The Southern JournalThe Official News Outlet of the South Pacific

A proposal for the Partnership of Sovereignty By Jaycoop The formation of the Partnership for Sovereignty represents a historic moment in the defendersphere's history, the epitome of years-long coalescence between defenders. For a long time, defender regions operated through a patchwork of bilateral treaties and informal multilateral alliances, but the time had come to formalize this multiregional relationship, and the Partnership for Sovereignty is the culmination of all that work. The defenders now have a formal voting bloc in the World Assembly, but just in the Security Council, where this bloc arguably matters more. There is a new institution through which defenders far and wide can meet and discuss proposed Security Council resolutions. At this time, the bloc is composed of seven regions, but there is room for expansion, both in terms of new members and the organization's scope. The Partnership for Sovereignty can do more to make itself stronger, more influential, and more lucrative for regions considering joining the bloc. When 10000 Islands, The Rejected Realms, and the South Pacific first announced the formation of the Partnership for Sovereignty in January 2021, the accompanying legal instrument, the Charter, limited the scope to just a voting bloc in the Security Council, but there is room for the organization to become more than just a bloc. To me, the Charter is the foundation of a defender alliance that could develop into something that neither the World Assembly Legislative League nor the Consortium could ever become. In March, I wrote an article that addressed the Partnership for Sovereignty's shortcomings and hinted towards a potential future for the organization. However, I want to elaborate on these possibilities, and I hope that leaders and residents among the bloc membership are reading this. There is so much more that the Partnership for Sovereignty can do beyond pooling their votes in the Security Council, as we could stimulate closer cooperation on other matters, such as the General Assembly, military cooperation, and holding summits. The first issue to recognize is that not all members within the Partnership for Sovereignty will agree on all of these proposals, so the best way to pass them is by making these programs voluntary. Certain members within the Partnership for Sovereignty would opt-in to treaties and agreements to make joint General Assembly recommendations and enter into multiregional military alliances. On the first level, the organization is just a Security Council voting bloc, but there are additional layers to the Partnership for Sovereignty that allows for closer cooperation on other issues. This system works similar to multi-speed Europe in real life, where there are varying levels of integration between European Union states, think the eurozone, the Schengen Area, and other European institutions where states opt in or out of certain institutions. We could establish a multi-speed defendersphere in NationStates that would allow defenders to adopt varying levels of integration amongst each other, and the integration would occur on a completely voluntary basis with great respect to regional sovereignty. Could you imagine the Partnership for Sovereignty engaging in military operations under the organization's banner? One day, the organization could succeed and replace Libcord as the place towards in conducting large-scale liberations. An opt-in treaty or two that include provisions on mutual defense and military cooperation would give the Partnership for Sovereignty more teeth because it would be the place to draft and promote Security Council resolutions and enforce such resolutions. Opt-ins would give the Partnership for Sovereignty the flexibility to operate in areas that do not necessarily involve voting in the Security Council and allow its members to do so while using the organization's name and banner. The introduction of opt-in treaties with different purposes, such as a General Assembly bloc and a military alliance, would generate activity within the Partnership for Sovereignty and prevent the stagnation witnessed in the World Assembly Legislative League. If the Partnership for Sovereignty adopts these ideas and introduces opt-in treaties that lead to greater integration between defenders, it would fundamentally change the defendersphere and give otherwise unaligned regions an incentive to consider joining the organization. The kind of voluntarism and integration that the Partnership for Sovereignty could bring through these treaties is one that no one could find with other blocs. However, these simple opt-in treaties can lead to the Partnership for Sovereignty becoming the predominant multiregional experiment in NationStates. Furthermore, residents within several regions could organize a multiregional political party committed to the defender cause. Defenders could use this party as a platform to espouse and disseminate defender views and build a public meeting place for residents of multiple regions to come together and share their respective views and vision of the defendersphere. This party could better organize defenders and help push the Partnership for Sovereignty further along in its development. These ideas are revolutionary and could change the landscape of NationStates, and the balance of power would strongly shift towards those who believe in regional sovereignty and weaken the raiders and imperialists' aims to destroy regional communities. A new era of NationStates is upon us, but action is needed for us to get there.

Legislator
Minister of Media
Former Deputy Chair of the Assembly (x3)
Former MoRA
Former Deputy MoRA
Ambassador to XKI
Anti-Establishment Populist

(This post was last modified: 05-12-2021, 03:15 AM by islands_of_unity.)

Reply

The idea of PfS having increasing levels of integration similar to the European Union is an interesting one that I think should be explored. Not all regions are going to be as aligned with each other, especially if the treaty expands even more than it already has.

That said, this is one of the worst takes I've ever read.

Could you imagine the Partnership for Sovereignty engaging in military operations under the organization's banner? One day, the organization could succeed and replace Libcord as the place towards in conducting large-scale liberations. An opt-in treaty or two that include provisions on mutual defense and military cooperation would give the Partnership for Sovereignty more teeth because it would be the place to draft and promote Security Council resolutions and enforce such resolutions.

It's obvious the author has no actual defending experience because if they did then they wouldn't be able to imagine that. Of the 51 people credited in Libcord for the liberation of Japan last week 18 are affiliated with PfS militaries and 4 of those have PfS militaries listed as their secondary affiliation. The idea that a minority of defenders would be able to subsume and replace our primary venue with their own is ridiculous. Especially when Libcord works incredibly well and doing so would just be an unnecessary power move, two of the three administrators of Libcord, including the server owner are already members of PfS military leadership so if anything the treaty already has an outsized amount of power in the server relative to the soldiers it contributes.

Furthermore, the primary military force in PfS is 10000 Islands, one of the most isolationist regions in the game which I'm certain has no desire to shift away from the solo operation of their military that they've been conducting for nearly two decades now. It's also unlikely that Independent partners who occasionally join in on liberations like Thaecia, the Augustin Alliance, The East Pacific, or The North Pacific would be particularly jazzed about joining operations run by the PfS in a dedicated PfS server, since doing so would carry a lot more political baggage than joining an operation in an open non-political venue like Libcord. PfS is not the UIAF, and it shouldn't be trying to emulate the UIAF.

Benevolent Thomas-Today at 11:15 AM
"I'm not sure if Altmoras has ever been wrong about anything."

Reply