Lazarene Regional Guard Amendment (2020)

[New Rogernomics]

Charter of the Lazarene Regional Guard Amendment (2020)

Proposed by: @"New Rogernomics"

Preamble

This amendment will declare the operational guard commander a government official and not a minister, and allow for the Delegate to give more operational flexibility to the guard if they so authorize.

Section 1. Amendment of Section 1

(1) Section 1 shall be amended to read:
 

(1) The Lazarene Regional Guard will be the sole military force of Lazarus, unaligned in alignment.

(2) The Delegate will be the commander-in-chief of the Regional Guard. The Delegate may appoint a citizen to serve as operational commander of the Regional Guard by a 50%+1 confirmation vote of the assembly, and be subject to all provisions for the removal of a government official of a two-thirds majority of the assembly. Operational command authority may be further delegated to a chain of command subordinate to the operational commander.

(3) The command, conduct, and membership criteria of the Regional Guard may be further regulated by law or by executive policy.

Section 2. Amendment of Section 2

(1) Section 2 shall be amended to read:
 

(1) The regional military alignment of Lazarus will be neutral. Lazarus will bear the Neutral tag at all times.

(2) Lazarus may not bear any of the following tags: Defender, Imperialist, Independent, or Invader.

(3) The Regional Guard may engage in the following types of operations without prior approval of the Delegate:

a. Defense of Lazarus;
b. Defense of Lazarus' treaty allies, if mandated by treaty terms;
c. Invasion of regions upon which Lazarus has declared war, and defense of other regions against their military forces;
d. Defense of other Feeders and Sinkers at the request of their legitimate governments;
e. Assistance in other regions' legal Delegate transitions at the request of their legitimate governments;
f. Offensive or defensive training operations in game-created Warzone regions;
g. Invasion of fascist regions and defense of regions against fascist military forces;
h. Invasion of regions which pose a substantial threat to the out-of-character security or safety of NationStates players, and defense of regions against forces which pose such a threat.

(4) The Assembly may enact a resolution empowering the Regional Guard to invade a region that is the ally or protectorate of a region upon which Lazarus has declared war. Such a resolution may be approved or rescinded by two-thirds vote of the Assembly.

(5) The Regional Guard may be empowered to engage in other military operations upon the approval of the Delegate so long as:

a. Operations do not involve raiding regions exceeding 20 nations,
b. Operations do not exceed 72 hours in duration,
c. The RMB, WFE and embassies of a region are restored at the end of an operation.

Some folks want this put back to discussion. So Shareholders are welcome to re-draft this, if they want to tweak it and run it for vote again.

The alternative suggestion was put forward that the PM should be put in place of the Delegate, which would look something like this:

(2) The Prime Minister will be the commander-in-chief of the Regional Guard. The Prime Minister shall appoint a Minister to serve as operational commander of the Regional Guard by a 50%+1 confirmation vote of the assembly, and be subject to all provisions for the removal of a Minister. Operational command authority may be further delegated to a chain of command subordinate to the operational commander.

Requested Edit: a. Operations do not involve regions exceeding 20 nations,

[Debussy]

I fully support this amendment. Let's make the guard more interesting. I believe the delegate should remain the commander in chief.

[Atlantica]

As before, I'm reluctant to allow the Regional Guard to do anything with the potential of bringing Lazarus into alignment-based conflict, both internally and externally.

Also, and more specifically, I'm concerned about §2.5, which seems like it would, however unintentionally, push Lazarus toward a moderate raider alignment, which may not serve the interests and preferences of those who don't lean toward that alignment. §2.5(a) especially concerns me, because it seems to me like it would disproportionately affect Defender actions and thus pushing Lazarus toward the aforementioned moderate raiderism. §2.5(a) would de facto prohibit the Regional Guard from participating in any liberations whatsoever, and prohibit many chasing operations as well - after adding taggers and chasers to preexisting populations, tagged regions' populations can easily exceed 20 nations. For example, the Mountains to the East, a region frequently tagged in the past, exceeded 20 nations during a April 2019 chase (just look at the region's population history). By contrast, were the LRG to tag regions, it would be able to choose smaller regions virtually guaranteed to still fall under the 20-nation limit after adding taggers and chasers. The LRG would also be able to stage occupations of small regions which fall under the 20-nation limit after adding initial invaders; however, after adding pilers and Defenders, by the time of liberation that same small region would almost certainly exceed the 20-nation limit, rendering any liberation illegal.

[whatermelons]

Maybe we can make any exceptions for liberations? Or change 20 to 20 nations excluding obvious raider defender puppets

[Debussy]

We should not base our law on how many nations may be in a region. a. under 5 should be removed.

[joWhatup]

Maybe we can make any exceptions for liberations? Or change 20 to 20 nations excluding obvious raider defender puppets

Perhaps amend it to read:

a. Operations do not involve regions exceeding 20 native resident nations, excluding military puppets

Just a suggestion. Otherwise, fully supportive of this measure - while Lazarus should not become a tool for Raiders or Defenders, I don’t believe we should limit ourselves out of fear for their reactions.

[Debussy]

You can't always know what nations are military puppets.

[Debussy]

Can we add something like this under section 1 -

(4) If the Delegate has decided to appoint an operational commander, the Delegate's appointment will be subject to reconfirmation coinciding with elections for prime minister.

[whatermelons]

I don’t think there will be so many non obvious ones. If there were it’s probably natives lol

[McChimp]

I remain opposed. This is unsurprising since only a few short months have passed since this exact law failed. This is a waste of time.

The Guard is capable as-is. The inevitable result of this would be a raider-aligned Lazarus.

Not only would this bill jeopardise several of the government's foreign policy objectives, the very idea that our future delegate is going to keep proposing it until voter exhaustion sets in may have already caused them significant damage.