NPA Doctrine - WFE/Flag Removal change

Gladio

Gladio

TNPer
Hello everyone,

For a longer period now, a lot of us In The NPA have been talking about making a minor change to our doctrine by removing one of the rules that states that we should restore the WFE and Flag of a raided region before we leave It.


3. The NPAF must follow all of the following criteria on every mission in foreign regions, except against designated enemy regions:
a. Minimize collateral damage;
b. Respect the culture of the region and the wishes of the natives;
c. Minimize threat to The North Pacific and allies;
d. Restore region to its original state before leaving; Provide natives with the means to restore the region to its original state before leaving;
e. Contact the most recent native delegate when acting proactively;
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By removing that particular rule It will allow The NPA to do tag-raiding and thus give our military more freedom and options when It comes to training missions. I would like to note that tag-raiding Isn't going to completely replace any of the other training missions that we currently do but It Is merely meant to give The NPA more options for better training, as an Independent army It Is Important that we conduct both raiding/defending missions to make sure that our army Is well-trained and In good shape. I would also like to note that all of our allies practice tag-raiding as part of their daily training routine so this also gives us more options when It comes to joint-operations.

Currently, The NPA can tag-raid regions but the process of doing so Is not very practical because of that rule, because It adds an unnecessary workload and takes out all the fun out of It. Removing this rule will change that.

If anyone has any questions or concerns about the effects of this proposed change, feel free to ask.
 
As a member of the NPA, I heavily endorse and support this change in the doctrine! It allows us to have much more fun and advertise the NPA more.
 
This has my full support.

For the longest time NPA has been strictly limited when it comes to training ops. And it's hardly effective, especially if we were faced with a situation that required us to lead an actual raid with our allies and the soldier leading the op has only had experience with defender gameplay.

NPA is not a malicious raider org and this rule change would not change NPA or TNP's independence stance. Rather it would allow the NPA to have a larger role in the R/D gameplay field as well as expand our soldier's skill set outside of our regular detag operations.

I look forward to seeing where this proposal leads us.
 
Full support. The Regions involved are usually founder-less small regions and political fallout would be non existent. The Doctrine also requires that all operations, regardless get approved by the delegate before they happen so the chance of accidentally raiding a region involved in secret treaty talks wouldn't really be there. Getting the NPA to "advertise" would do wonders in the recognition game wide of how effective the NPA is.
 
I am in agreement with many of the sentiments put forth by my fellow soldiers, but I would be very interested to hear the opinions of non-NPA citizens as well. Ultimately the NPA is a tool of policy, and that policy should reflect the want of the region first, and the NPA second.
 
Now this has my full support but as stated by North Pacific Army Major Loz:

Peregrinum:
I am in agreement with many of the sentiments put forth by my fellow soldiers, but I would be very interested to hear the opinions of non-NPA citizens as well. Ultimately the NPA is a tool of policy, and that policy should reflect the want of the region first, and the NPA second.
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I also second this statment because the Regional Assembly also has non Soldiers...
 
As an officer in the NPA, this has my full support. I'm looking forward to what the citizens we serve have to say.
 
I trust that those who have experience bringing freedom to other regions know what is best for those operations. I will support the bill if it makes that process easier.
 
To my mind, this strengthens our status as an independent region by giving us more flexibility on what we do. Full support.
 
When The North pacific Army wanted to make the transition to becoming a force that raids, it was sold to the region on the basis that no lasting harm would be done to the region being raided. We were told that it was a simple matter to restore the WFE and flag on leaving and restoring the region to the natives. Out of that arose the NPA doctrine. Now we are told that doing this is an intolerable burden. I do not see how - it must be the world of a minute or two to cut and paste the WFE and save the flag.

I heartily oppose this. it is against the spirit of the North pacific army, and makes us no better than any ragtag raider force.
 
flemingovia:
When The North pacific Army wanted to make the transition to becoming a force that raids, it was sold to the region on the basis that no lasting harm would be done to the region being raided. We were told that it was a simple matter to restore the WFE and flag on leaving and restoring the region to the natives. Out of that arose the NPA doctrine. Now we are told that doing this is an intolerable burden. I do not see how - it must be the world of a minute or two to cut and paste the WFE and save the flag.

