Conneticun for Minister of External Affairs

Conneticun

Conneticun

TNPer
Conneticun for Minister of External Affairs
A Fresh Face for a Fresh Perspective

Who the hell are you?

I am Conneticun and a relatively new citizen of The North Pacific. I first joined in November and since then have spent most of my time reading rather than posting, hoping to gain the knowledge of those who have been here longer. I have served in the army and as both a Regional Voter and Regional Assemblyman over the past few months.

I now feel that I have gathered enough knowledge to stand on a platform that will benefit The North Pacific more than its current one. I say this because while my recent arrival may be seen as a downside by some, I believe that it gives me a fresh perspective to approach from, not one weighed down by past grudges and presumptions.

What is the theory behind your positions?

It is my belief that we in The North Pacific should adopt a real politik stance in the wider world. We shouldn't abandon our key principles like democracy and liberty, but we should always take stances on external affairs that would benefit our home region and its ideals, rather than one that would ultimatly end up damaging them.

This would take us out of our isolationist stance, but it is my opinion that this stance is one of fear and not expedience. We must not be afraid to do what it takes to advance its own cause in the world.

What are your policies?

Alliances. We should be actively seeking to become part of a strong alliance that will both protect us and allow us to excersize our political, cultural and military strength accross the world. Barring this we should be seeking a number of allies who will support us in our efforts abroad.

Diplomacy. We should seek regular dialogue with the most powerful regions whether or not we are on friendly terms. We do this in order to expand our influence and keep relations cordial. As well we should seek relations with regions who have similar ideals to our own, as these regions are more likely to support our cause in future.

This includes opening and better maintaining our embassies as well as sending delegations to the more influencial regions in order to share information about our respective regions.

Feeders. The feeders are the largest regions and so natuarlly the most powerful. With this and my previous position on diplomacy in mind we should be seeking to better understand them and develop closer relations. This will both help our foreign policy and internal policy as we pick up ideas from them that can benefit us here.

Imperialism. I do not consider direct imperialism a possibility as we stand. It would take up too much of our resources. However, I am not opposed to the idea that regions voluntarily come under our protection and become colonies of a sort. This would expand our own influence and strenth at little cost.

Why vote for Conneticun?

These policies are radical ones, but they are necessary for the advancement of our region. If we don't alter the world for our benefit it will eventually crush us under its weight. While I am certain that these will benefit our region in both the short and long term, I will always seek a consensus with Regional Assemblymen/women before taking actions that drastically alter our course. In order for our foreign policy to be beneficial, we first need to make sure that the people at home are in agreement with it. But it is my belief that with a real politik policy in effect, we will quickly become the envy of the world.

Conneticun, for a fresher future.
 
Interesting positions, Conneticun.

I only have one technical point -- how would you go about the improvement of embassies? In the past, volunteers for embassy jobs have been short, and it is not always easy even for the most dedicated ambassadors to delve into another region deeply enough to understand every political movement.
 
We should be actively seeking to become part of a strong alliance that will both protect us and allow us to excersize our political, cultural and military strength accross the world.
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What is your stance regarding relations with the Alliance Defense Network (ADN)?
 
Since I asked Koona this, I feel responsible to ask you the same. In a hypothetical situation, what actions would you take if a high level spy was uncovered in our government, a spy from a large powerful region?

Would you release this information to the public? How would our diplomatic stance change with this region? Would you use covert means to remove them? and etc?
 
mr_sniffles:
what actions would you take if a high level spy was uncovered in our government, a spy from a large powerful region?

Would you release this information to the public? How would our diplomatic stance change with this region? Would you use covert means to remove them? and etc?
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Wow...very good question.... :shifty:


What other regions have u been involved in Conn? Have u ever been a spy?

Remember I know people...who know people..that know things about people...lol
 
Alliances. We should be actively seeking to become part of a strong alliance that will both protect us and allow us to excersize our political, cultural and military strength accross the world. Barring this we should be seeking a number of allies who will support us in our efforts abroad.
Click to expand...

Which alliance are you reffering too. Is it not true that a feeder doens't need to be defended since it cannot be invaded. What use would a military alliance serve?

What are our efforts abroad that these alliances would support us in?
 
koona:
Alliances. We should be actively seeking to become part of a strong alliance that will both protect us and allow us to excersize our political, cultural and military strength accross the world. Barring this we should be seeking a number of allies who will support us in our efforts abroad.
Click to expand...

Which alliance are you reffering too. Is it not true that a feeder doens't need to be defended since it cannot be invaded. What use would a military alliance serve?

What are our efforts abroad that these alliances would support us in?
Click to expand...
I think the idea that feeders are impossible to invade is only anti-alliance rhetoric. Our own region has been successfully invaded twice. Once by UPS and once after the fall of Great Bight. It's certainly very hard and near impossible to do without a steady comglomerate of allies, endo-tarting, and endo-swapping campaign.
 
