Insights: TSP and Defenderism: Part 1

[Hileville]

TSP and Defenderism:  Part 1

During my time in the South Pacific I have largely been involved in its dealings with the the defender sphere of NationStates.  It is this firsthand knowledge that draw upon to come to a few conclusions about TSP and Defenderism.  As I write the article I am reminded that some of these views will not be popular and I ask all readers to be respectful when drafting responses.  I am sure we are all able to agree that the general raider vs. defender argument can very quickly become heated.  I will be writing this piece in several parts starting with experiences I am most familiar with and working back to the beginning days of TSP.
 
Dealings with the United Defenders League
I joined the South Pacific in 2011 following the coup committed by Sedgistian.  It is this event that set the stage for the creation of the United Defenders League.  I still respect the founding members of the UDL and appreciate what they did to aide in the restoration of the lawful Government of this great region.  I would eventually join the UDL and defend alongside these same people.  I enjoyed my early days with the group and used the knowledge I gained throughout my time in raider/defender gameplay since.
 
The UDL became involved with the South Pacific shortly before I became Delegate in December of 2011.  At the time our Minister of Security had gone missing and there was a hole in our defences.  We were still recovering from the coup and ultimately felt a Security Program was a good idea and would aide in keeping the region safe during a period of uncertainty.  In supporting this document I did not truly know it would tie us to a group that would eventually care so little for the sovereignty of our region.
 
Minus a few hiccups along the way and fighting off an attempt for advertising space on our regional WFE the Security Program passed the Assembly and led to good relations until the proposed Treaty with the New Inquisition in March of 2012.  By this time the Security Program had lapsed and the region still had a decent population of UDL members.  It was the events surrounding the Treaty discussions that led to my resignation from the group and started us down the rocky road of relations we would face.  Unibot, then Chief of the Band, was an active member of the region and a huge adversary of the TNI Treaty.  His reasons were understandable if you don't know a lot about R/D gameplay and its relations to TSP.  The heated arguments in the Assembly surrounding the Treaty got worse when Unibot approached members of the UDL who shared citizenship in TSP that were on IRC.  He lobbied them to vote AGAINST the Treaty which would lead to his first departure from the region.  The TNI Treaty passed the Assembly and the UDL responded with a less than desirable statement.  The statement declared that Unibot was not the UDL and his actions did not represent the views of the organization.  This caused a slight tear in relations which would only get bigger.
 
In May of 2012 the South Pacific Army conducted an operation to secure Warzone Airspace after the departure of longtime Delegate Codger.  At the minor update after securing the region the UDL moved in to "liberate" it from TSP control.  This action infuriated then MoS Sheepa and myself as well as the greater citizenry.  A poor attempt to contact Government officials in TSP led to a poor call to move against a supposed friends operation.  The UDL again released a statement this time stating that the South Pacific needed to contact them about the mission before running it to ensure they would not interfere.  The thought of a sovereign region asking permission to complete a military operation did not sit well with the Cabinet.  Yet as the only Defender organization that we had remote relations with at the time we looked the other way.
 
Relations were distant but not completely shattered at this point and remained that way till the severing of relations in March of 2013.  UDL Lieutenant Ravania had been caught leaking private information from the North Pacific Army to other ranking officials in the UDL.  The North Pacific remains a close ally of TSP and the Cabinet felt this action was almost as deplorable as the punishment delivered by CotB Unibot.  Ravania was demoted for a period of two weeks in title only.  Unibot stated Ravania conducted the same duties before being promoted in the first place.  Seeing the reaction to a leak in a close ally the Cabinet voted to sever all ties with the UDL at this time.  They would eventually be reopened in December of 2013.
 
With the UDL assistance in the restoring the Coalition Government after the Milograd coup, a successful joint military operation, and a common desire to improve relations, the Cabinet voted to restore Embassies.  Relations would improve slightly before being abruptly closed by the UDL on 4 February 2014 citing a disagreement with comments made by Delegate Escade as the reason.
 
The Wrap-up
The South Pacific at one time was very close to the United Defenders League and had a large crossover in membership.  Relations became strained on multiple occasions but the TSP Cabinet has usually been willing to forgive and forget.  Being an independent region the overall opinion is we should keep some sort of balance in relationships with raider/imperialist regions and defender aligned regions.  This belief has only led to conflict and internal strife among members.  The majority of the current makeup of UDL members seem to carry the UDL first mentality with them when dealing with regions they are citizens in.  I am very happy to be able to say that I have been proven wrong in this regard to one member.  I applaud Glen-Rhodes for his work in TSP and his recent TSP first mentality that has been displayed in his dealings as Minister of Foreign Affairs.  If only more of the UDL membership base would follow in his footsteps the organization would truly be able to become a premiere group again.
 
However, the bottom line here is that the South Pacific is better off not having any relations with this current UDL and moving on to bigger and better things.  I encourage future Cabinets to remember the saying "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.  Don't let this organization fool this great region again.
 

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SPINN is an independent, non-governmental entity. Any views or opinions presented in articles are solely those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views or the endorsement of the Government of the South Pacific. Any concerns or clarifications are to be addressed to the author(s) of the article or the Editor-in-Chief.

[Hileville]

I wanted to also note outside of the piece again that these are my opinions.  For this particular article I did go back and research some of the statements that were made by TSP and the UDL as highly use my own recollection.  In future pieces that I have planned there is a lot more of a research centered theme in them.  I had originally planned on just doing one article with my views on the subject but after writing some of it realized it would be bigger than some of Unibot's essays .

[Sandaoguo]

I look forward to the other parts! It's good to talk about this in a sober manner.

It's important, though, that we not equate defenderism with the UDL. It was the case last year that there were only two major defender organizations that we could viably work with: the UDL and the FRA. For whatever reasons, the FRA has been permanently ruled out, and the FRA tends to require restrictive treaties anyways. So what people have to understand is that there were no other options. Those of us who feared that, if we did not balance with defenders, we would become raider or imperialist in all but name saw the UDL as the best option. Now, however, there are more groups to work with. So we don't have to deal with Unibot and UDL politics to work with defenders anymore. Hopefully that will have a positive impact on TSP.


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[Kris Kringle]

I really enjoyed this Insight and look forward to the next articles! Only one observation: I thought it was Sedgistan instead of Sedgistian?

[Arbiter08]

Thank you for doing this article, I look foward to the next one!

[Ryccia]

So that's what UDL means... Yeah, UDL is a great organization.

[Kris Kringle]

Yeah, UDL is a great organization.

 

Uhm, no not really.

[Ryccia]

But it says United Defenders League! Fine, rewrite, it USED to be a great organization.

[Commonwealth of Callistaire]

You could call it the United Dinosaur Lovers, or the Callistaire is a Sex God Club..... a desirable title does not make an organisation good....


On an unrelated note, I hear by move that we rename TSP "The Callistaire is a Sex God Club"...


Any takers? No? Damn.....

[Ryccia]

?!

[Hileville]

I look forward to the other parts! It's good to talk about this in a sober manner. It's important, though, that we not equate defenderism with the UDL. It was the case last year that there were only two major defender organizations that we could viably work with: the UDL and the FRA. For whatever reasons, the FRA has been permanently ruled out, and the FRA tends to require restrictive treaties anyways. So what people have to understand is that there were no other options. Those of us who feared that, if we did not balance with defenders, we would become raider or imperialist in all but name saw the UDL as the best option. Now, however, there are more groups to work with. So we don't have to deal with Unibot and UDL politics to work with defenders anymore. Hopefully that will have a positive impact on TSP. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm actually covering the FRA bit in the next article and will touch on other things you mention in the last part.