The Minister felt that PfS shouldn't support a declaration like that in the Security Council, because it would cause issues with regions like TNP and we should be "strategically" courting independent/non-aligned regions. Not wanting to "deal with" TNP's reaction was given as a specific reason for why the PfS shouldn't try to push an anti-quorum raiding stance in the SC.

This is an inaccurate characterization of my comments in the server.

My position is consistently that we are opposed to quorum raiding but that we should avoid the debate happening because it was, in my personal (not regional) opinion counterproductive to the interests of defending. However, my position was also clear that PfS should oppose quorum raiding if the issue was forced. I want it made abundantly clear that I abhor the practice of quorum raiding and believe we should denounce it and should not change our perspective to appease TNP or any other region. Anyone who reviewed my comments in #legislators-lounge when Roavin announced the agreement by TSP should be very aware of my beliefs on this. My argument was simply about the time, place, and manner of picking our fights.

The channel in which this occurred was not a place to set positions, rather it was a channel for advice on proposal drafting. An author asked for feedback. A valid form of feedback for me, as an individual, to offer to another author is certainly "I would rather not have this debate right now". These comments were made as an individual and not on behalf of TSP. In order to make this abundantly clear, I will give direct quotes of multiple times that I clarified my comments do not represent a perspective on the position of the PfS.

In the opening sentence of what I wrote:

Debate is not always a good thing. It can be, and I am certainly not saying (as glen suggests) that we just "back down to TNP" (If this were proposed, I would like to see defenders take a stand, but I would rather we not force the issue).

In my response to Glen's first round of criticism:

Also, I'm not speaking as the PfS, I'm speaking as me based on how I interpret the strategic landscape
[10:31 AM]
And I'm speaking to another author, also acting in their private capacity as an individual

At the end of another posting which did discuss PfS, I added to it by explicitly saying:

Further, I am using PfS' server to house a discussion with another author which is distinct from stating PfS' preferred position. I did not say "PfS should not support this", I am saying "I would prefer this was not brought up in the first place". Jedinsto is free to accept or decline my opinion.

The fact that you have taken my comments out of context and attempted to argue I was speaking for TSP, or advocating for PfS action, is frankly frustrating to me when it was clarified in the course of the conversation multiple times that I was not doing this.

With this said, I do acknowledge there was potential confusion about my perspective on the outlook of our relationship with TNP and its prospects. I also acknowledge such confusion may have caused issues, and I apologize for this and take responsibility for it.

Finally, this led to a productive conversation among the externally-oriented Ministers of the Cabinet about the nature of our cooperation with TNP. Information about this will be forthcoming from the MoFA.

HS

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

Reply

The Cabinet intends to honor the agreement that our predecessors made with TNP and work with them and other Independent regions so long as our interests align. However, it remains the position of the Cabinet that we are firmly opposed to quorum raiding. Furthermore, we do not have any misgivings about what could happen to the alliance in the event that TNP elects a delegate who pursues an antagonistic agenda that results in any deviation from the agreement on quorum raiding. Any such deviation will be met with a swift and condemnatory response from the Cabinet, and renegotiating the agreement will be off the table in any discussion with TNP if they violate the agreement.

4× Cabinet minister /// 1× OWL director /// CRS member /// SPSF

My History

(This post was last modified: 06-26-2021, 04:46 AM by Jay Coop.)

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This is an inaccurate characterization of my comments in the server.

It was the Prime Minister that said they didn't want to "deal with" any TNP blowback to an SC vote opposing quorum raiding. It was you, however, that did explicitly explain that your concern was that such a vote wouldn't be strategically wise because you want to court Independent/non-aligned regions, like TNP, and doing something to anger them would imperil that strategy. In your own words, a primary concern with supporting a resolution like that is it "pisses off TNP, a key diplomatic partner."

That's a logic that I've seen play out far too often in the past with our FA strategy. Whether you like it described this way or not, your ideas about strategy do place the demands of non-defender regions to the forefront. The reality is, the consideration you're wanting to give these regions, like TNP, will never be paid back in kind. It never has. Quorum raiding will be a topic of debate in the SC, and there's no reason to believe that a pro-quorum raiding declaration won't garner the support of the very regions you believe we should be courting by avoiding the topic altogether. This type of strategy has always left TSP on the losing end. I get that your desire is to have as many updaters as possible, and you see non-defender regions as key to that. But at the end of the day, that kind of desire is what easily drives our FA strategy to put their interests above our own because our interests are then defined as "not pissing them off, because we want their updaters."

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Glen —

If you believe that I am a TNP or Independent/unaligned dove, then you are severely mistaken. Prior to joining TSP, I was the only defender head of FA willing to actually pull the plug on TNP and walk away after repeated divergences of interest, all of which fell short of the insult levied by TNP’s Cabinet in January. How TNP felt about that was abundantly clear if you review their formal position on my Commendation. A comprehensive reading of my comments in #leg-lounge since joining TSP will indicate I have spoken about my concerns about the perceived inequity in our alliance with TNP. This included being one of the only people to criticize the (in my assessment) highly unequal agreement made by your Cabinet (an agreement which, in spite of my opposition, I have repeatedly said I will uphold). In justifying that agreement to me, Roavin made it abundantly clear that he believed making this agreement (beyond simply securing the understanding that our defenses did not violate the Aurora Alliance and TNP retracting its inflammatory comments) was valuable in part because it would allow the alliance to move forward.

