denigration of Europeia's political culture as a smokescreen while they simultaneously seek to create a similar balance to us.

That said, I don't fully agree with some of McEntire's criticisms.

An independently aligned region should not be in the business of "containing" defenderism or being concerned about its rise. And if we do let this type of concern drive our foreign policy, we are only playing into the hand of those that say that our ideology is a fig leaf.

One of the primary concerns of Independence over the years has been containing Defender influence over foreign policy. Defenders are primarily interested in locking down and gatekeeping all military activity. Everything they have done, from forming new alliances to reforming their militaries and conducting a renewed flurry of espionage, has been to tip the balance of interregional power in their favour and break the morale of regions who want to conduct military operations Defenders don't approve of. This is antithetical to Independence, which stands for self-determination and mutual respect between regions within reasonable limits. Responding to this effectively would take a large, concerted effort and would in fact drive our foreign policy for the duration of that effort.

If we are defining the world as defender v. non-defender, is it any surprise when defenders do the same? If anything, the danger to independence is the fact that they're furthering the argument - apparent in the opposition to HEM's commendation - that independence is a fake ideology. If that gains traction, it could lead to greater defender consolidation of allies (according to this article, already what we are seeing somewhat with UDS).

I agree that Defender rhetoric about Independence is a serious problem, but I don't think the solution is to deemphasise opposition to Defender foreign policy. If anything, I think Defenders would vastly prefer a situation where Independence was a kind of passive neutral position that had no interest in pursuing military objectives, or that saw military activity as a competitive game to be conducted with low stakes. This would take all the teeth out of our advocacy for our vision of regional self-determination, leaving the Defenders' vision without any serious rival.

I'd also like to address briefly a point Maowi made.

Without defenders trying to counteract our raids, what kind of training or strength do we build? Interregional gameplay would be very dull and not healthy without significant ideological differences between regions, and I don't think we need to worry about TSP embracing defending as part of its internal culture so much as we would if we were a raiding-driven region.

Just as it's important to separate raiding from being a Raider or subscribing to Raider ideology, we must also separate using defensive tactics from being a Defender or subscribing to Defender ideology. These tactics are tools that a region can use in pursuing military objectives, a region should choose them based on the current political situation. It undermines our arguments against Defender ideology to confuse the use of tactics with the adoption of an entire mode of thought. We do not need Defenders in the game in order to make military activity politically viable or fun.

 

[Malashaan]

What I see as a concern is any rise in ideological absolutism, which we are definitely seeing in the politics of the South Pacific and other regions that are defender-aligned or have defender leanings. This played out directly with regard to Commend HEM with those objectors who took the position that "this commend mentions the ERN, the ERN has been involved with raids, therefor HEM is bad." Absolutism is certainly not unique to defenders - there are plenty of people across the ideological spectrum who have taken such positions - but it is undoubtedly growing in prominence at the defender end of the spectrum,

Historically, that isn't particularly unusual, but its disappointing to see now as over the last 2 years we'd seen a major shift away from that kind of thinking. With the growth of numerous inter-regional cultural events, we had been seeing an increase in acceptance of differences in military ideologies and styles. Our accord with UDS is an obvious example that's close to home, but an even better example is the treaty between TWP and Karma, which has no mention of military matters at all and is essentially a roleplay. It's incredibly myopic to focus entirely on military ideology in treaty-making, regions are (for the most part) far more than their militaries and reducing FA down to military ideology just means missing out on a wide range of opportunities for cooperation.

 

[Seva]

Time for me to comment on this...

First of all; while I share Maowi's, McEntire's, Ervald's, and to some extent Andy's concerns about what message the article conveys; I am grateful to Lime for writing this and sparking a much-needed discussion.