I heartily oppose this. it is against the spirit of the North pacific army, and makes us no better than any ragtag raider force.
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It is a simple matter to restore the Flag, and WFE. Factbooks can be restored here, and flags can be restored here.

This change has not been brought forward due to it being inconvenient to restore regions, this change is brought forward in order to broaden the game play available to members of the NPA and to increase recruitment. At the moment we are primarily limited to Detag operations in which we pass the same dozen or so regions back and forth with the likes of TBH, TRE, Lily etc. We go in, we detag, we leave without anyone knowing we were there. What we seek to do with this change this to allow us to advertise the work we do.

To quote GEN. QuietDad from the discord: "Removing that restriction would also allow us to "detag" By changing the WFEs to "This region has been liberated by the NPA and returned to it's natives"

Removing this restriction will not inherently make us a raider organization, but it will allow us to show that the NPA has a presence, and is active in the military community.
 
Peregrinum:
This change has not been brought forward due to it being inconvenient to restore regions
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gladio:
the process of doing so Is not very practical because of that rule, because It adds an unnecessary workload
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So would the NPA be happy with replacing clause d with:

"Restore region to its original state before leaving with a tag marking the NPA's presence in the region"

Because i think removing clause d altogether gives too much scope for abuse should future commanders of the NPA be less virtuous than the current command.
 
As I said on the discord, I believe that would be a fair compromise. The NPA would be able to leave its mark around the game, but would not have unrestricted power to raid.
 
flemingovia:
Peregrinum:
This change has not been brought forward due to it being inconvenient to restore regions
Click to expand...

gladio:
the process of doing so Is not very practical because of that rule, because It adds an unnecessary workload
Click to expand...

So would the NPA be happy with replacing clause d with:

"Restore region to its original state before leaving with a tag marking the NPA's presence in the region"

Because i think removing clause d altogether gives too much scope for abuse should future commanders of the NPA be less virtuous than the current command.
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Could go a step further to limit it to allowing a single line added ti the WFE at the top or bottom announcing our presence and leaving everything else alone.
 
I see some blind misconceptions that must be corrected. In reality, this proposal does NOT turn the NPA "into raiders," but rather, the NPA is "taking on more military rights."

See that TSP/SPSF (The South Pacific) has also abandoned their law that prevents tag raids but is still regularly independent/un-aligned. They defend regions on a daily basis. I was told by old players in the past that these anti-raider laws are remnants from Unibot's "United Defense Force" region's influence on both feeders, plus the third feeder (The East Pacific) in which he passed a law that required TEP's military to be "defender", which was REPEALED ASAP, even afterwards EPSA did most of their time defending, but they ALSO invaded regions that spammed TEP's RMB. TEP aside, there is the example of the SPSF (South Pacific Special Forces.) The SPSF tag raids with Lily (the tag-raiding liberation organization,) but both of them regularly liberate regions from invader forces. I am not simply fighting for the right to tag raid, but also the RIGHT to keep the LAZY-RESTRICTIVE LAWS HANDS OFF THE MILITARY. As long as it harms no allies, it is FREE GAME to game how we want.

Another thing, this does not guarantee that the NPA is overhauling/changing the way it does things, but it gets rid of blind "legislation" that say "NPA can't use force against lame regions, can only sit pretty and defend"
I am reasonably certain that NPA Generals are not corrupt and can be trusted to not exploit their freedom/options for leading their military, there is the TNP checks and balances in place to prevent/stop corruption, but this law should not be one of them, it only restricts.
 
I thought of another thing:
NPA should keep their 1 military policy, but also allow themselves to raid (as well as their defending rights.) This is the true definition of a REGIONALIST military.

