As for your brother, I do hope that he does not end up another casualty of the State-Federation conflict, but he also knows what he signed up for. This very much is war, despite what you would like to believe, and war means violence. If you are concerned about his safety I would recommend doing your best to convince him to leave the State Protectorate before something happens.
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It seems, as usual, Imrik has not only beat me to a response but has also already voiced my exact opinions. I am happy to see an identifying Intaki speak up with a voice of reason over all of those who seem dead set on painting every action of the Federation in a black light. Thank you Imrik.
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You know that’s pretty much the textbook definition of ‘soft power’, in international relations, right? You influence other groups and nations by presenting an example they want to emulate, get them to embrace your ways and be like you ‘because they desire it’.
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You shouldn’t expect people to understand the terms they dispute on the IGS we had someone advocating a belief in collectivist monarchy’s in one recent thread.
And I don’t see why this is an issue? Or why people tend to bring it up as an example of Federation imperialism? I just don’t like the term “soft power” because it is used to make it seem as if the Federation is exercising a control over the people this “power” applies to when it is exactly the opposite. These people are acting on their own volition. What I was trying to say here is the Federation is not exercising anything over anyone, they are giving people opportunity to make their own decisions.
I know exactly what I am discussing, thank you.
Soft power is a tool quite commonly used by the majority of organisations in New Eden. To suggest the Federation do not use it appears as blind patriotism or severe ignorance.
I will give you the benefit of the doubt here and take you at your word, in which case you are simply trying to mislead.
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How do a majority of organizations use it then? How does the Federation exercise a control over someone by allowing them to make their own decisions, and accepting them as an immigrant into the Federation?
And how am I misleading?
Well, y’know, if you’re going to insist that the Federation doesn’t wield soft power, then say ‘it just this thing that is literally the textbook definition of wielding soft power’ it kinda undercuts your point, you know? Especially if you know that’s what your saying when you do it.
Control? No. Influence. Even when we do things of our own volition, we do them because we’re influenced to make that choice. The Federation has an agenda. It wants people to want to be like the Fed. And ultimately, it believes that people who want to be like the Fed enough, will want to join the Fed… because the way to be most like the Fed is be part of it.
It just wants people to choose that course. After all, it’s a lot easier to resist and oppose an expansionist power when it’s presuming to make decisions for you. Like with this Intaki situation, for example. It gets harder to marshal that same opposition when you make the choice to subsume yourself into its greater whole.
And the Federation absolutely wields that influence intentionally. It holds itself up as a more righteous and benevolent society than the neighbors on its southern and eastern borders. It encourages its citizens to make the case for ‘you want to be like us’. And there’s nothing wrong with that, from the viewpoint of international relations. But it’s important to acknowledge that the Federation is doing it.
For example: Just as the Amarr Empire seeks to make the Minmatar within its borders creatures of the Amarr faith, loyal to the Empire… the Federation seeks to make the Matari expatriots living within the Federation adherents of democracy, and loyal to the Federation over the Tribes. They’re both expansionists who seek to export their ways and loyalty to others. It’s just that where the Empire are conquerors and slavers, the Federation are assimilationists and, well, seducers.
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Mz Dallocourt soft power is not actioned upon individuals directly but on states or other organisations and groups. I will preface this by noting I do not disagree or judge the Federation poorly for some of these actions. Additionally it would be impossible for an organisation with the size and scope of the Federation to operate without almost invertably conducting forms of soft power.
Intaki’s economic reliance on the Federation is a form of soft power
The Federations diplomatic relationship with the Minmatar Republic is a form of soft power.
Quafe’s ubiquitous existence throughout New Eden is a reminder of Gallente culture and perhaps market dominance and therefore is a form of soft power.
Heading back to Intaki, the historic exile and lack there of, any address of this in later times forms a threat which is a form of soft power.
Your arguments against soft power being held as a criticism would best be fought in my opinion by asking those raising such points how the Federation could possibly change a relationship to remove the soft power. This may stump them entirely but if they seem the clever
sort you could simply point out that those whom they support use soft power.
Some low hanging fruit.
The Amarr faith, a form of soft power.
Caldari ties to the Khanid, a form of soft power
You get the idea.
I hope this was helpful and apologise if my manner offended at all.
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By being successful.