I do not agree with Andy that Defending is inherently more attractive / has the upper hand. People come here to play a game, to roleplay whatever they want to roleplay (sometimes going too far). Often, when role-playing, people don't want to be their usual persona, which probably would instinctively prefer defending. They want to pursue something they have never and would never do OOC, and from that standpoint raiding sounds way more appealing. I would say there is a 50/50 split? Of course I don't have the data, but there certainly is some bias toward thinking Defending is more attractive simply because Defenders are way louder (it applies to both experienced ones and people on RMBs of raided regions). That is easily explained by the fact that those people have OOC beliefs based on real-life experience which happen to back their IC views, whereas Raiders operate solely in character. In addition, defending is in the beginning something passive and requires no prior training - you just endorse your own delegate.

As for the more practical relating to the actual gameplay: firstly, I do not think it is concerning in a global sense that all of those "moralist" people are calling Independence Raiding. That is just another way to play this game, and if it works for them, this propaganda is nothing inherently bad. At various points there were ruthless region-destroying raiders, people creating colonies by pretending to be natives (what HEM recalled on radio recently), spying, and probably much more. If nowadays it is fun to play propaganda wars and mind games (which is probably in line with recent happenings in the world - people are subconsciously always influenced by those), then so be it. It's fine as long as it doesn't turn into out-of-character hostility - which as far as I know is not the case.

The question then becomes what Lime did rhetorically ask in the article: what can we do, and is that development concerning for Europeia and other similar regions in particular?

The UDS situation means that some regions do buy into this PR campaign by defenders, and that was inevitable. Of course if Defenderdom offers some benefits to them, there are 2 paths: either give up on them as a lost cause or offer them more benefits. The first path should be chosen if I'm right in the evaluation that the UDS is just full of people who want to roleplay their own OOC beliefs in the game. In that case there is nothing we can do unless we are able to prove that Independence is just as "moral" as Defending - something we could do if Defenders actually cooperated with us AND if nearly all Raider regions were not our partners.

Here i would like to step back and say I forgot to mention one group of people that is probably a majority in this game - those who do not want to roleplay any persona at all - those like me (though I used to "roleplay" my real-life Pacifism) and I would say most in this region. Those people can join either Raider or Defender or Independent or Neutral or Pacifist regions (would probably prefer Independent/Neutral/Pacifist at first) and generally do not have strong IC opinions for or against Raiders or Defenders.

If the UDS consists of majorly those players, then we may have a problem and may have to rethink our FA a bit. And that is certainly a possibility. One problem that I noticed was - what did we really do with UDS? One region of the week, and then nothing really. People from that region never appeared here, we never had dual citizens, never even were invited to the same festival (maybe UCR con but it doesn't count). We do not have any mutual allies. What does it mean - that our Executive did something wrong there or that we were just never meant to be? I would say the latter, and I would say UDS really does consist of players with a similar mindset to XKI or TSP. Just like in real life, two people that are not compatible will never be together and probably will never be the best of friends either - but they can be just friends - which we probably are with UDS. Cold sometimes, with irreconcilable differences - but still friends that occasionally give each other some help.

Finally I would like to address Maowi's point and Kaz's rebuttal. I agree that one should not equal Defending and Defender politics, but I believe that Raiding/Independence/Neutrality and Raider/Independent/Neutral politics would both be impossible without Defending and Defender politics. Diversity makes this game fun. Apart from "in character" Nazis etc. and people who are immoral OOC, everyone makes this game more interesting - ruthless Raiders did, Francoists did, coupers did - and "Moralist" Defenders do as well.

 

[Sopo]

Without wading in (yet), I'd just like to say that the fact that we're even able to have a discussion like this is heartening. We've previously struggled with folks outside of the foreign policy "elite" understanding and being able to contribute to our foreign policy, and I think this type of measured and intelligent discussion is a big victory for the efforts toward making Independence and our foreign policy goals more visible internally and accessible.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

 

[Giovanniland]

Historically, that isn't particularly unusual, but its disappointing to see now as over the last 2 years we'd seen a major shift away from that kind of thinking. With the growth of numerous inter-regional cultural events, we had been seeing an increase in acceptance of differences in military ideologies and styles. Our accord with UDS is an obvious example that's close to home, but an even better example is the treaty between TWP and Karma, which has no mention of military matters at all and is essentially a roleplay. It's incredibly myopic to focus entirely on military ideology in treaty-making, regions are (for the most part) far more than their militaries and reducing FA down to military ideology just means missing out on a wide range of opportunities for cooperation.