A third scenario I thought of is this: (SITUATIONS that have happened before over the past, although not with an ally)

An allied user created region's founder QUIT THE GAME and left the founder dead. The region had hundreds of nations but fell to 40+ nations. The NATIVE-nations/officials of the region creates a new backup region, officially migrates there, and requests the NPA to come in and help password their OLD region. This is to prevent Raiders or anti-raider Defenders from coming into their region, taking their delegacy, and refounding it or passwording+locking+making it their embarrassing trophy. The region asks TNP for help, but unfortunately the passwording OP requires ejecting nations (inactive ones who won't move out, haven't logged in for weeks) and the legislation PREVENTS this. Therefore the military is of no help. It should be up to the discretion of the NPA General about these case-by-case scenarios, rather than "no exceptions" legislation. Legislation here that originally was supposed to help only turns out to cause more harm.

That's it x3
 
I don't completely oppose this amendment, but I do have concerns about how it will be implented.

I'll be completely honest here: I hate tagging with a passion. Deleting the WFE and flag of a region just to splash your name garishly all over it is not, to me, an act of strength, or of honor, or of sportsmanship. I view it as the act of a petty vandal.

I recognize that most NS militaries engage in tagging, and that doesn't change my opinion. I think those that do are stooping to the level of what will be tolerated, rather than acting in line with their principles. I emphatically do not believe that TNP should engage in the same behavior just because everyone else is doing it.

Please note that I do specifically distinguish between speed-raiding, the actual military action behind tag raiding, and tagging, the bit where the flag and WFE are changed and embassies are withdrawn. I do understand the strong training value behind speed-raiding and I'm in favor of the NPA engaging in it to strengthen our military capacity. But... does that necessarily need to involve tagging? Can't they be separated?

I also want to respond to some specific points that were raised:

1) It was pointed out earlier in this thread that flags and WFEs are available on the Taijitu website for restoration. This is true. However, we are lucky enough to be aware of this repository. Not all regions will know about it, especially not the ones small enough to be viable targets. Moreover, the Taijitu repository does not store flags at their original resolution, but rather the diminished quality that is on the NS site. Removing the original upload of a flag and forcing natives to put a lower resolution replacement on will permanently degrade the quality of the image. If they are tagged multiple times, which absolutely happens, this degradation will continue and is irreversible without access to the original file... which may not be available anymore.

2) I get why purely raider groups splatter their name all around. They are going for reputation, for infamy, and for generally not worrying about the impact on natives. But does anybody here really think that anyone reasonably active in NS has not heard of TNP? Or that anybody in Gameplay is not familiar with the NPA? I find such an idea nonsensical. We do not need to sink to writing our name on things for people to know we exist. I firmly believe our name recognition does not suffer from us not tagging, and that we can better preserve our wider reputation by not doing so, in fact.

With all that being said... I do actually think the law needs to be changed. Not only is there a way to read it that would actually prohibit us from detagging (which luckily has never been challenged in court), a blanket, unmovable restriction like that does prevent us from the flexibility to respond to different scenarios. If we choose to declare war, or to raid a nazi or fascist region, or retaliate against a region that targets our citizens with recruitment telegrams... we should be able to engage in measures are not appropriate to use against regions who have done us no harm and are merely convenient training locations.

I think the compromise proposed above is a reasonable one. I do get the very human urge to want recognition for accomplishments, and I think adding a little line in the WFE that says "TNP was here" or "TNP <3 [name of region]" or "Tagged by TNP" is reasonably harmless. It doesn't delete the original content, it doesn't risk losing the flag or any embassies.

I'm torn by the best way to work that into the law, though. Simply replacing that clause with something allowing a one-liner would not account for the cases where we really do want to leave more extensive changes. However, it may work as a stopgap for now, while we look at a more extensive overhaul of that section of the legal code.
 
Flemingovia:
When The North pacific Army wanted to make the transition to becoming a force that raids, it was sold to the region on the basis that no lasting harm would be done to the region being raided. We were told that it was a simple matter to restore the WFE and flag on leaving and restoring the region to the natives. Out of that arose the NPA doctrine. Now we are told that doing this is an intolerable burden. I do not see how - it must be the world of a minute or two to cut and paste the WFE and save the flag.

I heartily oppose this. it is against the spirit of the North pacific army, and makes us no better than any ragtag raider force.
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^This.