I spent an hour typing out my responses and then IE died on me :headbang:. So I guess I'll do it again tomorrow after some much needed sleep. Sorry.
 
koona:
Alliances. We should be actively seeking to become part of a strong alliance that will both protect us and allow us to excersize our political, cultural and military strength accross the world. Barring this we should be seeking a number of allies who will support us in our efforts abroad.
Click to expand...

Which alliance are you reffering too. Is it not true that a feeder doens't need to be defended since it cannot be invaded. What use would a military alliance serve?

What are our efforts abroad that these alliances would support us in?
Click to expand...
The Alliance Defense Network. The largest defense network in Nationstates...
 
You can't take over a Feeder by invading it. You can endoswap your way to the delegacy if the delegate doesn't stop you for whatever reason (inactive, supports you, not paying attention, etc). But you can't invade a Feeder, no group has the necessary manpower, and if they could find enough people, there would be no way of pulling it off without some leaks. The liberation from Great Bight is probably the only successful one, and that was, from my understanding, hardly a traditional invasion, and even it had no certainty of success, and it is highly unlikely that someone could replicate on a well-endorsed Feeder Delegate.

Edit: @Mr. Sniffles
 
ator people:
The Alliance Defense Network. The largest defense network in Nationstates...
Click to expand...

Thank you, but my question was to Conneticun.

There is also RLA, but we are not a socialist region, or the CDA. And the ADN is debatably the largest.

But I await Conneticun's answer after his sleep. May I suggest you write it in notepad before posting. :D
 
Heft:
You can't take over a Feeder by invading it. You can endoswap your way to the delegacy if the delegate doesn't stop you for whatever reason (inactive, supports you, not paying attention, etc). But you can't invade a Feeder, no group has the necessary manpower, and if they could find enough people, there would be no way of pulling it off without some leaks. The liberation from Great Bight is probably the only successful one, and that was, from my understanding, hardly a traditional invasion, and even it had no certainty of success, and it is highly unlikely that someone could replicate on a well-endorsed Feeder Delegate.

Edit: @Mr. Sniffles
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Well that's why I said, "near impossible" and without the broad support of both invaders and anti-delegate natives, not done weekly just for the fun of it.
 
Sorry for taking so long. :ninja:

Interesting positions, Conneticun.

I only have one technical point -- how would you go about the improvement of embassies? In the past, volunteers for embassy jobs have been short, and it is not always easy even for the most dedicated ambassadors to delve into another region deeply enough to understand every political movement.
Click to expand...
Thank you... I think. :P

To improve the embassies I think we have to do two things. Improve the system and improve the personel. I have noticed that with the current system the information and action only flows one way and leaves little room for additional work or creativity. I propose that we change this by making it a two-way system. This would be done by giving the ambassadors somewhere to report back to and share all the information they gather about the other region (preferably out of the view of other regions to avoid diplomatic incidents). This would expand our general knowledge of other regions, give us a point of reference for future affairs and give the ambassadors a more interesting job. To improve the personel I would like to see a ranking ladder introduced. This would encourage people to do their jobs well, not just to rise up the ladder but to avoid being at the bottom of it. More interesting assignments can be given to higher ranking ambassadors.

What is your stance regarding relations with the Alliance Defense Network (ADN)?
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I've been researching the ADN over the past couple of days and continue to converse with a few people who seem to say many opposing things. At times it has been difficult to gather the objective facts.

The ADN to me looks like a real politik alliance covered in a blanket of western ideology. At times they almost seem to resemble a loosely federated state with an executive and legislative that works as much on politics as it does on things like defence and intelligence. On the surface this would seem to match my own real politik stance very well, and if it wasn't for the democratic deficit of the ADN I would even consider our joining them. Unfortunately this deficit exists and so our joining the alliance would serve their own political class more than it would our region. For me this is not an acceptable situation.

I would like a peaceful and friendly stance with the ADN and its key member states, but I'm not under the illussion that the two real politik approaches might not cross at some point. For this reason I think a close watch should be kept to try and make sure this crossing of interests doesn't happen. The one thing I am absolutely sure of is that hostile relations with the ADN wouldn't serve us beneficially.

Since I asked Koona this, I feel responsible to ask you the same. In a hypothetical situation, what actions would you take if a high level spy was uncovered in our government, a spy from a large powerful region?

Would you release this information to the public? How would our diplomatic stance change with this region? Would you use covert means to remove them? and etc?
Click to expand...
When it got to the point that we wanted to remove the spy from the region (depending on what position the spy had gotten into they might have been useful to keep on for a certain period to feed back false information) it would depend what region the spy was from. If they were from a region we were openly hostile with, or that it would benefit us to become hostile with, I would openly and very publically denounce their actions against our democratic and free government. If they were a powerful region we were friendly with or allied I would be more discreet, but I would make sure that they knew in no uncertain terms that it was unacceptable and sanction them in a severity that would depend on the specific circumstances.

