I feel like our discussion in the
Citizen-Delegate Debate has veered off into a digression on regional foreign policy.
As citizen-delegate, what would be your official opinion with regards to FRA membership? After all, most regions are drawn into the FRA-UIAF conflict whether they like it or not.
This is a question I will have to research as I know almost nothing about either organization. In fact, I could only tell you what one of the two acronyms stands for. My greatest weakness as Citizen-Delegate is my lack of GP knowledge/experience. I may have been in Taijitu for years but that’s one part of NS I never really got into.
The FRA is the Founderless Regions Alliance, founded shortly before Taijitu as an alliance of then-founderless North Pacific (not to be confused with The North Pacific), Jethnea, and Global Right Alliance. It morphed over time from an alliance for defense of member regions, many of which might be founderless, into a defender organization. Today, founderless regions (besides Game-created ones) are generally discouraged from joining FRA as I understand matters. The FRA Rangers, Rejected Realms Army, Lazarene Liberation Army, and Global Right Alliance Defence Force are among the defender armies affiliated with the FRA.
The UIAF is the United Imperial Armed Forces of The Land of Kings and Emperors, The New Inquisition and Albion: they have a treaty of mutual cooperation with The Black Riders, but do not consider themselves to be raiders: instead they see themselves as imperialist. They have a long standing feud with the FRA, and more recently with the UDL as well. In February 2012 The New Inquisition copied our old maneuver by, after invading belgium and gathering assorted raiderish friends to support them there, ejecting the entire pile of invaders and seizing the Rejected Realms' delegacy for 12 hours. (In this they had the support of the LKE, but neither the UIAF as a formal entity nor Albion as a region existed yet). More recently UIAF figures have expressed hostility to the government of Lazarus, which they view as illegitimate following the expulsion of NES and Griffin (TNI's founder) from Lazarus. Europeia is allied with the regions in question, but is not part of the UIAF, perhaps because it does not consider itself Imperialist.
In the recent operation in Anne Frank, we had both the FRA and the ERN and UIAF working with us, the NPA and EPSA effectively serving as glue between the two sides. The mutual suspicion between the UIAF and many defenders made this somewhat challenging to organize.
The FRA summary is pretty good - one part to change is that founderless regions aren't discouraged from applying, but there just aren't very many founderless candidates for membership.
In addition to hating the FRA and UDL, UIAF doesn't get along with TITO either - which covers the vast majority of defender forces in the game.
And on the last note - plenty of defenders would like to see more ERN/UIAF defending activity. They just choose not to do so.
I should note that in posted justifications of the aforementioned invasion of belgium and a more recent invasion of Canada, TNI/LKE/UIAF has made clear that they see alliance with defenders in general or even friendship with them as reasonable grounds for an incursion on their part.
(By incursion I meant invasion)
I'll try and explain what I see going on around us, where people see us, and where we might like to be.
First, for some overview. This afternoon I made a couple of charts of relations and treaties in NationStates relevant to us. In these charts, ovals are regions or organizations and rectangles are multiregional treaty organizations. In these charts also, bold lines are membership of a multiregional organization, solid lines are bilateral alliances, dashed lines are embassies (on an offsite forum), and dotted lines are other forms of diplomatic relations such as onsite embassies and consulates (also on an offsite).
First, and most helpful, is this chart of treaties, in which those regions which have relations with us and those they have alliances with are included in the graph (as are any alliances I could find between regions on the graph).
(I strongly suggest examining this chart in its own tab as the SVG file will then let you click the nodes to get region pages and will give you tooltips over the lines identifying what regions / organizations they are between.)
A second chart which has a bit too much information in it is also available:
(This chart includes all the relations of our diplomatic partners).
What do these pictures illustrate? The incomplete but notable division of the section of Gameplay we're connected to into defenderish and imperialist/raider alignments. TNP and Osiris connect us, indirectly, to the imperialist diplomatic sphere. The East Pacific and the South Pacific sit in between, with us, and are connected to two separate defender alliances through the Rejected Realms and Lazarus. Of course, the UDL is also in there, as is the somewhat peculiar alignment of the NPO (the Pacific) today. I say peculiar because the NPO used to be aligned with Europeia and The New Inquisition: they seem to have changed their mind about TNI after TNI's invasion of the Rejected Realms a little while back.
