Political Theory

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

BioTube — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 04:11:35 GMT

If a campaign of conquest is met with a campaign of assassination, it drastically raises the cost to the people in power. Remember, when dealing with a state you don't need to cow the masses, just the people who control the guns.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Merlin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:57:37 GMT

Stranger:

I can see no other way to maintain, not achieve, a world of city-states. How to get there is something I do not discuss, how to keep it like that, that’s easy: nukes and only nukes. I see no other way.

That is because you cannot imagine any way that the state itself can be hurt. This has obvious historical reasons: every state has cultivated its army to conquer, and by necessity preserve, other states. If you do not aim to preserve the state, your strategy is much simpler: attack the organs of the state directly.

Perhaps I’m indeed low on imagination. But I can see no way to avoid conquest. Ideas do not seem to work on masses. May I be proven wrong.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Merlin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:57:37 GMT

Stranger:

I can see no other way to maintain, not achieve, a world of city-states. How to get there is something I do not discuss, how to keep it like that, that’s easy: nukes and only nukes. I see no other way.

That is because you cannot imagine any way that the state itself can be hurt. This has obvious historical reasons: every state has cultivated its army to conquer, and by necessity preserve, other states. If you do not aim to preserve the state, your strategy is much simpler: attack the organs of the state directly.

Perhaps I’m indeed low on imagination. But I can see no way to avoid conquest. Ideas do not seem to work on masses. May I be proven wrong.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Stranger — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:42:33 GMT

I can see no other way to maintain, not achieve, a world of city-states. How to get there is something I do not discuss, how to keep it like that, that’s easy: nukes and only nukes. I see no other way.

That is because you cannot imagine any way that the state itself can be hurt. This has obvious historical reasons: every state has cultivated its army to conquer, and by necessity preserve, other states. If you do not aim to preserve the state, your strategy is much simpler: attack the organs of the state directly.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Merlin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:35:30 GMT

But the breakup of the USSR shows that having nukes isn't necessary. It even shows that any nukes possessed can be given away as part of the secession, rather than being kept as a deterrent.

Nukes are not necessary for a country to secede. But without nukes a world on Monacos would aggregate anew amid terrible wars immediately. Its is something for Europe to tolerate a few micro nations that mostly do the bidding of the internationalists. It would be something else entirely to have 500 city-states draining your tax-base daily.

I can see no other way to maintain, not achieve, a world of city-states. How to get there is something I do not discuss, how to keep it like that, that’s easy: nukes and only nukes. I see no other way.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Stranger — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 23:32:43 GMT

To repeat myself, tactical nukes are deigned to be used against armies, not cities.

To repeat myself, armies are not our enemy, the state is. Armies must be evaded.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

geniusiknowit — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 21:25:10 GMT

Again you confuse correlation with causation. There are distinct causes for why each of those countries were attacked, none of which was the size of their armies.

India and Pakistan have been intermittently warring with each other despite both having nukes, albeit on a relatively small scale.

Having nukes draws attention - too much attention to bear for any nation not possessing enough conventional military strength. No one but other an-caps would think twice about supporting the invasion of such a place.But if you're correct that nukes are necessary for secession, then this is a catch-22. Session would need to be on the scale of a large to medium country.

But the breakup of the USSR shows that having nukes isn't necessary. It even shows that any nukes possessed can be given away as part of the secession, rather than being kept as a deterrent.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Merlin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 11:11:06 GMT

The nations that have nukes have massive, well-trained, well-equipped militaries. They're not attacked not because they have nukes, but because engaging in even conventional warfare with them is too costly and risky.

That didn’t stop Germany from attacking the Soviets. Or Japan from attacking the US, or Napoleonic France from attacking Russia and Spain, or every European power from attacking one another in WW1, or Prussia form attacking the Second French Empire, or half of Europe from attacking imperial Russia in the Crimea, or…heck you name it: the bigger your army is, the more likely you’re going to get attacked, according to worldwide experience. That does not mean that small countries are not attacked, but those ‘wars’ seldom make history. But really, taking a look at the dismal human record for peace, I fail to see how could anyone be against nukes.

Anyone crazy enough now to nuke a non-nuclear capable country,

To repeat myself, tactical nukes are deigned to be used against armies, not cities. I would not blink before nuking an armored column massing at the border (that was, for years, the French nuclear strategy and it kept France out of harms way even if it was not a part on NATO). Nuking cities is both stupid and a dangerous threat. Stick to armies.

is crazy enough to not be deterred by the threat of nuclear retaliation.

It’s not the decision of one man. It never is. But, akin to guns, in a fully nuclear-armed world, I would not say that eventually someone would not launch. What I’m saying is that, on the long run any deaths from such isolated incident would be just a fraction of those occurring from the wars that nukes have prevented.

As an analogy to gun rights, if everyone has guns I cannot guarantee that the occasional a**ole won’t go on a shooting spree. What I can say is that such deaths would be far less than those due to crime that would have occurred has guns been banned.

Twice the US and USSR have come within minutes of launching nukes at each other. TWICE. Since the end of WWII, what other non-nuclear country has been hit or come close to being hit with nukes?

