Bakristan
16-11-2005, 07:59
Hi everyone. I'm brand new to Nation States, and though I find all this pretty fascinating, there are still some things that confuse the heck out of me.
Here's the main thing. From the forum thread "Issues That Help Your Economy"
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=448022
The posts in the above thread seem to indicate that the only way to develop a strong economy is to take very corporatist, right-wing decisions in response to the issues. Let kids gamble, the poor sell their kidneys, CEOs hire and fire without fear of white-collar unions etc. On the other hand, taking left-wing decisions seems invariably to yield an economy that the game calls "Weak", or worse. Am I wrong about this?
This is also reflected in the UN rankings, where the most powerful nations with "frightening" economies are those that have taken right-wing decisions all the way, ending up generally as "corporate police states" or "compulsory consumerists".
Apart from the general problem with this i.e. where socially responsible developmental paths in the real world HAVE led to economic prosperity, as in Scandinavian countries for example... I fail to see how this reconciles with the community-managed "RP" aspect of trade and war between nations.
Let's say I take the leftist, socially responsible path with my issues. And end up as a vast, "College Left" or "Democratic Socialist" nation with a "weak" (or worse) economy. Does this mean that I will automatically be a military wimp, unable to afford the cool AEGIS cruisers and Stealth fighters that the nations with "frightening" economies have?
If so, how accurate is that? Take the USSR... which from the end of WW2 all the way through 1990, posed a primary military threat to the Western world. Maybe their economy "sucked", or could have been shown by WTO bean-counting formulae to "suck", but that didn't take the edge off their enormous military strength by any means. Even today, neocons and purveyors of the Wolfowitz doctrine persist in seeing Russia as the greatest potential security threat to the US, and with good reason. Russia's arms export industry remains huge... their Su-30 air superiority fighter and Akula submarine are a match for anything in their respective classes.
True, some Bill Kristol types sniggered at the drubbing the Russian Army received in Chechnya. However, as the Americans are finding out in Iraq these days, the ability to impose one's political will in the face of raging insurgency doesn't necessarily have much to do with the strength of one's conventional military forces.
Anyway... so is the choice of playing NS on a left-wing tack, and yet having a strong military, open to me at all? If so, how is this reconciled with what the game says about my economy?
Here's the main thing. From the forum thread "Issues That Help Your Economy"
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=448022
The posts in the above thread seem to indicate that the only way to develop a strong economy is to take very corporatist, right-wing decisions in response to the issues. Let kids gamble, the poor sell their kidneys, CEOs hire and fire without fear of white-collar unions etc. On the other hand, taking left-wing decisions seems invariably to yield an economy that the game calls "Weak", or worse. Am I wrong about this?
This is also reflected in the UN rankings, where the most powerful nations with "frightening" economies are those that have taken right-wing decisions all the way, ending up generally as "corporate police states" or "compulsory consumerists".
Apart from the general problem with this i.e. where socially responsible developmental paths in the real world HAVE led to economic prosperity, as in Scandinavian countries for example... I fail to see how this reconciles with the community-managed "RP" aspect of trade and war between nations.
Let's say I take the leftist, socially responsible path with my issues. And end up as a vast, "College Left" or "Democratic Socialist" nation with a "weak" (or worse) economy. Does this mean that I will automatically be a military wimp, unable to afford the cool AEGIS cruisers and Stealth fighters that the nations with "frightening" economies have?
If so, how accurate is that? Take the USSR... which from the end of WW2 all the way through 1990, posed a primary military threat to the Western world. Maybe their economy "sucked", or could have been shown by WTO bean-counting formulae to "suck", but that didn't take the edge off their enormous military strength by any means. Even today, neocons and purveyors of the Wolfowitz doctrine persist in seeing Russia as the greatest potential security threat to the US, and with good reason. Russia's arms export industry remains huge... their Su-30 air superiority fighter and Akula submarine are a match for anything in their respective classes.
True, some Bill Kristol types sniggered at the drubbing the Russian Army received in Chechnya. However, as the Americans are finding out in Iraq these days, the ability to impose one's political will in the face of raging insurgency doesn't necessarily have much to do with the strength of one's conventional military forces.
Anyway... so is the choice of playing NS on a left-wing tack, and yet having a strong military, open to me at all? If so, how is this reconciled with what the game says about my economy?