NationStates Jolt Archive

The following letter is circulated in the international media, and sent to the Menelmacari government, as well as various VERITAS governments:

An open letter to our friends in Menelmacar,

The Dutch Democratic Republic of Knootoss and the Eternal Noldorin Empire of Menelmacar have been either friends or allies for decades now. When Knootoss joined the South Atlantic Treaty Organisation (SATO) we established the first formal bonds of military kinship. Our history goes back further, however, fuelled by centuries of peaceful (if distant) exchange. There is much our respective countries share: a love for freedom, for philosophy and art, for free trade and a free economic exchange. Both our nations have sizeable communities of both men and elves, which live together in harmony. On the world stage, Knootoss is a full member of the VERITAS military, economic and intelligence alliances. On the surface it would appear that our ties could not possibly be closer.

However, as politicians we feel it is our task to be representing the sentiments that course deep in our nation. And, the state of our relations being as it is, many Knootians cannot shake the feeling that there is an invisible wall that separates us. There is a sentiment that the ruling elite of the Noldor looks down on us from the silver spires of Vinyatírion; that we are regarded as a secondary, perhaps even slightly disgusting people. In the area of foreign policy, the crisis in the Excalbian Isles has shaken the confidence that the Knootian people had in the security provided by the Alliance in general, and the kind benevolence our elvish friends in particular. The feeling that Menelmacar and Knootoss somehow have a shared destiny in the world no longer holds as dear in the hearts of many Knootians as it used to.

Today, a majority of Knootians no longer believe that VERITAS serves a purpose. The credibility, activity and reliability of the alliance have all been questioned in the past. With our own parliamentary elections taking place in the near future, there will be a call by many more populist politicians to leave the organisation entirely and pursue bilateral alliances with other independent nations that have proven to be much closer to us in their domestic politics and much kinder to us in their international actions.

It has to be said that this is not all Menelmacars fault, as some radicals would have our people believe. In this day and age, we lack a common enemy that unites the patriotic feeling of our peoples. The Aperinian menace has receded, the Reich has largely broken up, and the former SATO members are establishing embassies in Arda – the heirs of the Dark Lord reaching out with the olive branch of friendship. It is only natural then that the need for unity seems less urgent. We say this not to be apologetic for our people – when the international situation has changed so profoundly, it makes sense to reassess our commitments.

As representatives of our nation, we ask today whether the elves will rise to the case, to provide the arguments that we need to sway our parliament and our people that our continued presence in VERITAS, alongside our elvish allies, is a necessity. In short, we are asking you to restate the case for alliance.

Yours,

<The open letter is signed by an impressive list of influential Knootian politicians from nearly all parties>

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/107/298997307_b3adcf9115.jpg

The following letter was sent to the same media outlets as the Knootian one, as well as Knootian and VERITAS governments.

The fundamental error in the thinking expressed in the Knootian open letter is that because there is no immediate threat that requires our aid, there cannot be one in the future. We have many times in the past decided that there is no current threat to the whole of Menelmacar, and no doubt we will experience it many times again in the future. It is immensely difficult to destroy a modern, well-connected nation, and the probability of mutually assured destruction generally dissuades warfare among large alliances, though there are of course exceptions.

Knootian grievance over the ‘Excalbian isles’ is essentially based around a myth that ‘Menelmacar did not help us during our hour of need.’ This is of course, false, as to characterize that incident as an ‘hour of need’ ignores the simple fact that not one shot was fired at the Knootians. As can be seen in recent terrorist attacks (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=507957) in the Commonwealth of (now Confederated) Peoples, a typical Menelmacari response to actual actions against the welfare of our allies is swift and decisive. The case in Excalbia, should a conflict have started, would have been the same.

Perhaps the feelings of abandonment experienced by Knootians can be traced to an inability to perceive the speed at which Menelmacari forces can be deployed. This perhaps stems from the source of the grievances being non-military – politicians and the general public. For their enlightenment, I will detail the preparations actually taken at the time, and the events that would likely unfold should a limited attack on Knootians occur now.

