Consulate Policy

[Cormac]

I couldn't decide if this was a "sensitive matter" or not, so if the Chair feels that it is, please feel free to move it you-know-where. 

 

I would like to encourage the Cabinet or, absent Cabinet action, the Assembly, to reconsider the current policy on consulates -- specifically the requirement that a region must have a WA Delegate with 15 or more endorsements. I believe this limits potential for The South Pacific to engage with regions of raider, defender, imperialist, and even independent alignments that have active military forces that may be deployed elsewhere, and I don't see any particularly good reason this criterion has been established. If it's to measure the region's size or activity, there are far better ways to measure that.

 

It doesn't make sense to me that we would turn down the opportunity for relations with regions that might be able to work more closely with the NSA, or with which we might be able to develop closer relations for security purposes. In times of crisis, The South Pacific is going to need to turn to regions with active military forces, not regions that have a surplus of stationary WAs. Of course, there's nothing wrong with regions that aren't militarily focused and have a large number of stationary WAs, but I don't see why we should be limited to relations with those regions.

 

If there is a compelling reason for this that can be articulated by the Cabinet, I'm open to changing my mind.

 

Full Disclosure: I was going to apply for a consulate on behalf of The Brotherhood of Malice, which is what led me to first notice this requirement. I decided to ignore it rather than raising it as an issue because I felt that would be a conflict of interest. Having now seen the policy in action, requiring the denial of a consulate to Global Right Alliance, a founding region of the FRA, I now feel comfortable raising this as an issue without any conflict as it is impacting a region to which I'm unconnected and is of an opposite military alignment.

[Hileville]

I also support a change in the policy.

[Geomania]

It appears to me that this requirement for activity is not consistently applied. I represent TSP in Kennan, and that region's delegate only has three endorsements. I don't believe it's necessarily a bad thing that we swapped embassies with Kennan, but if we have a consulate with Kennan, we should have consulates with other similarly sized regions as well.

[HEM]

I think the consulate policy should just a collective decision of the Cabinet, not a hard policy like our present one.

 

So I also support a change.

[Cormac]

It appears to me that this requirement for activity is not consistently applied. I represent TSP in Kennan, and that region's delegate only has three endorsements. I don't believe it's necessarily a bad thing that we swapped embassies with Kennan, but if we have a consulate with Kennan, we should have consulates with other similarly sized regions as well.

 

My guess, though I'm not sure, is that Kennan established relations before this policy was created, as it's my understanding this wasn't always Cabinet policy. The policy does predate Escade's administration though.

[Arbiter08]

I support this as well.

[Unibot]

Makes sense. I believe Dharma also got a strange exception.

[Sandaoguo]

The only reason why we have the policy is so that we have an objective measure of importance. We don't want nor need consulates with everybody who applies. So any change in that policy must have an accompanying objective limit.


Regarding the "strange exceptions" to the rule, consulates that lapsed the requirements were suggested for removal to the Cabinet at the beginning of my term. It was actually the first thing I did as MOFA.


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[Hileville]

In all honesty thorough I think it makes us look stuck up. We really don't need such strong limitations. If smaller regions are going to keep an active Consulate we should be considering it. If they don't we drop the Consulate for inactivity.

[Sandaoguo]

Are you going to take up the responsibility of monitoring all the consulates? What's an "active" consulate? Is one update a month really that important?

I don't think we should be giving out embassies and consulates like free pizza at a college club. Some regions are just not important. Why should we be hosting a subforum for them, where they post something once a month that nobody ever reads?


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[Hileville]

Are you going to take up the responsibility of monitoring all the consulates? What's an "active" consulate? Is one update a month really that important? I don't think we should be giving out embassies and consulates like free pizza at a college club. Some regions are just not important. Why should we be hosting a subforum for them, where they post something once a month that nobody ever reads? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That would be your job.  You cannot even begin to tell me that checking to see that posts have been made in a Consulate is actually that hard of a job.  I and a few others read the updates from other regions.  Knowing that our MoFA apparently doesn't makes me feel real good about it.  I'm not saying you have to accept every region that applies for a consulate.  That is and would be stupid.  The MoFA used to be able to use their discretion when accepting/denying embassies.  It gave regions like Kennan who usually are pretty regular posters a chance to meet and communicate with us.  They even helped during the coup and sent WA's our way.