So we make up for the lack of historical data showing nukes to be dangerous by taking such stories to the fight? The fact is simple: where there was war, there is peace. The rule has not been broken one, nor will ever be. What else do we want?

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Merlin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 10:59:19 GMT

BioTube:

Haven't India and Pakistan gone at it since they've both gotten the bomb?

Contained skirmish, not war.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

BioTube — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 05:18:40 GMT

Haven't India and Pakistan gone at it since they've both gotten the bomb?

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

geniusiknowit — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 04:33:12 GMT

You're mistaking correlation for causation.

The nations that have nukes have massive, well-trained, well-equipped militaries. They're not attacked not because they have nukes, but because engaging in even conventional warfare with them is too costly and risky.

The only time any country was hit with nukes was before the world knew about nuclear weapons. Anyone crazy enough now to nuke a non-nuclear capable country, despite certain worldwide condemnation and isolation, is crazy enough to not be deterred by the threat of nuclear retaliation.

Twice the US and USSR have come within minutes of launching nukes at each other. TWICE. Since the end of WWII, what other non-nuclear country has been hit or come close to being hit with nukes?

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

My Buddy — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 01:25:30 GMT

The difference between micronations living off of big nations and what we are aiming for is that the micro nations generally operate in the framework of the larger nations. As someone else said, Monaco pays its French taxes. If it didn't, France would do something drastic (or else its businesses would all head for Monaco). Diplomacy with the state isn't going to work because the state doesn't need to negotiate to succeed, whereas you do. If, for example, you declare yourself independent and refuse to pay US taxes (assuming you are in the USA), the police will come and arrest you, they won't send diplomats seeking negotiations because they know that they stand to gain nothing from that. At any rate, that doesn't solve the problem of you still using state provided services without paying for them (primarily water). Admittedly they SHOULDN'T be run by the government, but the fact that the government runs such services means that they have all the excuse they need.

The last time something along these lines was tried, the Minerva project I believe, thugs from a nearby country came, claimed the land, and forced the Libertarians to leave without bothering to negotiate. The libertarians, might I add, didn't bother defending themselves (something that probably could have been done, seeing as how the invasion was coming from bloody Tongo, not the US marines). The state will NOT allow people to just leave. If that was the case, we wouldn't be here, would we? We would have long since seceded, the government would be of far less relevence, and this institute would be pointless. Also, somewhat on topic: I believe Mises once said that if a gang declares independence inside a country, it cannot truly be considered a new nation; if the government rejects its independence and crushes it, it didn't exist long enough to be considered a nation; if the state tolerates it, it is existing by the force of a stronger government, not by its own might (we would, if we seceded in tiny groups or as individuals, be in the second category).

Seccession IS possible, but it requires a reasonably sizable portion of people in one area, as the FSP is trying to accomplish. That way, the state can't simply squish it when they try to declare independence. Ideally, it would be in a place where a region CAN make good justifications in seceding (if the FSP succeeds and gets New Hampshire to secede, the US government would have a harder time ignoring it and destroying it than if a couple thousand people spread out across the US declared independence and waited for the cops to arrive, this being because one can make constitutional arguments stating that seccesion is okay).

Also, we can NEVER assume the state will simply negotiate. That is an incredibly naive view to take, and counter productive to boot; How can we justify an anarcho capitalist society's superiority to a state if we must assume the state is willing to accept an ancap society on its borders without invasion? This is a HUGE issue that we can't sweep under the carpet. If we don't figure out what happens when a state decides to absorb an ancap area ("For its own good" or to prevent all the businesses from leaving), we are making the same mistake as Communists when they don't ask "What if the socialist utopia arises with no government and some people want to work as wage slaves?". Yet every time I ask this, I either get an answer I would expect from a damned Marxist on the subject of freedom of choice ("The state WON'T attack") or I get a bunch of sophistry and word play ("Without a government, they cannot surrender") (on that subject, it seems like we resort to word play and definitions far too often, something that isn't good; whenever I see someone doing that, they seem like they are trying to weasel out of a serious concern).

However, seccession IS our best option (as we don't have the numbers for democratic reform, violent revolution, etc).

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Merlin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 00:33:21 GMT

geniusiknowit:

Possessing nukes makes it more likely you will be targetted for getting nuked. Being party to a MAD scenario is not good for security.

Give me one, just one example of a possessor of nuclear weapons which has ever been attacked, not only by nukes, but even by conventional means.

Please do tell, and I take it all back. Otherwise, let us see that ideas are not going to stop armies, or the dumb masses behind them.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Merlin — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 00:31:06 GMT

Stranger:

Merlin, your strategy is mad for a very obvious reason: nukes do not target the state.

I do not enjoy such terms so please try not to use them when we debate.

Nukes do not ‘target’ as other weapons do: they are not meant to be used (at least nowadays), but as a credible threat. Their very existence prevents war. If you know of any counterexample, do tell.

And still, tactical nukes have been designed to be cause confined damage: those can be used against armies, and this is important.

Re: Microsecession as a strategy and the prospects for a new Hanseatic League

Evilsceptic — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 19:04:23 GMT

missclick... don't ask...