Consulate Policy

[Geomania]

 

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relations with small UCR's are not of any practical benefit to us

 

I must vehemently oppose this point of view. Small regions may still add to the discourse. The size of their regions does not affect the content of their discussion. I also believe that smaller regions may provide a point of view that is different from ours and could add to our knowledge of NS. Also, a small region may still have resources to provide. A WA nation can be a precious commodity, so even if a region only has about a handful of WA nations to provide in the event of an attack, that is still a valuable contribution.

 

I totally understand the logic of wanting to be selective in who we swap embassies with. I just don't think it makes sense to make size the only determining factor.

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[Geomania]

 

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.

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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.

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The embassy exchange is undoubtedly tiresome, but there is value there. Regions do not swap embassies because they are masochists; they swap embassies because it allows them to create a rapport with other regions. It is nice to have an existing channel of dialogue in the event that we (God forbid) require assistance or if we have to solicit the region for any reason.

[Sandaoguo]

I think, Geomania, this is an area where theory sounds way better than the reality.

@Cormac: Embassy and consulate policy should be set by the MOFA in consultation with the Cabinet. It would be a mistake for the Assembly to start usurping the minutiae of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


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[Belschaft]

I agree with Glen on this one. The Assembly has the power and right to direct foreign policy in broad terms - approving/declining treaties, declaring war, passing a bill mandating a certain course of action (ie: a motion requiring the removal of diplomatic recognition),  etc - but should not interfere in the practical management of it. Setting Embassy requirements is clearly a job for the Cabinet/MoFA.

[Lord Ravenclaw]

I'd agree with the above - resolutions that set a policy which is normally left to the discretion of the Minister would both infringe on his role and just cause problems between the executive and the assembly.

 

You cannot micro-manage every aspect of this region unless you want to abolish the executive entirely and just have a full representative system with everything assembly led.

[Penguin]

I think that opening our region for embassies with small regions for all kinds is a grand idea. We always preach about open policy yet we are going to reject regions because "they hold no value for us". Well how the biscuits do we know if they have value if we don't give them a chance? While I agree that this doesn't need to go to the Assembly, I do think that our MoFA needs to be more open minded and less of a snob so to speak. (No offense but sometimes you come off that way.)


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[Escade]

I agree that it would be great to accept more embassies but lessen the burden of having to check and update each one on the MoFA and deputies.  We don't need to have updates for each region we have an embassy with and could have a central location on our forums where we post updates instead. 


We can separate the embassies that are political and the ones that are more social or friendship based.  It is nice to give small, burgeoning regions a boost. This debate has gotten some attention as a few small regions contacted me about embassies recently and unless they are Nazi's or otherwise hate-themed I feel like accepting their requests if the cabinet agrees. 

[Cormac]

I agree with Escade.

 

I also don't agree with the above arguments that the Assembly shouldn't involve itself in setting these kinds of policy. That may generally be true, but not when the Assembly is clearly in favor of a certain direction and the Minister of Foreign Affairs is obstinately opposed to it.

[Belschaft]

Then vote for a new MoFA next time. If you don't like Glen's policies don't vote for him, don't set out to nuter the Ministry.

[Southern Bellz]

The don't like it than dont for it argument is really, really dumb. Especially considering he was narrowly elected, and how is he supposed to know how people feel if they don't speak up.


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[Sandaoguo]

Look, the bottom line is that any policy needs to ensure that we aren't giving away consulates like candy. If there's a way to make the requirements flexible for military regions, I'm all ears. The only idea I have is to have them give us their military size with a way to verify it, which isn't a perfect idea.

What I won't do is allow the forum embassy practice to become even more of an exercise in pointlessness.


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[Cormac]

You could simply increase the overall population threshold and exclude puppet storage regions, including those not using the tag. It's usually fairly easy to determine when a region is flooded with puppets, and I don't think anyone is going to go to all the trouble of staggered log-ins and fake RMB posts that would be necessary to make a puppet dump appear not to be a puppet dump for the purpose of establishing an embassy.