At the time, it must be stressed that while the alliance and we in particular turned down the Knootian request for immediate aid as being baseless, the idea that we did nothing is one of words, rather than action. Around twenty divisions – including my own, (the 207th) part of the Second Auxiliary Combined Field Army, were embarked and transferred to Earth for deployment along with the Twenty-ninth Fleet. Deployment there could be anything from half a minute to up to a day, depending on urgency, prior troop readiness, and plausible air-space dominance challenges. The transport ship we were on (MIV 26207, nicknamed ‘Megahyperpansebastos’) at the time was capable of deploying by directly landing in an enemy area and dispersing air cover, gunships, tanks, and every other kind of death machine, directly, though this option would, in honesty, be unlikely to be chosen due to relative risks compared with a more conventional landing.

Why wasn’t this stated at the time? We would not want to escalate the situation, for one. Secondly, there are constantly ground and space forces of such strength on alert somewhere in Earth orbit. It was less a mobilization than an explicit assignment of units to a potential trouble spot; the MIDF hands down dozens of such assignments every week.

At present, because of this, were Knootoss attacked, depending on the response of Knootian armed forces and requests from the government, a response of similar strength to that outlined above could be expected in anything from minutes to days at the absolute outside. Even re-deploying assets from a deep space command would still allow a rapid response to a problem in Knootoss.

It’s not so much that we refused to help, as that we rejected the idea that we should escalate a war of words into a war of actions by making explicit our movements. We’re always out there, watching and ready. It’s better for the peace of mind of the world that we don’t often talk about that.

To answer the question; the prime reason for continued Knootian membership of the Vinyatírion Readiness treaty is that it costs them practically nothing – whatever they’re paying their civil servants these days – and has distinct, obvious, gains in the form of future-proofing for both our states, as well as all others involved.

~Heruhossëo (Maj. General, Ret.) Hansiryat Arandur

About the Author: Hansiryat Arandur is a currently retired general in the MIDF, living on the Ring, Saturn-Space. He is known to frequent official functions in Vinyatírion with his family, consisting of his wife, Airëiel nos Fithurin, second daughter of Defence Prefect Serendis nos Fiturin, and one young daughter.

The following is published by an influential conservative think-thank, affiliated to the RCPK party.

The Conservative Case for VERITAS
Why abandon an institution that has served us so well?

Rarely in world history has a member of such a successful military and political alliance been so lacking in self-confidence and so uncertain about the political support from its constituent members. Knootoss' identity crisis is particularly perplexing for those who are generally optimistic that what has worked in the past will work in the future and who are accordingly reluctant to tear down institutions of proven value to make way for new world orders — that is, for those who take a conservative view of foreign policy. Why this debate? Why now?

The historical context

The problem of the "the New SATO," as every writer on the subject reminds us, began with the disappearance of the threats of CACE, the Reich, and Arda. This wholesale change in the geopolitical landscape fundamentally altered the our security calculations. In some nations, standing military forces and the defence industrial base were dramatically downsized. SATO strategic forces were reoriented, and the system which had been built to sustain the massive Knootian nuclear deterrent, was cut back and assigned other missions. Multilateral institutions, too, such as the United Nations and the KIST, have become objects of significant criticism.

The construction of a "New SATO" through VERITAS is but one of the many transformations of previously reliable capitalist institutions since the disappearance of SATO. It is useful to examine VERITAS’s current identity crisis with one foot in the past and with the other in the present. We are questioning VERITAS at a time in history when the threats to Knootian national security are distant and, when seen in isolation, seemingly historically insignificant. But when viewed across the entire horizon, today’s threats could prove troubling and warn of far more serious dangers to come. We are also questioning VERITAS at a time when the domestic constituency for this engagement is far from secure. We cannot point to a recent case where, in concert with our allies, we have mounted a demonstrably successful military defence of our values and interests. The problematic performance of the United Nations, the Atlantic region, and other ad hoc coalitions has affected the dynamics of the recent debate on continued membership of VERITAS and endows the ongoing debate on its mission and purpose with heightened significance.

The larger liberal-left case against VERITAS turns out to rest on a weighty assumption, namely, that it is possible to determine with certainty the future of relations between states based on an examination of global economic forces or through a greater sensitivity to the anthropomorphic motives of great powers. This claim to certain knowledge of the future is spurious, especially as conservatives see it. We cannot know what the future will hold. It is therefore wiser and more prudent to proceed cautiously in affairs that may affect our national security. Hence, the continued presence in VERITAS.

