Doctrine on hostility and regional security

[Sandaoguo]

Hey guys. I've been working on this today and I want to get your thoughts and input. I imagine this will sound completely foreign and wrong to some of you, but I think we've gone way too long making terms like "hostility" and "regional security" kitchen-sink terms. I want to give them meaning.

 

----

 

The Assembly has spent the last few months debating the issue of what to do with people who are “hostile” to the Coalition. Throughout the debate, it became clear that a core issue has gone unaddressed in the Coalition's foreign policy doctrine. That issue is: what does it mean to be hostile to the Coalition? This memorandum serves as a defining document for what hostility means in the context of our foreign affairs.

 
Current definition of “hostility”

 

While there is no concise written definition of what counts as “hostility” to the Coalition, there are a common set of characteristics people mention when discussing hostile persons, regions, and organizations. The following actions have at times been considered hostile:

 

- Declaring war against the Coalition

- Declaring war against our allies and strategic partners

- Engaging in espionage against the Coalition, our allies, or our strategic partners

- Engaging in heated arguments and debates, especially when one resorts to name-calling

- Being perceived as advocating for a position on the basis of how it would help foreign groups

- Engaging in (or being perceived to be engaging in) propaganda efforts, no matter how mild or severe

- Blocking or otherwise undermining the military missions of the New Southern Army or its partners

- Advocating against the Independence ideology

- Advocating for the adoption of a concrete position in NationStates military gameplay (e.g. raider, defender, imperialist)

- Harshly criticizing the members or policies of the Cabinet, especially in official documents and statements

- Encouraging members of foreign groups to vote for or against Assembly bills

- Having leadership or vocal members that dislike or hate the Coalition's leadership

- Working against “the interests” of the Coalition

- Participating in a coup d'etat of the Coalition, our allies, or our strategic partners

- Not recognizing the legitimacy of forum-based regional governance

- Being generally unpleasant to deal with

 

The list is by any means not exhaustive. Accusations and declarations of hostility have been guided by little in the way of a real doctrine. Instead, as the list above shows, hostility as a characteristic is a beast of many natures: military, political, personal. The myriad ways in which an individual or group can be labeled hostile proves that hostility has little to no meaning. There are legitimate entries on that list, but there are also activities that are not at all hostile, even though they might be annoying or harmful to diplomatic and political relations.

 

 

 
A new doctrine for hostility

 
Defining hostility

 

Going forward, the Cabinet of the Coalition will use this document when considering the label of any individual or group as hostile.

 

The basic definition of hostility is:

 

<p style="margin-left:40px;">Behavior that severely and directly threatens the territorial integrity and information security of the Coalition of The South Pacific, including the region itself and its forums.

 

To better understand the implications of this definition, consider the following breakdown of its meaning.

 

<p style="margin-left:40px;">“Severely and directly threatens”

One common mistake made when discussing hostility is the assumption that all actions are of equal hostile status. This is how a individual can go from flaming on the forums during an argument, to being labeled hostile to the Coalition. When considering if an individual or group is hostile, we must analyze their behavior in the context of not only its severity, but how it actually threatens the core security of the region. This helps prevent mistaking politics and personality for true hostility.

 

Additionally, we must consider if the severe behavior directly threatens our security. That means, for example, one group causing tensions between the Coalition and another one of our allies – causing the potential for the Coalition to lose an important security partner – does not mean the group is hostile. That is a political problem for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to handle, not a severe and direct security threat. Voting fraud is a very serious problem, but it is a criminal matter for the Assembly to deal with, and it will carry serious diplomatic repercussions if coordinated by foreign groups, but it is not a threat to the core of our regional security.

 

“Territorial integrity”

This term is borrowed from ideas of real-world national security. In the real world, one of the defining features of a state is that it has territory, and the most basic goal of a state is to maintain the integrity of that territory against foreign threats. This translates well into NationStates. The “territory” of the Coalition is the region itself within NationStates. To defend the integrity of the region, we must ensure that foreign forces and domestic rogues do not usurp control of the Delegate seat.