 

Alternatively, we could just eliminate the criteria altogether and the MoFA could make decisions on a case by case basis, with the ability of the full Cabinet to override. Ideally, the Cabinet would discuss embassy requests and reach a decision together and the MoFA could either accept or deny a request, with denials accompanied by reasons for denial. I honestly think this is the method I prefer.

[Penguin]

GR. I understand your point to a point however i think that both Escade and Cormac have great ideas and as MoFA, isn't it Your job to be out there trying to build relationships with other regions to both help us And them? If all you care about is getting them to help with the NSA missions, why don't you run for MoA next time? There is more to foreign policy then military aid.

[Kris Kringle]

I'm with Glen here. I don't see the benefit in having consulates with several small regions just for the sake of it, in no small part because it's just not manageable for the Minister of Foreign Affairs. I'm more than open to have the MoFA make exceptions on a case by case basis, but the norm should be to require a certain size and stability before having diplomatic relations with us, because we are not in the business of having more consulates, we are in the business of creating meaningful relationships. That means strengthening our current ones and building new ones where we can see there is potential. That doesn't mean let's not talk to these small regions, otherwise how would we assess potential, but I don't see the usefulness of a consulate, when experience tells us they will be left unused, and mostly unread. In the specific case of military-focused regions, that should fall under the "case by case" situation. I don't see why we should change our standards for consulates.

[Sandaoguo]

GR. I understand your point to a point however i think that both Escade and Cormac have great ideas and as MoFA, isn't it Your job to be out there trying to build relationships with other regions to both help us And them? If all you care about is getting them to help with the NSA missions, why don't you run for MoA next time? There is more to foreign policy then military aid.

 

The idea I proposed of asking them for their military size is in response to Cormac's complaint that the current policy does not accommodate small-to-medium sized military regions. It is not being proposed simply because I only care about how much they can help the NSA. That's not my concern at all. My concern is how the region stands to benefit, versus the costs of operating a larger ambassador corps and turning the MoFA position from a foreign policy position to an administrative position. Expanding the number of consulates means adding more menial labor to the MoFA's job responsibilities, because it's impossible to keep a decently staffed ambassador corps.

 

So the right balance must be struck. The responsible position for me to have is acknowledging that consulates and embassies should primarily serve to benefit TSP, and then making the calculation that some regions aren't worth the added workload. In that calculation, how many people the region can supply to us in times of emergency is a factor. But my first instinct is to question how important the region is in the grand scheme of NS Gameplay politics, as my job is primarily dealing with that political playground.

 

Regarding Cormac's idea to increase the general population threshold, I'm skeptical that it is a good idea. Using the number of WA members in the region is a decent, albeit highly imperfect, proxy for valuing the region's worth. It is a quick measure of how many unique nations are in the region, but also of regional power in general -- in the WA, in military gameplay, and in the minds of the NS Gameplay community (which highly values large WA populations). General population is not a perfect replacement. It doesn't necessarily give us all the same information. A region of solely 20 WA members is worth more to TSP (for a variety of reasons) than a region of 100 members, only 10 of whom are in the WA.

 

Removing the guidelines altogether is an attractive option, and not only because it gives me more power during this temporary period of being the Cabinet. ( ) However, I don't think that's a very good idea. I'd be worried that those applying for a consulate would be confused about the requirements, and we'd constantly have to explain what the average successful consulate application looks like. (In which case, why not just have the average application be the set of requirements?) But more importantly, making it an entirely subjective practice would mean making it an entirely politicized practice. Even if a MoFA isn't acting politically, their decisions would be brought to question anyways, especially when it comes to hot-button issues. (What would happen if I coincidentally deny 5 imperialist regions in a row, and then accept a defender region?) I don't want to deal with that, and I don't want to make the next MoFA deal with that either.

 

Right now, I am still leaning heavily on modifying the policy to allow military regions to provide a military size, and to do so in the best way that can be verified, such as a mission log, or even a roster if they want to give that information out.

[Cormac]

I would be fine with that if that's the best we can do, as I think it's important that we not exclude active regions that are militarily inclined from relations.

[Southern Bellz]

Is there a better indicator of size?


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[Belschaft]

Not really. WA nations is the best one I've ever been able to come up with.