Of these regions, we have in the past had dealings with a good few. We used to have diplomatic relations with most of the older regions in these charts. We were once allied with The Pacific, and with TNP and TSP as well through the "Azure Alliance" of 2008-2010.
I should note also declared states of war. For a very long time, The New Inquisition and The Land of Kings and Emperors have been in a declared state of war with the Founderless Regions Alliance. More recently, they both declared war on the United Defenders League. Earlier this year Osiris declared war against Lazarus, but later made peace. Then-Pharaoh Cormac has since (after ending his term and leaving Osiris) acknowledged the war was a mistake, explaining that the intention was to unite Osirans against an external enemy and to give them something to work toward. With no
directly declared state of war, relations between Lazarus and UIAF members are nevertheless tense. (Two of three UIAF members are in a state of war with the FRA, that Lazarus is a member of, to be clear.)
As discussed in the Citizen-Delegate debate, there are some notable organizations to point to. I will explain them below.
The FRA is the Founderless Regions Alliance, founded shortly before Taijitu as an alliance of then-founderless North Pacific (not to be confused with The North Pacific), Jethnea, and Global Right Alliance. It morphed over time from an alliance for defense of member regions, many of which might be founderless, into a defender organization. Today, founderless regions (besides Game-created ones) generally consider joining FRA to be risky due to many invaders, particularly the
UIAF deliberately targeting FRA members for attack. The FRA Rangers, Rejected Realms Army, Lazarene Liberation Army, and Global Right Alliance Defence Force are among the defender armies affiliated with the FRA.
The XYZ Treaty is "kind of like a wider version of the FRA without a formal institition" -- it is a multiparty treaty, but there is no organization established by it. It includes the expectation that its signatories will be defender, and promises mutual defense. It's the most recent interregional "organization" to be shown on this chart, and I don't know all that much about it.
The UIAF is the United Imperial Armed Forces of The Land of Kings and Emperors, The New Inquisition and Albion: they have a treaty of mutual cooperation with The Black Riders, but do not consider themselves to be raiders: instead they see themselves as imperialist. They have a long standing feud with the FRA, and more recently with the UDL as well. In February 2012 The New Inquisition copied our old maneuver by, after invading belgium and gathering assorted raiderish friends to support them there, ejecting the entire pile of invaders and seizing the Rejected Realms' delegacy for 12 hours. (In this they had the support of the LKE, but neither the UIAF as a formal entity nor Albion as a region existed yet). More recently UIAF figures have expressed hostility to the government of Lazarus, which they view as illegitimate following the expulsion of NES and Griffin (TNI's founder) from Lazarus. Europeia is allied with the regions in question, but is not part of the UIAF, perhaps because it does not consider itself Imperialist.
There are a few terms often used in Gameplay foreign relations:
Defender is pretty straightforward, and is generally defined as military support for native rights and/or regional sovereignty.
Raider is defined as groups that invade "for fun" (with no foreign-affairs purpose in mind). Raiders typically do have the 'foreign policy' of
Raider Unity which consists of not attacking fellow raiders, supporting other raiders' raids, opposing Defenders, and not defending non-invaders.
Imperialist regions invade but claim not to be part of
R/D, instead saying their invasions are part of their foreign policy. They will still invade regions that they have no foreign policy reason to, or no significant cause.
Independent regions are defined by acting based on "regional interests". An attempt has been made at a recent Independent Conference where
TNP had a prominent role of defining this more precisely in a
Manifesto. The South Pacific used to define its military as Independent, but no longer does so.
For the sake of transparency, I should acknowledge that I myself am an active defender. I am an officer in the United Defenders League, as well as the North Pacific Army, separate from my work in the Taijitu Citizens' Militia. I am also a citizen in the South Pacific, and am serving as a Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs (for "upperleftward" relations, in terms of my chart).
This post will see further edits from me, both in response to replies and as I find time to add more to it.