If the liberal-left argument against VERITAS membership never amounted to much, the same cannot be said of the argument against membership coming from the right. Indeed the current identity crisis of the alliance has its origins in the conservative critique.

In fairness, prior to the formal ratification debate, some conservatives did question the rationale for VERITAS’s continued existence. This dissent, which owes its intellectual origins to members of the Realistic Conservative Party of Knootoss, held that Knootoss can best preserve its power by limiting its alliance commitments and by avoiding antagonizing Knootoss' enemies. Like their liberal counterparts, whose argument theirs closely resembles, these conservative libertarians would have preferred to abolish the alliance idea now that the Cold Wars with CACE, Arda and the Reich are essentially over. Lacking the balls to argue for dismantling VERITAS, they instead created arguments for the potentially achievable goal of withdrawing membership. Because their arguments ill served this narrower objective, their views were not influential within the Staten-Generaal.

That second debate, on VERITAS’s purpose, is now under way. It takes up the fundamental question of whether there remains a sufficient mutuality of interest between the member nations to make the VERITAS alliance viable for the future. The structural argument advanced by such VERITAS "declinists" as has three major tenets: (1) the absence of the major threat and the improbability of an alternative hegemonic threat have deprived VERITAS of the cohesion that held it together in the past; (2) VERITAS economic and security interests are shifting inexorably away from Knootoss and towards other powers such as the newly friendly Arda; and (3) the lack of a common threat is causing the cultural values of the civilizations of Knootoss and Menelmacar to diverge.

This argument suffers from a number of serious flaws. For example, it ignores the strategic reasons why Knootoss is in VERITAS in the first place; and it fails to explain why these bickerings are occurring at this point in time and not, say, when there are more security challenges elsewhere. But it does amount to a conservative case against VERITAS, and that, in turn, is the most serious argument that has been offered to date against the alliance. It calls for a response: the conservative case for VERITAS.

The Conservative Case

There are some broad arguments in the conservative case for staying in a Menelmacari-led VERITAS:

(1) VERITAS is at the center of all Knootian military strategies. Critics have read far too much into the current absence of a serious rival to Menelmacari and Knootian interests on the world stage. This happy circumstance will surely change. If, for example, a threat were to emerge from a resurgent Reich (and given the events of the past six months in the Reich, that is at least conceivable), there would not be time in which to reconstitute a VERITAS-like alliance on the front line.

(2) In the event of concerted aggression by militant Christian states, perhaps in possession of weapons of mass destruction, VERITAS will protect our flank and secure our supply lines. And, finally, if the security interests of the West are drawn to the containment of Allanean or Prussian expansion, VERITAS will guard the strategic rear of the alliance and make the forward deployment of Menelmacari forces possible. In all cases, VERITAS is the common denominator in the grand strategy of the West. The imperative of consolidating the centre is axiomatic in military strategy, and VERITAS stands at the centre of our alliance structure.

(3) If the centrality of VERITAS were not enough, there is also the appeal of the plasticity of the alliance, particularly our ability to refocus its strategic concept. Conservatives, especially, who have a proud tradition as realists, must conclude that the new threats to our security are unknown, and that VERITAS can be adapted to counter these threats to our interests.

(4) VERITAS reflects the Menelmacari way of war. Politically untidy though they may be, their arrangements with Knootoss and the other allies reflect a national consensus on the part of elves that they intend to prosecute their objectives in war not unilaterally but in coalition with their allies. Having made this decision, mechanisms like VERITAS become a fact of life. In order to fight effectively as a coalition, an alliance has to plan and train together as well as exchange views on the concept of joint operations. Without the mechanisms of coordination developed within VERITAS, the success of ad hoc coalitions would be doubtful.

(5) Obviously, there is concern about the inevitable compromises that keep coalition partners in the fold and that may impinge to some degree on Knootian sovereignty. But conservatives should recognize that these modest measures are necessary in the conduct of foreign affairs. Moreover, conservatives, in particular, should tend to favor coalition mechanisms because they limit the potential overseas ambitions of governments — even our own — and they provide the means to share the financial burdens of defence with our allies.

(6) VERITAS remains the military expression of a community of shared values. It is often said that VERITAS is more than just a military alliance; its community of nations has served, through various mechanisms, as the political foundation on which Dutch Democratic Republic has been built over the past 30 years. VERITAS played and still plays a decisive role in consolidating the security of the West. It is also one of the few institutions that appears capable of countering the crimes against humanity being committed around the world.

