HumanSanity for Delegate: Friendship is Magic
Sept 1, 2020 0:25:13 GMT -5
Paffnia, Control, and 15 more like this
Post by HumanSanity on Sept 1, 2020 0:25:13 GMT -5
Hi everyone, I'm HumanSanity or HS. I've been in and out, around and about, here and there in NationStates for a little over 10 years now. Most recently, I've been the Minister of Labor and President of the Cards Co-op and recently finished a venture as Cultural Officer. After fairly extensive reflection, I've decided to run for WA Delegate.
Why am I running for Delegate?
A few reasons.
Selfishly, it's one of the jobs in the regional government I haven't done yet. I like holding and doing different jobs in regional government. I like coming up with and implementing new ideas. I like working with people from other regions and the back and forth of NS foreign affairs. Simply put, I think I'd have fun with it.
Substantively, I think I have a vision and skillset that can build on Lenlyvit 's successful 14 months as Delegate. During Lenlyvit 's three terms she forged new diplomatic connections with new regions, increased our international standing in the World Assembly, and codified many of our most important relationships through Treaties.
Coming out of Kuri's tenure, it's hard to identify regions where we share common values and interests where we don't already have relations, but there are many regions we have opened a line of communication with whom I would like us to develop stronger relations. Through observation and intuition, I believe that stronger relations between regions are cultivated by networks of interpersonal friendships which complement and are leveraged in sensitive diplomatic situations. An embassy region where more of their members can say they know and like 10000 Islanders is a region we'll have more leverage with in an important situation. For me, effective foreign affairs is about the combination of preparation and crisis management. In the next six months, I have no idea what crises may or may not present themselves, but I can build our foreign affairs so we have the most leverage and diversity of options when they do.
To approach the task of deepening relations, I have two main approaches: events and FA department revitalization
Running Events: Lessons Learned, Next Steps
As Cultural Officer, I ran several events with varying degrees of success, culminating in the XKI Summer Olympics just before I stepped down as Cultural Officer. Through running these events, I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't work, how to get people engaged and keep them engaged, and the kind of work and preparation that goes into successful event planning. I also watch events hosted by our Embassy regions, in part for best practices to borrow and to understand what their community is receptive to so that I can identify commonalities for joint events. I can't promise perfection, but I can promise to bring a wealth of experience in planning events to the task of deepening connections with our embassy partners.
To that end, I want to host two sets of events.
First, I want to host a larger event with other defender regions. We all defend for different reasons and in different ways, but we're all defenders, and our unity should go beyond operational co-ordination to include regular and deeper social interactions. 10000 Islands is the oldest region with a continuously operational defender military and should serve as the cornerstone of defending as a broader community. To that end, I want to host an event with all of the other prominent defender-aligned regions to bring our regional populations closer together. This would include regions with an active defender military and historically defender regions with largely inactive militaries (such as Texas, Spiritus, or RIA). It is my hope that such an event would increase the importance of defender alignment to the identity of these regions and increase recruiting for all defender militaries by showing that participating in R/D also makes them a part of a dynamic and inviting online community.
Second, I want to host a series of smaller events with our independent aligned embassy partners. The East Pacific, The North Pacific, and Warzone Sandbox are strategically important regions because they have (or are developing) highly capable militaries with a handful of reliable updaters. These militaries will continue to exist and they will continue to be independent aligned. However, we should not be strangers, rather we should prioritize ongoing connections and events with these regions both because they are highly active, working with them will be mutually beneficial for our non-military activity, and because these social connections can serve as the basis of our strategic approach when crises occur. If when working with these regions we only show up with complaints, we lose credibility and leverage. If we bring something to the table we have more influence.
Restructuring the State Department: A Personal Personnel Approach
I take inspiration from Louisistan 's second campaign for Delegate and my own observations to note that the Delegate's tasks are extensive. Often times, Delegates miss the bigger picture becuase they are caught up in minutiae of each WA vote. To this end, I want to add more higher level management workers to the Foreign Affairs department for two reasons: firstly, we currently have a large group of eager newer members looking for places to advance themselves in the region, an opportunity to cultivate talent which collectively we cannot neglect; secondly, it will create a pipeline of talent specific to Foreign Affairs, which is currently lacking.
To better cultivate talent and conduct the day-to-day business of the Delegate, I would hire both a Foreign Affairs Secretary and a Secretary of State.
The role of the Foreign Affairs Secretary would be to assist on larger projects and foreign interactions, including coordinating between the Delegate's Office and the WA Secretary, since WA votes are a larger foreign interaction. With the exception of literally hitting the "vote" or "approve" buttons, they would handle the day-to-day WA business of the Delegate's office.
The role of the Secretary of State would be as the direct manager of Emissaries and Ambassadors - checking in on their work and connections they have established. This removes a workload from the WA Delegate to allow them to focus on the agenda for the term.
The Secretary of State would also promote several "Senior Diplomats" from our current pool of Emissaries and Ambassadors. Senior Diplomats would be responsible for building bridges in smaller social interactions in a variety of regions. Emissaries would retain primary responsibility for representing 10KI and reporting back. Additionally, Senior Diplomats would be assigned based on need: less active regions don't need double coverage, but larger and more active regions may need double or triple coverage. The idea of the Senior Diplomat is to give us a mechanism to adjust for those varying staffing needs while also creating a recruiting ground for future Foreign Affairs Secretaries and Secretaries of State.
How will we fill those positions? I would work with the next Minister of Labor to fill some of these positions by application, although I already have individuals in mind to approach for some of these positions. If we can't fill all of the Senior Diplomat positions, it's not the end of the world - they're additive opportunities that enhance our international position, not requirements without which we will flounder.
What else you got?
Overall, I think it's an exciting time to be in 10000 Islands. We have a lot of things going for us: a lot of active people who care with a variety of experience levels, infrastructure that is truly starting to fire on all cylinders, a healthy political atmosphere with different competing visions for the region, and an improvement-oriented approach. I want my term as Delegate to be a part of this exciting time.
Image courtesy of Free Las Pinas' Pineapple Project
