wellspring/07-military/07-02-military.md

WS Military

War secrets:

[Apologia] NB: this section's naming is deliberate. Only war related information may be made secret.

[Apologia] When someone releases a war secret, the defendant shall be able to claim a perfect defense in, "Unconstitutional secret". If the secret is found to be unconstitutional, then even if the information revealed was in fact a secret, the defendant is acquitted.

Only information which must be kept secret in order to maintain strategic advantages in war (by war we mean literal military warfare; not metaphorical "Wars on drugs" or "Wars on poverty") may be protected by this SovWI War Secret mechanism.

If a conagent is found guilty of leaking secret information, its owner (or it itself, if it is an indepagent) shall become an outlaw after 60 seconds.

Classifying information as a War Secret:

The Philosopher Jury must be involved in the evaluation of information as a War Secret.

Disclosing secrets:

All information deemed to be a war secret shall have an accompanying justification and shall clearly state under what conditions it shall no longer be in need of secrecy.

No information shall be deemed classified upon a condition of the passing of time (e.g.: "99 years must pass" is invalid). Temporal conditions upon war secrets shall be null and void. Every condition shall clearly state a constraint which points to a specific, measurable, trackable reason for secrecy.

There shall be a review on the last day of each 3rd month of all war secrets by the Defense branch and the Judiciary in a process open to public attendance (with seats sold on the Externality Auction), where each current war secret's secrecy conditions (but not the content of the secret) will be read openly. Should a particular item's conditions for secrecy no longer apply, it shall be made public through the Informative branch within 72 hours.

Reasons for war

Guiding principles:

War shall be waged solely for the preservation of the persons and property of WS's residents and territory, and no further. Wars of outrage over immoral actions taken by other polities shall not be the concern of WS. WS shall have no openly declared military alliances - all military alliances shall be phrased as casus belli assets under WS's protection.

Any war must be on the basis of a casus belli, and should the enemy actor cease to violate the casus belli, the war shall be brought to a graceful end as speedily as is humanly possible.

The aim of war:

The aim of war shall be the protection of a casus belli asset, and/or the elimination/exhaustion of an entity's ability to pose a threat to some number of casus belli assets.

Selecting war plans/strategies:

When choosing strategies and plans for war, the strategies must pass through several filters in descending order of priority (i.e, highest priority filters first):

• The strategies which are projected to result in the least casualties and injuries to WS residents and agents shall be prioritized. And, from among these strategies:
• The strategies which are projected to result in the least damage to WS residents' property shall be prioritized. And, from among these strategies:
• Those strategies which are also projected to result in the least casualties to the non-military agents and contractees of the enemy entity shall be prioritized. And, from among these strategies:
• Those strategies which are projected to bring about the aim of the war (as defined above) in the least amount of time shall be prioritized. And, from among these strategies:

The following filters may be applied after the filters specified above; and should be applied if feasible:

• Those strategies which carry the least financial/resource expense shall be prioritized.

However, by no means shall a WS polity paralyze itself with inaction in the face of the need to act against a clear and present threat; and the WS government shall never engage in the sacrifice of the WS residents and their property for the sake of an aggressor. While WS polities will reasonably attempt to abide by these principles: ultimately aggressors are cautioned not to aggress if they don't want to incur deaths/damages/losses, and WS reserves the right to retaliate without any limiting principle to defend the life and property of its residents, if pushed to that extent.

[Apologia]: Use means, motive and opportunity to clarify what an "imminent threat" is.

Ultimately: don't start any problems and there won't be any problems. We are traders and we seek only to trade.

Casus belli

[Apologia]: The casus belli mechanism is a separate tool from the Identified Hostile Political Entity mechanism, and the two serve different purposes. WS may need to retaliate against a non-IHPE entity for violation of casus belli, and WS may need to take subversive action against an IHPE even if it has not violated a casus belli; although WS should ideally be diligent in defining red line casus belli to ensure that the reasons for all escalations are as transparent as possible.

