[Discussion] War with the NPO

[Cormac]

I still disagree. I've explained why I find that reasoning for having a military unconvincing. Why do we need mutual defence treaties? Interregional intervention does not end coups. These treaties honestly just provide a false sense of security.

This just isn't the case. It's true that interregional intervention sometimes doesn't end coups, but I personally participated in the interregional intervention that helped end Milograd's coup of the South Pacific in 2013. Interregional intervention could possibly have ended the 2013 coup of Osiris or the 2015 NLO coup of Lazarus, given time. We can't know for sure, obviously, but in both cases it looked promising had the resistance movements kept at it (and neither of those resistance movements had fizzled as quickly as some have, so there's no reason to automatically believe they wouldn't have kept at it). There have been examples other than these earlier in NationStates history.

Now, it's true we shouldn't depend solely on mutual defense treaties. We need to have internal security measures as well. But mutual defense treaties are important weapons in the arsenal against coups, and it would be silly to just surrender those weapons for no reason, just because they haven't always been useful. Maybe they will prove useful next time they're needed, should there be a next time (though hopefully there won't be).

It's not about how the NPO perceives us, it's about how much attention we want to give them. Your war gives them attention and relevance. I'd prefer to isolate them than continually engage with them.

Just isolating them with diplomatic sanctions has never worked long-term in the past. Why do you believe it would work now?

It's also about practical consequences. Proscription allows us to make a strong statement and take action to protect ourselves. War won't achieve anything more than that, because you are not going to destroy the NPO -- not through military gameplay anyway. I think it's silly to join the chorus of people wasting their time yelling at the wind.

I really don't understand this idea that proscription is more dangerous than war, because it's just not. You said yourself -- the NPO will likely see them as the same action anyway. I disagree that declaring war will somehow make us more vigilant. What you're saying sounds good on paper but none of it translates into reality well.

You're presenting this as an either/or decision. Of course you're right that we should proscribe them, but we should go further than that. The idea that we shouldn't respond to what is probably the worst act of aggression committed by anyone in the history of this game because it's a waste of time is just a silly argument. This is a game; the entire thing is a waste of time. I also reject the defeatist attitude that the NPO can't be defeated. It's certainly not going to happen in an update operation, but if we keep the pressure on, keep chipping away at their WA population with recruitment and propaganda, keep frustrating their leadership and its agenda, etc., etc., there is a better chance of the NPO falling than if we simply do nothing. I don't understand this mentality that the NPO can't fall because of its longevity. It's not invincible. At the end of the day, it's just a GCR government like any other, and no GCR government is invincible. No GCR government is impervious to defeat.

It's about how we want to spend our time. I think we should spend it here, at home, making this community more active and interesting. Not on a wasteful war effort.

People say that a lot, that we should spend our time here making this community more active and interesting. And yet how much of that has been happening? Prior to talk of this war, the community was pretty quiet. There wasn't much going on. This whole situation has generated interest and excitement, and more activity than we've had since right after the constitutional convention. I don't believe we should do this on activity grounds alone, but the idea that we would be better served spending time on ambiguous "community development" stuff that no one has actually been doing much of seems pretty dubious to me. Are we actually going to do that, or after we decide not to declare war is everyone just going to go back to being quiet and spending more time elsewhere than they spend in Lazarus? At least this war has brought people's attention back to Lazarus and back to this community. I'm skeptical that we're all going to spend time on whatever it is you're saying it should be spent on. If we weren't before, why will we after this?

Also, just want to restate that we made demands and the Pacific appears to have met them. On what basis would we declare war and how would we reconcile such a declaration with our earlier demands?

On the basis that they can't be trusted to actually keep the terms we requested. Everything they've done thus far is in no way new or innovative; the Emperor stepped down after the NLO, the Regent was removed from office after the NLO, Senators were dismissed and people were banned after the NLO. Many of those people were quietly reinstated later, even after carrying out further subversive activities here in Lazarus. The NPO simply cannot be trusted to keep any terms, so there's no reason we should accept them. If we do, we'll just end up right back where we started, with the NPO screwing around in Lazarus again. Maybe next time they'll be successful and finally get their permanent puppet regime here.