 

“Information security”

This term encompasses all secure communications and information produced and perused by the Coalition. Some common examples of those are: Cabinet discussions, military mission plans, Committee on State Security communications, secure IRC discussions, forum passwords, and IRC channel passwords. Maintaining information security is mostly concerned with preventing espionage, hacking, and leaking of secure communications and information.

 

To some, this may seem to leave a lot out. Certainly, it does. Redefining hostility this way ensures that the label has meaning and is not used a political bludgeon against undesirable elements in the region. However, it is important to realize that this document does not seek to define regional security in general nor how to deal with other regional security matters.

 

The limited definition of hostility does not prevent the Cabinet from issuing persona non grata status to spies found working against our allies, or condemning the violation of the sovereignty of other regions. Nor does this doctrine prevent the Assembly from declaring war on regions perceived to by hostile for reasons not within this definition. The limited definition is for the purposes of domestic policy, should the Cabinet ever be requested to review the hostile status of any individual or group.

 

However, it is the hope of myself and the Cabinet that the main thrust of this doctrine will have a normative impact on those who are all too eager to throw around accusations of hostility. We must take politics and personality out of the equation. Hostility against the Coalition is a serious security matter, and we are all done a disservice when the label is used inappropriately.

[Southern Bellz]

I don't really think we should be defining words.  I do not think the word hostile needs to be strictly defined anyways.

 

If you get into micromanaging this level of detail when legislating, it limits the ability to govern of the elected officials and in this case the assembly.  We have thrown out charters because they become so bloated, that restricted the ability of the elected to govern.

 

At some point we have to trust that the region as a whole will have a reasonable definition of hostile.  Some have a higher threshold, and some have a lower, but I think we are (as a whole) all smart enough to tell when we a legitimately threatened by something.  Without this kind of trust (and at times it can be hard) democracy is useless, because if we can't trust the region to look out for itself, who can we trust?

[Ryccia]

Hmm... I find some of these acts of what you refer to hostile as I refer to priving the people's liberty on speech(like the one with the propaganda thing. If the propaganda is too violent, is better to crush it and advocating the independence ideology. People express theirselves however they want. But if it gets violent, crush those words to the trash can).

[Sandaoguo]

I don't really think we should be defining words. I do not think the word hostile needs to be strictly defined anyways.


If you get into micromanaging this level of detail when legislating, it limits the ability to govern of the elected officials and in this case the assembly. We have thrown out charters because they become so bloated, that restricted the ability of the elected to govern.


At some point we have to trust that the region as a whole will have a reasonable definition of hostile. Some have a higher threshold, and some have a lower, but I think we are (as a whole) all smart enough to tell when we a legitimately threatened by something. Without this kind of trust (and at times it can be hard) democracy is useless, because if we can't trust the region to look out for itself, who can we trust?

I think you have a rosy picture of the region, SB. We know Belschaft was planning on introducing a measure declaring the UDL hostile, purely based on his personal dislike of Unibot, using the UDL diplomatic tantrum as cover. I am not so convinced the region would have blocked his measure, especially if the law had been in place prior to the UDL issuing their statement about us. We all know that people act more emotionally than they do rationally. In the heat of the moment, all people care about is how annoying somebody is or how they've insulted us, and nobody cares one way or the other if the target is an actual threat, so long as the motion will mean that person isn't causing problems anymore.


However, Assembly judgement isn't the main issue here. This isn't a policy for the Assembly. This is a suggested policy for the Cabinet to follow when asked to determine if an individual or group is hostile. I'm requesting that we actually make a decision right now about what we consider hostile, rather than judging individuals and groups on an ad hoc (and likely inconsistent) basis. This isn't defining the meaning of some irrelevant term. The meaning of hostility will have serious long term impacts for this region. It will determine when we drive players and entire groups out of the region. It will dictate huge aspects of our foreign affairs. It will influence the culture of our democracy.


This is a serious issue. We need to sit down and address it.



Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Escade]

GR, I think for this particular cabinet and for posterity, I appreciate you writing up this document.  I think highlighting the misuse of hostility is a great way to turn it around and say what should be the modus operandi for a productive government. 


I will reread your particular definitions, I think we are in agreement about not misusing terms.