Eluvatar:
Historically, tagging has not been called detagging.

I don't intend to call it such.
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Yup, even if it is just a message that some region has been detagged by the NPA, it still amounts to tagging.

Silly String:
I'll be completely honest here: I hate tagging with a passion. Deleting the WFE and flag of a region just to splash your name garishly all over it is not, to me, an act of strength, or of honor, or of sportsmanship. I view it as the act of a petty vandal.

I recognize that most NS militaries engage in tagging, and that doesn't change my opinion. I think those that do are stooping to the level of what will be tolerated, rather than acting in line with their principles. I emphatically do not believe that TNP should engage in the same behavior just because everyone else is doing it.
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Nut-shelled. The Law, as written, seems fine to me (the 'no harm' clause in particular). Opposed.
 
After some discussions on Discord and comments made here I would like to clear up some concerns that were raised:

1) Someone mentioned that If this bill passes then The NPA would become a tag-raiding force which Is not true, If you look at the past 2-3 terms you will see that the vast majority of the missions that The NPA has done were defensive ops (our mission logs are publicly available and this can easily be confirmed). As I mentioned in my initial post, tag-raiding Isn't meant to completely replace the other training missions that we do, the purpose of this is to give us more options and freedom when It comes to training. As an Independent army we need experience In both raiding/defending In order to be an effective and highly trained army.

2) Another concern that was brought up was the removal of embassies, I would like to say that the purpose of this proposal Is to allow removal of the WFE and Flag but NOT the embassies, the rule regulating the embassies Is In a different section In the NPA doctrine and the change proposed by this bill will not affect that.

3) Some people also had some concerns regarding the changing of the WFE/Flag itself. The practice of tag-raiding was first devised by raider organizations, but has ever since been adopted by all the other military organizations In NationStates who have recognized the potential that It has when It comes to military training, Including all of our allies, most notably The South Pacific who are considered by most people In NS to be defender leaning and they do tag-raiding with far greater freedom and with no regulations! Tag-raiding Is an Important part when It comes to training because It teaches new recruits how to use switchers, how to take over regions within a few seconds and lastly It teaches them how to use the regional controls (Changing the WFE and Flag). WIth all that being said, Is tag-raiding bad? Absolutely not! Tag-raiding Is a great and fun way to train new recruits and offers quite a few other benefits as well, tag-raiding can also Indirectly Increase recruitment and retention of new NPA recruits as well and will also strengthen our relations with powerful military partners who tag-raid too.

Changing the WFE/Flag of a region Is not damaging at all and does not leave any lasting effects, a very Important thing that you have to keep In mind Is that most of the targets In a tag-run are small and Inactive regions, whose founders have CTEd years ago, with absolutely no activity and the region Itself Is only kept alive by a few nations who are most likely sleepers or left over puppets from previous raids.
 
Gladio:
Changing the WFE/Flag of a region Is not damaging at all and does not leave any lasting effects, a very Important thing that you have to keep In mind Is that most of the targets In a tag-run are small and Inactive regions, whose founders have CTEd years ago, with absolutely no activity and the region Itself Is only kept alive by a few nations who are most likely sleepers or left over puppets from previous raids.
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^ This is so true. A significant portion of the regions we detag are only kept alive by a sleeper from a military org, including (sometimes) our own sleepers. I would also add that the regions we detag are often tagged again the next day, so we tend to see the same regions over and over. I would infer from this that these regions are mostly "dead" anyways, so not much harm is done in the process of tagging.

As for those worried about people not knowing about the tajitsu index, I would suggest a compromise. I believe we would be willing to include a link to the index along with our WFE. It seems like a reasonable request, especially that we are mainly going to be tagging for training.
 
flemingovia:
When The North pacific Army wanted to make the transition to becoming a force that raids, it was sold to the region on the basis that no lasting harm would be done to the region being raided. We were told that it was a simple matter to restore the WFE and flag on leaving and restoring the region to the natives. Out of that arose the NPA doctrine. Now we are told that doing this is an intolerable burden. I do not see how - it must be the world of a minute or two to cut and paste the WFE and save the flag.