If we were willing to patch things up with TNP. If we were willing to engage in extra dialogue with them because they "kindly asked" (as Roavin put it), the question is what next? (Engaging in extra negotiations simply when asked politely is normally "we want this alliance to be healthy" behavior not "we understand our alliance to be somewhere near collapse" behavior.) Why even settle things down and preserve this alliance at all (as Roavin says, months ago we would've been justified in ending it) besides the potential cultural, political, security, and military value the alliance offers us? Since your Cabinet preserved the Aurora Alliance, I would like to get some value out of it. But have no delusions: I believe we should take a stand against quorum raiding (as I repeatedly said in the referenced conversation) and I have no scruples pulling out of this alliance if and when it re-enters an inherently exploitative dynamic.

These things are delicate balancing acts, as all alliances are regardless of whether they are with defenders or Independent/unaligned regions or regions like the NPO that defy traditional categorization. We all have interests, sometimes they overlap and sometimes they do not. In areas where they overlap, we work together, and in areas they do not overlap, we signal our disagreement and try to resolve the disagreement in a way that favors us using our own capabilities and by working with other diplomatic partners. In order to make all of this work, we expect our partners to provide us value and we provide them value, in a variety of forms: political, military, cultural, infrastructural, etc. A proactive foreign affairs recognizes where mutual interest does and does not exist. It also recognizes you have to give something to get something and tries to balance these considerations to maximize our goals — the promotion of democracy and the defense of innocent regions.

Your suggestion that we simply do not care about non-defender regions is unsustainable. Speaking as someone who actively defends and is aware of the capabilities of all our potential partners and enemies, the defender core of the faction is incredibly strong right now (a state which has been fairly durable recently although may fade at some point, and I am cautious to assume it will last forever). However, it is also imperfect, has good nights and bad nights, and we make mistakes that then have potential to lead to protracted occupations and occasionally the destruction or removal of native communities. In those cases, as a back up, we want our Independent and unaligned partners. You say this never works: this is misinformed. The regions North Africa and Prima Victoria were liberated in April with the assistance of unaligned militaries from EPSA and Thaecia. The Embassy was liberated with assistance from Thaecia. A series of LWU-led raids on significant targets in January were defended with support from the NPA. Last year, EPSA and NPA were powerful supporters in the attempted liberation of our embassy South Pacific and the region Smol Fur Empire. A defender foreign policy that does not recognize and work with these facts is simply delusional. Now, this is not to say we can't make it without TNP, we have plenty of successful liberations without the NPA. But since we have chosen to preserve this alliance, we should manage it carefully and attempt to get something out of it.

As Jay clearly said on behalf of the entire Cabinet: we will not tolerate an abrogation of the agreement we have come to with TNP and we will work with them on other areas of mutual interest. We will not compromise on our core interests, including our opposition to quorum raiding, and good allies respect that. You are making a mountain out of a mole hill based on what you have already admitted was a mischaracterization of my comments.

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

Reply

If you believe that I am a TNP or Independent/unaligned dove, then you are severely mistaken. Prior to joining TSP, I was the only defender head of FA willing to actually pull the plug on TNP and walk away after repeated divergences of interest, all of which fell short of the insult levied by TNP’s Cabinet in January.

I know your historical stances on it, and your reputation as a pretty ironclad defender, which is why your strategy was surprising to me when I pushed back on the notion that PfS should avoid the topic of quorum raiding to avoid any controversy with TNP or other Independent/non-aligned regions. You did say explicitly that, whether we liked it or not, we need those regions' updaters. I genuinely don't believe I'm misrepresenting your strategy, but rather I think you're taking my view here as somehow challenging your beliefs or defender cred.

The "balancing act" is one that's inherently not in our favor. The arguments you're making here are the same ones that were made against TSP going defender in the first place. That's why I'm saying that, whether you like it described this way or not, the strategy you're advocating does force us to put the wants of non-defender regions ahead of our own when it comes to FA. There's not much balancing to be done when the criteria is "don't do X because it will piss off Y." That's not a balancing act.

I also get that you're not MoFA, but these are the first FA-related things coming out of the Cabinet, along with the first publicized military mission being a fash-bash raid. I'm not criticizing just to criticize. I found the things you said to be surprising exactly because I expected a more defender-fronted strategy from this Cabinet. I'm certainly not one to do the "wait and see" thing, I'd rather point these things out early and quickly.

Why even settle things down and preserve this alliance at all (as Roavin says, months ago we would've been justified in ending it) besides the potential cultural, political, security, and military value the alliance offers us? Since your Cabinet preserved the Aurora Alliance, I would like to get some value out of it.