Wow...very good question....

What other regions have u been involved in Conn? Have u ever been a spy?

Remember I know people...who know people..that know things about people...lol
Click to expand...
I was a member of the stronghold for a short period. I was a senator and a member of the intellifence and defence departments. I never got all that involved and left when an admin went mad and there was talk of hacking. I didn't sign up for that kind of stuff.

Which alliance are you reffering too. Is it not true that a feeder doens't need to be defended since it cannot be invaded. What use would a military alliance serve?

What are our efforts abroad that these alliances would support us in?
Click to expand...
I don't have any specific alliance in mind. The obvious ones are as mentioned earlier, ADN, RLA and CDA. I've already given my thoughts on the ADN and I don't think either the RLA or CDA are suitable to join for various reasons. But this doesn't mean that we can't further other relations and cooperations with them in certain aspects.

We certainly do need defence, and not just proactive defence, but also retroactive. The feeders have shown time and again that they can fall to armies and rogue delegates. We just have to look at the turmoil in The West Pacific at the moment to realise that if at any time we fall we need strong military alliances to help get our region back. As well as self-defence we need allied militaries to help us in our affairs abroad, whether that be in the talked about colonies, defending friends or retaliating against enemies.

May I suggest you write it in notepad before posting.
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:lol: I used wordpad. I learnt my lesson.

Where do you stand on the current problematic situation over in the West Pacific?
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This is an awkward situation. As my platform says, I want us to act in our own self-interest, not blindly for an ideology. In keeping with this we have to look at the two groups that look more like two nationstates wide power blocks. There is the current delegate of Eli, backed by The Pacific, The Meritocracy and ACCEL, and there is the Government in Exile, backed by the ADN, RLA and some more independents. The current government claims to want to make the region strong and sovereign, while the GiE claim to want democracy (both these claims are disputed by the others).

It's a matter of what government would benefit The North Pacific and that's a very difficult question to answer. It's by no means certain what the victor would do. For this reason I support thr current status of neutrality as we wait for things to unfold a little further. But I don't support us sticking to this stance for long. We should use our sources to find out where all the major powers have positioned themselves, determine the long terms goals of the two factions, and then support the side that would most shape the world in a fashion that benefits us. At the moment I would lean towards the GiE given the suspect and much questioned agendas of Eli, The Pacific, The Meritocracy and ACCEL. A simple case of better the devil you know with the old government. But just because our state doesn't get involved it shouldn't necessarily mean that our citizens don't.
 
Conneticun:
I propose that we change this by making it a two-way system. This would be done by giving the ambassadors somewhere to report back to and share all the information they gather about the other region (preferably out of the view of other regions to avoid diplomatic incidents). This would expand our general knowledge of other regions, give us a point of reference for future affairs and give the ambassadors a more interesting job. To improve the personel I would like to see a ranking ladder introduced. This would encourage people to do their jobs well, not just to rise up the ladder but to avoid being at the bottom of it. More interesting assignments can be given to higher ranking ambassadors.
Click to expand...
Sorry to put a spanner in the works but the two way flow of infomation is already in effect, and has been since before this term. Just proves great minds think alike. :P

I was quite interested in your ranking system. Do you have any rough ideas on how this would work exactly yet, or is it something you'd more likely develop as you went along?
 
Is there any region or group in NS that you would not have relations with if they asked to open an embassy/consulate, and why?
 
Namyeknom:
Conneticun:
I propose that we change this by making it a two-way system.  This would be done by giving the ambassadors somewhere to report back to and share all the information they gather about the other region (preferably out of the view of other regions to avoid diplomatic incidents).  This would expand our general knowledge of other regions, give us a point of reference for future affairs and give the ambassadors a more interesting job.  To improve the personel I would like to see a ranking ladder introduced.  This would encourage people to do their jobs well, not just to rise up the ladder but to avoid being at the bottom of it.  More interesting assignments can be given to higher ranking ambassadors.
Click to expand...
Sorry to put a spanner in the works but the two way flow of infomation is already in effect, and has been since before this term. Just proves great minds think alike. :P

I was quite interested in your ranking system. Do you have any rough ideas on how this would work exactly yet, or is it something you'd more likely develop as you went along?
Click to expand...

Just for information purposes, the Diplomatic Corp already has its own forum area which is visible only to the MoEA and the DC, which has an area for reports from other regions.

Provisions for a basic "ranking" system were put in the DC guidelines, I'm not sure if the guidelines made their way over here though.
 
Sorry to put a spanner in the works but the two way flow of infomation is already in effect, and has been since before this term. Just proves great minds think alike.
Click to expand...