[Geomania]

I think the size of a particular region should be a consideration when they apply for a consulate, but it shouldn't automatically disqualify the region. Such a broad restriction would harm us diplomatically, I believe. Adding smaller regions to our consulate pool adds diversity and new perspectives.

[Cormac]

I think Glen has a point, but I think the point Hileville and Geomania are getting at is that we should be looking at regions in their totality to decide whether they're large and active enough to have a consulate.

 

Glen, you note that "some regions are just not important." I actually agree with you, every region is going to want a consulate with a Feeder but we can't just give them to every region that applies. Unfortunately, this isn't a true measure of importance. As I've pointed out, and you haven't addressed, regions that are active in R/D may not have Delegates or may not have this number of endorsements on their Delegates, but they may well be important. They could contribute to NSA operations and they could assist us during times of crisis. Conversely, a region with a huge number of stationary WAs but that is otherwise inactive, not forum-inclined, and not posting very often in their consulate or interacting with us in any meaningful way is not very important but would technically meet these criteria.

 

If there is a serious concern about maintaining consulate subforums, we could adopt a system some have adopted in which those who meet these criteria get an embassy subforum and those who don't can post a consulate thread. But it seems silly to exclude active regions that could become important connections for us from any diplomatic relations whatsoever because they aren't meeting what appears to be an arbitrary criterion that doesn't even effectively measure what we want it to measure.

[Sandaoguo]

 

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Are you going to take up the responsibility of monitoring all the consulates? What's an "active" consulate? Is one update a month really that important? I don't think we should be giving out embassies and consulates like free pizza at a college club. Some regions are just not important. Why should we be hosting a subforum for them, where they post something once a month that nobody ever reads? Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That would be your job.  You cannot even begin to tell me that checking to see that posts have been made in a Consulate is actually that hard of a job.  I and a few others read the updates from other regions.  Knowing that our MoFA apparently doesn't makes me feel real good about it.  I'm not saying you have to accept every region that applies for a consulate.  That is and would be stupid.  The MoFA used to be able to use their discretion when accepting/denying embassies.  It gave regions like Kennan who usually are pretty regular posters a chance to meet and communicate with us.  They even helped during the coup and sent WA's our way.

 

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Oh, come on Hileville. Don't pretend like I'm not right. Past MoFAs (including you!) failed to remove consulates for regions that had long lapsed their requirements. That's not because you guys were nice and wanted to give these regions a chance. You never even brought them up. It's because nobody cares enough to be bothered. Going through all the consulates we have right now and making sure they still meet the requirements is a chore. I should know, I did it my first few days in the office and never want to do it again. I'm not even sure when a MoFA before me ever did a review. So, yeah, if you want to change the policy to allow even more consulates in, requiring more monitoring, then I'm going to ask admins to take over the tedium of that administrative duty. If you don't want to do it, what makes you think I do?

 

The cold political truth is that consulates by definition are not important. That was the entire point in separating embassies and consulates. Not every region is important to TSP. For every embassy and consulate we have, that's one more ambassador we need to recruit, and likely one more ambassador we won't be able to recruit... which, of course, means my job becomes more tedious as I have to go to the forums of all these regions to post an update nobody cares about.

 

My position on this has been the same since I was first elected Chair of the Assembly and had a chance to comment:

 

Embassies should have a purpose beyond being a venue to post largely irrelevant regional updates. The primary purpose for an embassy is to serve as a communication line between us and our allies. That implies that the regions to which we grant embassies have strategic importance to TSP.

 

I personally find the whole forum embassy thing an exercise in uselessness. We could post our regional update on the Gameplay forum, and we are able to get in contact with the regions that are actually important to us by faster means than deeply nested sub-forums. (I can't even think of a time when embassies were used to conduct actual diplomacy.) It's only because everybody does it that I've not suggested doing away with the concept altogether. The next best thing is to limit our embassies, not grant them to regions just because they'll post once a month and like the status symbol (not that a GCR embassy is even worth much, since most GCRs really do just give them away). If we're going to have these, they should mean something.

 
So I'm generally opposed to lowering the requirements for consulates. The question shouldn't be, "Why not?" The question we should be asking is, "Why should we have a consulate with this region?" That would not only stop the charade that regions like The CommonWealth of Crowns actually mean anything to us, but it would makes consulates actually meaningful with those regions we do give them to.