To be completely frank, I would prefer the Aurora Alliance was dissolved, because I don't believe TNP has been a valuable ally for many years and I don't trust that the agreement with their current administration will last beyond it, if it even lasts the whole time. I wasn't completely sold on salvaging the alliance at the end of the term, and expressed my reservations to the MoFA (Roavin) at the time as well. But (despite my reputation for being scandalous and power-hungry), it wasn't my place as a lame duck Prime Minister to pull the plug. As far as I'm concerned, Roavin negotiated a favor that took a lingering item off the new Cabinet's plate, and I was fine with that especially with the understanding that this agreement was short term and non-binding. I believe the way I referred to it behind the scenes was a "suitable band-aid" to mend the relationship.

That's the second half of why I made my earlier post. I don't want this Cabinet to think they're beholden to "strengthening" the TNP alliance because of the gentleman's (read: non-binding) agreement negotiated during the lame-duck. My advice would be there's not much value at all to extract, so approximately zero deference should be made to TNP when it comes to what positions we take, what missions we do, and what SC actions we endorse.

(This post was last modified: 06-28-2021, 10:32 PM by sandaoguo.)

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I genuinely don't believe I'm misrepresenting your strategy, but rather I think you're taking my view here as somehow challenging your beliefs or defender cred.

I considered a lot whether I wanted to put that part in my previous post. At worst it was self-aggrandizing and arrogant. It’s also somewhat awkward, I prefer as a public official to stand on the merits of my actions this term rather than the past. My apologies if it came across that way.

The reason why I did mention those things is because at some point your criticism of my thought process rests on a criticism of my judgement and of my ability to balance between strong principled stances and pragmatic efforts to secure our defender position in the field. My record demonstrates that I am actually fairly heavily balanced in the direction you support (ideological purity > risky pragmatism), although perhaps slightly less so than you. Our disagreement is not even about the stance we should take or the resources we should throw into that stance, it’s about whether it is right to have the fight now or later (and, relatedly, whether that was the right author to be bringing the fight). And I think of all disagreements to have in these decisions, it’s a relatively small one.

There's not much balancing to be done when the criteria is "don't do X because it will piss off Y." That's not a balancing act.

Except that wasn’t what was discussed, as explained above. I apologize for being highly defensive here. While there is a legitimate criticism of the role of transactionalism in FA, I hope over the course of this discussion I’ve clarified my stance on that. Additionally, a lot of my defensive posture was dictated by you starting from a position that did mischaracterize my initial claim (as demonstrated above).

I also get that you're not MoFA, but these are the first FA-related things coming out of the Cabinet, along with the first publicized military mission being a fash-bash raid. I'm not criticizing just to criticize. I found the things you said to be surprising exactly because I expected a more defender-fronted strategy from this Cabinet. I'm certainly not one to do the "wait and see" thing, I'd rather point these things out early and quickly.

This is a concrete concern about my performance as a Minister and one I’m happy to address —

Since taking office as MoD, I’ve done a bit of internal infrastructure and outreach work which was badly needed and has put new SPSFers on a training and updating track. Our numbers at update are high, with us fielding between 3 and 7 updaters at every update in the past week. We’ve been active in defending — we participated in two major defenses of occupation-oriented raids from LWU and friends. We’ve participated in every detag effort that’s been attempted, and we bring the fight to taggers at update whenever they appear. There hasn’t been a publicized liberation because there isn’t a major occupation right now — defending is inherently reactive, so I don’t get to pick what there is for us to publicize about.

The reason we are doing the operation in Confederate Army is in large part because we have a window where we have resources spare to devote to such an operation. Additionally, for a defender region the decision to use offensive force is a considered and careful one, and is also one I want to be transparent about justifying to my constituents, hence my more formalized statement on that operation relative to any of our other ones.

We are active in defending and I have already begun discussions with the Minister of Media, General Corps, and Minister of Engagement about organizing and promoting SPSF materials and the organization and dissemination of propaganda.

I don't want this Cabinet to think they're beholden to "strengthening" the TNP alliance because of the gentleman's (read: non-binding) agreement negotiated during the lame-duck. My advice would be there's not much value at all to extract, so approximately zero deference should be made to TNP when it comes to what positions we take, what missions we do, and what SC actions we endorse.

This is now clearer than it was at the start of this conversation, and is duly noted. I won’t speak to Cabinet collective policy beyond to reference what Jay said above — we will work with TNP on areas of mutual interest and against them where mutual interest does not exist. I will also never have us call off a legitimate defensive operation in deference to another region’s priorities except for upholding the gentlemen’s agreement made in the previous Cabinet (which, as Roavin noted, is unlikely to come up during my term).

Minister of Foreign Affairs
General of the South Pacific Special Forces
Ambassador to Balder
Former Prime Minister and Minister of Defense

(This post was last modified: 06-28-2021, 11:34 PM by HumanSanity.)

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