(7) Over time, non-VERITAS neighbours of Knootoss in our sphere of influence, such as Pantocratoria and Excalbia, may seek a closer political relationship with VERITAS. In the future, and in the context of new missions, VERITAS might also institutionalize coordination with other Atlantic nations, which do maintain an historical relationship us. Regardless of how VERITAS’ political role is manifested in the next decade, conservatives will tend to support institutions of invested values dedicated to their protection. It should not come as a surprise to conservatives that our values and democratic ideals have required protection by force of arms. VERITAS has provided that protection with a very light hand.

The Knootian case for a future without VERITAS is incomplete, and it would be foolish in the extreme to disassemble the security structure that has made modern Knootoss possible. If it is the end of VERITAS, it is the end of a lot more than VERITAS. Advocates of VERITAS often ask critics to imagine the past thirty years without the alliance. Critics who argue that VERITAS is unnecessary must also maintain that Knootian security is defensible in the future without what has come to be regarded as the West’s insurance policy. A world without VERITAS would be a world with a radically changed political order — one about which we know little, and what we can imagine is troubling.

We can imagine that we would be without an immediate brake on Prussian or Allanean imperial recidivism. We would be unable to moderate and guide the rise of Ardan power. We would lack incentives to keep our Atlantic allies engaged with Knootoss. The reinforcement and defence of the outskirts of the Knootian Federation in extremis would be vastly more difficult. The boundary lines within which we now contain rogue states would have to be abandoned and moved to our own shores. At a minimum, withdrawing from VERITAS would require military expenditures at near wartime levels.

A conservative view — and I believe the correct view — is that the current international system in which VERITAS serves as cornerstone has been remarkably friendly to Knootian interests and has not imposed particularly onerous financial burdens on our economy. Overturning the conditions that brought about such a relatively felicitous state of affairs risks exposing Knootoss and our remaining allies to a much harsher international environment, one that may make far greater demands of Knootian blood and treasure.

In the light of these strategic and prudential considerations and the comparatively light economic demands the alliance imposes, why does the burden of VERITAS chafe so on the naysayers? It is unusual, to say the least, for great nations and long-time allies to pursue a path that is so clearly contrary to their long-term interests and that does away with an institution they have taken decades to construct.

The explanation lies in the exceptional alignment of political weakness among the major parties in power. As the editors of the International Knootian observed recently, "It is a lonely conservative soul who peers around the horizon of Knootian politics these days." Notwithstanding the upcoming elections, the Daatman government is further to the left than any Knootian government in recent history. National Liberals have taken a remarkably xenophobic stance. The conclusion is inescapable: this is a very dangerous time to attempt the wholesale restructuring of our security system.

"Monty Python’s Flying Circus" reminds us that no one expects the Spanish Inquisition. That is, history is not immune to accidents. The danger now is that the accidental, but temporary, weakness in our political structure and the disorienting effects of this weakness on public opinion may produce the conditions in which a truly grand mistake could be made. For better or worse, Knootoss cannot disengage from itself.

Coping with political weakness

If the experience of the past is any guide to the problems of the next, one would expect that this generation of Knootian leaders will find a less than perfect arrangement of burden-sharing with our allies and discover new terms of art to paper over our differences. We will probably agree to disagree on the role of the state, the source of legitimacy in international law, and the purpose of Menelmacari power. Since we joined the World Business Organisation, each generation in The Hague has found a way through the thicket of cultural and ideological differences with our allies. While the correlation between the economic and military power of Knootoss and Menelmacar is always shifting, there is no overwhelming reason why the Menelmacari cannot come to an accommodation with the Knootians and the others on the direction and management of our military coalition.

Similarly, the aspirations set in motion by the National Liberal Party for an independent Knootian foreign policy and autarkic military power have always in the past been arrested by the Knootians’ own finely honed sense of geopolitical realism. At the end of the day — and often only at the end of the day — even the most virulent Knootian chauvinist tends to reach the pragmatic conclusion that without a permanent alliance with Menelmacari power, Knootoss risks huge expense and courts possible destruction. All things being equal, the coming debate on the mission and purposes of the alliance should end where previous fundamental debates over the past 30 years have ended — imperfectly, but with a working agreement on our common purposes.