LoL. Well ok then, not having access to the second part of the two-way system makes developing a position on it difficult. But I can say that I will work to make this an effective and important part of our diplomatic department. An archive of historical and current events that will serve every future administration as well as it serves this one, and will continue to build throughout. Access to this archive can also be a useful bargaining tool in foreign negotiations.

I was quite interested in your ranking system. Do you have any rough ideas on how this would work exactly yet, or is it something you'd more likely develop as you went along?
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I don't have any exciting ideas for the names of ranks or anything. Something like Ambassador 1st Class through to Ambassador 5th Class would serve well enough to give a clear ladder of authority. The main advantages of moving up this ladder would be the prestige it would bring and the better assignments it would allow. At the moment if you sign up you're likely to get given a not so exciting region to talk to and there is no end in sight to that. Under this system if you do your job well you get to go off an mingle with the more powerful and exciting regions. It's all about providing incentive and competition. Wouldn't be a bad thing to boast about in elections either.

Is there any region or group in NS that you would not have relations with if they asked to open an embassy/consulate, and why?
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I would avoid raiders as they seem quite weak and associating with them would hurt our relations with the more powerful group of defenders. They also don't seem to have any political objective, and that makes them a bit pointless in my eyes.

I would also avoid regions that are small, weak and don't appear to be going anywhere. Our ambassadors are in short supply already and we can't afford to waste them for the sake of being nice. If these regions become more politically important later on, we can approach them at that time.
 
Conneticun, I have a...watcher in The Stronghold...I was informed that u were sent to TNP some time ago to...spy on us...mainly due to the so called "ADN interest"...is their any truth to that..or was I misinformed?

If this is true...what were your intentions here? If its not true..What are your intentions now...why get into feeder politics?
 
:lol:, I guess they'd have been right to want to watch us if we're watching them. If you ask your watcher they will tell you that I left long ago (or at leat relatively long ago given my short history) after concern at some of the discussion going on there. I also let the cabinet know that I had been in and left the stronghold before announcing my running for election, and they said it was fine.

I'm not getting into "feeder politics" (that would be the politics of all the feeders that are considered different to other regions, right?), I'm getting into the politics of this region. If I was in another region I would have gotten into their politics. The main thing that interests me is interntional relations and how various states interact, and this is why I'm running for this position. I personally favour the realist theory about states living in anarchy, which is where my real politik stance comes from.

I think my intentions are clear in my platform. They are to carry on with this interest and mold international relations in a fashion that best benefits us. It's a platform that seems to be unique and I hope it's a platform that will do well. But I'm under no illussions that I'll win this election against the other two much better known candidates. Hopefully as I get better known myself I'll be in their position in future elections, but where's the fun if I don't try? And if I do lose hopefully this is a good chance to get some of my ideas adopted by others in more powerful positions. I would definately hope that whoever wins would consider my ideas for the ambassor and embassy system.
 
I was going to ask something, but it seems a lot of questions have already been asked...

Until I can find something better...

You're a relatively new nation to the region, not completely familiar with everything yet. How do you believe this will affect your relations with other regions? Do you forsee this as a problem, or a benefit?
 
If you have not already done so, could you let us know what other regions you have interests in, and at what level?
 
Oh, wow, I have no idea how I missed these questions, I've been checking up daily incase I got asked any. Maybe I need to clear out my cookies or something. I know the answers won't make a difference now, but maybe for the next election! :evil:

You're a relatively new nation to the region, not completely familiar with everything yet. How do you believe this will affect your relations with other regions? Do you forsee this as a problem, or a benefit
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In honesty, I can see it having both effects. I'm sure as you imply other regions would see it as a weakness and try to exploit it. But just because they will try does not by any means mean theyll succeed. I think I've shown in this thread that I research things properly before taking a position on them, including mining the knowledge of others who have been around longer. I think the benefits far outweigh the problems. A lot of people have a lot of baggage about the different organisations and issues that we as a region face. I on the other hand am free from this baggage, allowing me to make decisions based only on what is best for us and not old prejeduces.

What is your view on francoism?

Do you truly feel that the userites are such a risk to the feederites or us?
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I think francoism is right to say that everyone follows their own interests, but I think it is wrong in the way it defines what those interests are. It ignores things like ideology, personal enjoyment and friendship. I think our we're the perfect example of these failings in it, since there is a strong friendly, fun-loving democratic ideology that binds us and that motivates us. People are a lot more complicated than francoism gives them credit for. I also don't much like its solution to the problems is claims we have.

I think everyone is a risk to us, whatever they might call themselves. All we can do is make friends where we can, fight off enemies where we can and remain watchful.

If you have not already done so, could you let us know what other regions you have interests in, and at what level?
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I answered this question before, but the short answer is that I have no other interests anywhere at the moment.
 
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