I heartily oppose this. it is against the spirit of the North pacific army, and makes us no better than any ragtag raider force.
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I have to agree, i cannot and will not support this
 
flemingovia:
When The North pacific Army wanted to make the transition to becoming a force that raids, it was sold to the region on the basis that no lasting harm would be done to the region being raided. We were told that it was a simple matter to restore the WFE and flag on leaving and restoring the region to the natives. Out of that arose the NPA doctrine. Now we are told that doing this is an intolerable burden. I do not see how - it must be the world of a minute or two to cut and paste the WFE and save the flag.

I heartily oppose this. it is against the spirit of the North pacific army, and makes us no better than any ragtag raider force.
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I agree.

I oppose this change.
 
Flemingovia:
When The North pacific Army wanted to make the transition to becoming a force that raids, it was sold to the region on the basis that no lasting harm would be done to the region being raided. We were told that it was a simple matter to restore the WFE and flag on leaving and restoring the region to the natives. Out of that arose the NPA doctrine. Now we are told that doing this is an intolerable burden. I do not see how - it must be the world of a minute or two to cut and paste the WFE and save the flag.

I heartily oppose this. it is against the spirit of the North pacific army, and makes us no better than any ragtag raider force.
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The NPA Is an Independent army and It Is within that spirit that our army needs to be trained In both raiding/defending. Again, changing the flag/WFE of a small and Inactive region does not leave any lasting damage as that region has already been long dead. As for restoring the WFE/Flag, It takes a lot more than a minute. Just to Illustrate what that would look like:

At a minor update, I would tag-raid 15 regions and then 12 hours later I have to set my alarm to wake up at 6 AM just to change the WFE/Flag for all 15 regions, I would have to log Into each puppet nation that I used, carefully copy-paste the WFE/Flag which I would need to previously save to my PC and I would have to do this every time I do a tag-raid and that takes A LOT of time, which Is unnecessary and time wasting and is the reason why none of our allies are doing It.

A very long time has passed since we adopted The NPA doctrine and things change, and In order to remain on top we have to follow the new trends so that we can have a modern and highly trained army and be on par with all the other NS militaries.
 
gladio:
we have to follow the new trends
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There, in a nutshell, you have the philosophical debate that underlies this proposed rule change. Do we want the North Pacific to merely follow the trend, or do we want to set the standard?

And our standard has been that we respect the places we raid, even if they are not very active regions. We leave the regions as we find them, which is what we would wish for our own created regions (I know many of us have created our own regions in the past).

A compromise has been suggested that allows the NPA to leave its mark on a region without destroying anything. I fail to see how this does not satisfy the needs some feel to mark their achievement.

We may be an arny that raids, but we are not vandals.
 
flemingovia:
gladio:
we have to follow the new trends
Click to expand...

There, in a nutshell, you have the philosophical debate that underlies this proposed rule change. Do we want the North Pacific to merely follow the trend, or do we want to set the standard?

And our standard has been that we respect the places we raid, even if they are not very active regions. We leave the regions as we find them, which is what we would wish for our own created regions (I know many of us have created our own regions in the past).

A compromise has been suggested that allows the NPA to leave its mark on a region without destroying anything. I fail to see how this does not satisfy the needs some feel to mark their achievement.

We may be an arny that raids, but we are not vandals.
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Tag-raiding Is not vandalism and Is the least damaging kind of raid there Is. It does not destroy anything especially not In regions that have been long dead and won't be coming back to life.

The fact that every military In NS Is doing It just goes to show how old and outdated our doctrine Is. By not adopting this change we are missing out on good opportunities and limiting ourselves.
 
flemingovia:
So would the NPA be happy with replacing clause d with:

"Restore region to its original state before leaving with a tag marking the NPA's presence in the region"

Because i think removing clause d altogether gives too much scope for abuse should future commanders of the NPA be less virtuous than the current command.
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^ I like this idea.

I do not think the NPA would become a tag-raiding force and I mean no disrespect for our army in any way, but it would be an unnecessary and tasteless display of force. I thought we were more elegant than that.
 
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