I was originally not going to comment here, but I saw the mention of the TWP-Karma treaty. It's not a roleplay, but you're right that it does not mention military things anywhere. It instead focuses on developing deeper relations and culture between each region, which is something that really should be explored more in treaties. Though I certainly agree with the last line of your comment, there's much more than military affairs when building relationships with regions.

 

[Malashaan]

Roleplay might be the wrong term for the TWP-Karma treaty. What I meant by that was that it's interesting for being a collection of Bill and Ted references and broad statements about having fun together. There's a broad reference to WA cooperation, but apart from that, it just generally states an intent to have "adventures" together. Unlike conventional treaties, it doesn't seem to be a law in any meaningful sense, but rather it sets the tone for having fun together in future. Whether you classify that fun is "roleplay" or "social play" or something else, it's a huge departure from how FA has historically been approached, which has been more akin to mirroring real life international law.

We do not have any mutual allies. What does it mean - that our Executive did something wrong there or that we were just never meant to be? I would say the latter, and I would say UDS really does consist of players with a similar mindset to XKI or TSP.

While I agree with most of Seva's post, I don't agree with this. There was definitely an opportunity to build a relationship based on culture not military matters with UDS when we first entered into the accords. It would have taken involving them in inter-regional events and other cultural activities (e.g., another region of the week, or just a game or movie night) in the following months though. That didn't really happen. The big cultural events we had ended up being mostly or entirely internal for various reasons, and the window may well have closed now.

Would things have played out any differently?There was certainly an appetite for building that new kind of relationship at the time. But whether putting more effort into building a cultural relationship would have prevented the more conventional R/D dynamics kicking in, we can't know for sure. As someone with zero interest in military game play, I'd like to think it could work, but I've been trying to bridge that divide for years and it keeps opening up again.

 

[Seva]

You might be right here - this is mostly my own (rather uninformed about this particular relationship) perspective. Even if it is ultimately true, to know for sure we do have to try doing something in cooperation with UDS

 

[Maowi]

Just as it's important to separate raiding from being a Raider or subscribing to Raider ideology, we must also separate using defensive tactics from being a Defender or subscribing to Defender ideology. These tactics are tools that a region can use in pursuing military objectives, a region should choose them based on the current political situation. It undermines our arguments against Defender ideology to confuse the use of tactics with the adoption of an entire mode of thought. We do not need Defenders in the game in order to make military activity politically viable or fun.

This is fair. I maybe picked my words unhelpfully, conflating "people who defend" with "people who subscribe to a (potentially moralist) defender ideology," which, now that I think about it, is ironically the exact distinction we're asking others to make about people who raid!!! I do still believe the game would be less engaging or exciting without defenders (in the latter sense), which is why I'm not sure we need to be anxious about TSP adopting it as part of their regional culture.

That is not to say we should not fight the unhelpful narratives they push, or their restrictive ideas about diplomacy. People's thoughtful comments in this thread were extremely interesting to read, and I agree with some of the points raised by Ervald and Kaz about presenting Independence as the option which gives your region the ability to employ an expansive foreign policy, to thrive culturally and diplomatically, and to forge your own distinctive path in NS. I don't think that needs to mean waging some sort of brutal PR war against defenders; in my view, the best way to successfully present this option is to calmly offer it as a rebuttal to the picture painted of us by defenders, and particularly by showing, clearly and confidently, how effectively it can work in practice.

 

[John Laurens]

Can someone explain how moralism on the rise again is bad for the state of the game? Perhaps we will get back to the epic battles of the old days through it.

 

[Seva]

Can someone explain how moralism on the rise again is bad for the state of the game? Perhaps we will get back to the epic battles of the old days through it.

was partly my point yea