A WS polity shall declare and openly publish the exact assets (including diplomatic personnel, etc) which it considers to be casus belli, as well as an optional minimum response which any aggressor can expect to face. No maximum response shall be published: WS reserves the right to escalate its responses to any extent it deems necessary to preserve the private property of its residents. Should any actor encroach on a casus belli, a warning may be issued, but WS is under no obligation to issue a warning before retaliating - indeed, the casus belli list is itself a warning. Actors seeking to avoid conflict with WS should take care to engage the appropriate diplomatic channels before interacting with a casus belli.

In cases where a casus belli is an asset in a foreign polity:

• WS shall phrase the casus belli as the specific asset itself, and not as the government of the foreign political entity.
• Under extremely well-considered circumstances, WS may unilaterally declare strategic "red line" casus belli on very well-defined, neighbouring foreign assets if a particular enemy is known to be an expansionist power which has demonstrated that it will eventually become a clear and present danger to the persons and property of WS's residents, if allowed to capture those foreign assets.

[Apologia]: Lots of these phrases such as "extremely well considered" and "expansionist power", need to be clarified. Use means, motive and opportunity.

[Apologia]: I.e, WS shall not extend an umbrella of protection over any foreign political entity. If WS enters into a diplomatic agreement in order to gain access to a maritime route for war readiness, for example, the casus belli shall be the maritime route, and not the foreign government which exercises dominion over the route.

[Apologia]: If other polities wish to gain an indirect umbrella of protection from WS, they are free to strategically contract out access to some valuable asset to the WS government, and thereby gain WS interest in protecting that particular asset as casus belli.

Identified Hostile Political Entities:

[Apologia]: The Identified Hostile Political Entities mechanism is a separate tool from the casus belli mechanism, and the two serve different purposes. WS may need to retaliate against a non-IHPE entity for violation of casus belli, and WS may need to take subversive action against an IHPE even if it has not violated a casus belli; although WS should ideally be diligent in defining red line casus belli to ensure that the reasons for all escalations are as transparent as possible.

The legislature shall define processes both for nominating and declaring foreign or domestic political entities as Identified Hostile Political Entities. No political entity which adheres to all of the following core points of policy in practice (not merely on paper) may be nominated as an IHPE:

• Private property law.
• Military isolationism.
• A commitment to never initiate the use of force, duress or fraud.

Additionally, merely existing as a political entity which does not conform to these in practice (not merely on paper) does not suffice for being nominated and/or declared an IHPE. Such a political entity must specifically pose either a distant, or a clear and present threat to the persons and private property of WS residents. WS residents should be vigilant in ensuring that this list of core criteria is changed only after very well reasoned deliberation.

War supply routes and logistics

[Apologia]: We argue that military self sufficiency is a nonsensical concept: if there is a war asset which is built from materials that must be purchased from a foreign polity which could be threatened, then you have implicitly acknowledged that some portion of the inputs for that asset require foreign trade - I.e, they are not produced locally, even if the natural resources for that asset occur naturally locally.

[Apologia]: In wartime, these materials will not suddenly avail themselves and you will still have to source them. So, in wartime, in order for them to be on hand, you must either (1) have built stockpiles of them during peacetime or (2) establish quickly, trade route security escorts to ensure that those materials are protected on their way to the factory and that the final product is also protected on its way to deployment.

The military is likely to depend on supply lines which may need to cover production assets and interests in foreign polities. For this reason, we mandate that the military publish reports on its requirements in these directions for public scrutiny (private think tanks and researchers can publish studies on war readiness based on the reports, which will both inform the military on how to optimize its planning and enable the private sector to assist in war readiness):

1. Maintain stockpiles of those assets which are required for defense of the polity, as well as counter attack and second strike.
2. Maintain contracts and legal instruments with foreign polities whose exercise consists of the right to establish military forts/presence in their territory for the purpose of protecting supply lines and manufacturing interests leading up to and during, wartime.