 

Maybe that makes me heartless or conceited, but I think that's a reasonable policy.

 

 

Glen, you note that "some regions are just not important." I actually agree with you, every region is going to want a consulate with a Feeder but we can't just give them to every region that applies. Unfortunately, this isn't a true measure of importance. As I've pointed out, and you haven't addressed, regions that are active in R/D may not have Delegates or may not have this number of endorsements on their Delegates, but they may well be important.

 

If you can come up with a different measure, please post it. WA endorsements are a flawed measure, but they're better than anything else we've come up with so far. It was originally going to be raw population, but that could obviously be puffed up with puppets. For R/D regions, we could use military size, if we could have some way to verify it. But then we'd still have to create an arbitrary number for that. Unless, of course, you want to place the decision entirely in the hands of the minister.

[Lord Ravenclaw]

I think that we need to limit consulates and embassies to regions who can recant the South Pacifican regional anthem whilst tapdancing on hot coals draped in our flag. And if they will not do as we command, we will make them.

 

That TWP Crimson Rum is amazing. I'll have some more.

[Unibot]

The CommonWealth of Crowns

Commonwealth of Crowns is not a good example, it has a functional political monarchical community and I know I've been invited to speak to their legislature a few times. They seem like an active, smaller UCR with a developed government and sophisticated roleplay world.

[Sandaoguo]

[quote name="Unibot" post="119144" timestamp="1394091634"]Commonwealth of Crowns is not a good example, it has a functional political monarchical community and I know I've been invited to speak to their legislature a few times. They seem like an active, smaller UCR with a developed government and sophisticated roleplay world.[/quote]

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of active regions out there. That doesn't make them strategically important to our region. This particular region's consulate was slated for removal in January due to inactivity.


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[Belschaft]

Having an embassy or consulate with TSP is a privilege, not a right, and one that should be reserved for those regions with meaningful relationships with us. The 15 endorsements guideline was created due to the simple fact that relations with small UCR's are not of any practical benefit to us, and it gives a general idea of what kind of size has to be maintained before we are interested in regions as potential diplomatic partners - if they can't attain 15 active real members (using WA membership as the rough count of a regions real membership) then they are, to put it simply, not in our league. Foreign military activity is a special circumstance that I'm sure Glen is considering when reviewing applications, but broadly speaking the 15 endorsements guideline makes sense, which is why Kris and I settled on it.

[Sandaoguo]

If we can verify the size a region's forces, I can alter the policy to allow flexibility. Would that address your concern, Cormac?


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[Rebel-topia]

I dont think regions are going to disclose the exact number of their forces... And some version of the policy had been around since before I was MoFA 2 years ago. It was 20 endos then if I recall correctly. There were other, less relevant requirements, too...

[Belschaft]

The precise requirements have varied over time. Me and Kris changed them to having a forum, a government, and 15-20 endorsements on their Delegate last year.

[Escade]

I do think a better system for updates, a sort of central location would be ideal but I'm not sure how to make that work. If regions had the "Factbook" feature the way nations do then they could be used as a central location and for purposes of recording history and other important information.

 

I am open to having lots of embassies with regions (since from my pov this is a connection that could lead to other things such as cultural events or them deciding to join us) and maybe changing the requirements for checking activity to a rotation of every six months or so.

 

 However, we can also operate on a case by case basis for those regions that contact us themselves and would like to establish a relationship. Many regions just send the request for an embassy but never actually make an attempt to TG or state why we should give them one. If a region makes an attempt to tell us why it would be mutually beneficial or of interest then they're already ahead.

[Punk D]

Well, I am going to be requested a consulate soon for my alliance, LRI. It has a region, but is an alliance.

 

We're up to 25+ nations but I wasn't planning on requesting until 50 as I thought that was a standard requirement for such things. Looks like each region is different.

 

15 endos seems high but I have to agree with GR in that embassies are fairly useless.

 

I have no idea how the idea caught on and stayed on as long as it has. But, is what it is. 

[Southern Bellz]

I think we should encourage relations with as many regions as we can. I do not think this policy aids in this.


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[Cormac]

Is the Cabinet going to change the policy or should I draft an Assembly policy resolution?