• These may be structured as "insurance/subcription" payment plans for example, with regular payments of premiums, or some other peaceful agreement for mutual benefit.
• What such agreements really represent under the hood though, is an exercisable option to invade and secure security interests in those foreign polities. For this reason, such contracts should clearly define the assets and people/companies which are designated for protection in the contract.
• Such contracts may need to include terms to establish military presence near or in such polities during peacetime to ensure that if the need arises and WS needs to exercise its claim (due to breach of contract), WS can act quickly and decisively to establish control over said assets.
• If such a peacetime presence contract is ever established:
  • It shall not be leveraged as a mechanism or foothold for aggrandizement or annexation. WS already provides a transparent and peaceful mechanism for natures expansion.
  • It shall not be leveraged as a mechanism or foothold for influencing the politics of the other polity. WS's government exists solely as an instrument for the protection of the private property of its residents and WS's government itself has no goals.
  • If any politician is found guilty of tabling a bill which would pursue any of these disallowed goals, s/he shall become an outlaw after 4 hours. Foreign polities may, with advance warning through diplomatic channels, deploy agents within WS's jurisdiction to anticipate the moment of the effectuation of such a politician's outlawing.
  • These restrictions on exerting subversive influence on neutral and friendly polities shall not be construed to limit WS discretion in exerting subversive influence against IHPEs.

[Apologia]: Try to phrase this as a joint task force where Wellspring can bring in say, 2000 soldiers and the foreign country will supply say 1000 soldiers and they can jointly interplay, in order to alleviate concerns.

[Apologia]: It is not unreasonable to ask that the military be vigilant and plan ahead for war and that it be aware of which other nations pose either distant, or clear and present threats to the persons and property of WS's residents; so the contracts needed to protect procurement of such assets should be able to be well known in advance. Furthermore, the military branch has no budget limit, so it shouldn't be hard for them.

Parallel Martial law (ParaMart)

The Paramart law governs people who are members of the military. In particular, while carrying out an order or mission, if they are acting in line with the parameters and discretion laid out for them in their mandate, members of the military are subject only to martial law. While not acting in the pursuit of an order or mission, they are subject to the common law. The purpose of the parallel military law is both to enable military officers to adequately discipline their soldiers using punishments which are unconstitutional for the non-military population, as well as to protect military agents from worrying about liability while they carry out their assignments.

Any damages caused by an individual acting under Paramart law incur liability on the military branch and not that individual. However, pursuant to a common law judgment in favour of the plaintiff in a proceeding against the military branch, the military is free to punish the individual after conducting a Paramart law trial. Paramart law trials shall proceed according to the common law process, but with the Paramart law statutes and not the statutes of the non-military legislation.

ParaMart law is free to define causes of action for things that do not violate private property (i.e, no corpus delicti) - such as disrespecting a senior officer, etc. All interrogation techniques and other controversial military issues shall be clearly legislated under paramart law. ParaMart law shall be fully published.

The police force operates under the common law and not under the Paramart law.

[Apologia]: However, after a ParaMart judgement is pronounced, the soldier may also be referred for a secondary trial in the common law civilian courts.

[Apologia]: Consider having a distinction like this: On-Tour vs Active Duty/Deployed personnel vs Inactive/Reserve personnel. Active duty and On-Tour personnel are under Paramart law.

[Apologia]: Consider using a specially composed jury for ParaMart trials.

[Apologia]: Right now the individual soldier must follow all orders unless they're unconstitutional. This has value for conscientious objection.

[Apologia]: For example, if a soldier is ordered to secure a perimeter and in doing so he must vacate a business, and subdue and forcibly remove a civilian who is being an obstacle, the suit will proceed against the military branch. The military branch will pay all compensation.

[Apologia]: Internally the military branch is free to acquit the soldier if martial law allowed him to act in that manner. Or the military is free to charge him and conduct a martial law trial.

Peaceful expansion

WS polities may accept solicitations from indepagents in neighbouring polities for the purchase of natural resources which are owned by such indepagents, so as to allow peaceful expansion. Such purchases shall be accompanied by a formal naturalization of the seller to be a WS citizen.

• All such purchases shall only occur if diplomatically agreed to by the government of the neighbouring polity.
• After being purchased all such natural resources shall be the same as all other natureses under the jurisdiction of WS, and shall form a normal part of the territory and casus belli of WS.

It follows that WS shall not accept such solicitations for purchase from persons whose natures is indefensible with WS's military capabilities in the present and for a reasonably foreseeable future.