Let me give you a two-part example of how soft power can work in capsuleer groups, and even turns people into the thing they claim to hate. The first bit is an example of the unintended soft power of success, the second of how soft power wins ideological wars even if it doesn’t remove the risk of military ones:
Just short of nine years ago, after the Battle of Asakai, BRAVE got started, and the nullsec blocs took very keen notice of how they attracted new pilots. As Brave Newbies matured into Brave Collective, there were… small points of conflict within their leadership. The phrase ‘seventeenth BRAVE leadership coup’ came up more than a few times… exaggerated, to be sure, but… not by much.
The blocs swooped in. Disaffected members of leadership were recruited to both Goonswarm and PanFam. In GSF, this led to the creation of KarmaFleet, and in PanFam, Gobbins was tasked with using those recruits from Brave to form Pandemic Horde. In some ways, Horde had the advantage of being a blank(ish) slate, without the baggage of building within the structure of an existing alliance. Brave’s attitudes and mentality were copied in both groups, and both groups saw a massive surge in recruitment. Through soft power, Brave remade the balance of power in their own image, even if they hadn’t intended to.
The second part of this is the truer example of ‘soft power’, and gets to the ‘making you into what you hate’ bit: For over a decade, Goonswarm and the CFC/Imperium were undeniably the most successful bloc in nullsec. Largest, most powerful… most potent economy overall, too. That’s because they organized in ways that defied normal alliance lines. Departments were created that worked with the entire coalition, called ‘Special Interest Groups’. When I first joined CFC Recon, I was in Fatal Ascension. Then TNT. Didn’t matter what alliance I was in. I was in Recon, so I had access to the upper levels of coalition C&C.
Other SIGs work the same way: cross-alliance structures that existed purely to give everyone in the coalition ways to find their specific niche and how to excel in it. Eventually, there was even an ur-SIG called the Goonswarm Expeditionary Force, used for medium-scale deployments that didn’t require actually deploying the coalition, but which needed more than, say… TopGoon or WelpSquad can do on their own.
Similarly, we worked out the most efficient ways to make money, and propagated those methods throughout the coalition, without caring which alliance you were in, such as rorq builds and eventually even LocustFleets—for which we were often mocked by groups like Horde. Even when we lost all of our space six years ago in the north, that focus on success produced what was referred to as ‘The Delve Miracle’, and within a year, we were stronger economically—with only Delve, not yet Fountain, Querious, or Period Basis—than we had been when controlling half a dozen regions around Deklein.
When Horde started growing… they copied the SIG blueprint.
When they realized they needed to be mining at scale in order to keep pace in the cluster-wide arms race, suddenly the mockery ended and they all started scrambling for Rorquals.
Eventually, they even unveiled the ‘Dronelands Expeditionary Force’… for deployments that were too big for just Horde Vanguard, but don’t need the full might of PanFam.
TEST did many of the same things after the Fountain war nine years ago.
Slowly, sometimes grudgingly, sometimes denying they were in any way copying Goonswarm… Horde and TEST both made themselves into clones of GSF. NCdot and Pandemic Legion are, largely, hangers-on in hierarchy of PanFam’s power behind Horde, now. The group they established to feed them pilots is now calling the shots. And the remnants of BoB, who tried to keep Goons out of null and stomp them out of existence because they found everything about Goons to be objectionable on a philosophical level… have made themselves into goons-lite.
That’s soft power. When your enemy abandons their culture and mimics your own, and is only still shooting at you because they don’t like you, personally… that’s a soft power victory. Whoever wins that war, your values have already won.
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Well Mz Dallocourt as much as I put the work into my response I would have to admit Arrendis and their in depth report on the null sec power blocks makes for a much better explanation.
Alright…
I admit that maybe I did not have a full understanding of the complete definition of soft power.
And I admit I let Kitaula’s accusation that I don’t value life upset me, and that this led me to read Richard’s comment as discrediting, assuming he was saying that I did not know anything I was talking about.
I still stand by what I was trying to say, specifically that the Federation offers an opportunity for people to have the freedom to choose their own life and path. This is the greatest aspect of the Federation and I do not take kindly to people who try to paint this freedom of expression as oppressive or subjugating. It is the opposite. The Federation’s melting pot of cultures and lifestyles is what makes it such an amazing and unique place.
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Can the Intaki democratically choose to secede without the Federation using force to oppose that decision?
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I’ve seen people answer yes to this question in the past, but I disagree for two reasons:
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The Caldari State
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The definition of a federation, as opposed to a confederation.
The Gallente Federation has a strong central government, with the power to enforce Federal law, to which the member states are bound.
In contrast, member states of a confederation, who have come together in a union of common interest, retain their autonomy and sovereignty, and are able to leave when they choose to.
Currently, the Intaki Assembly has not even been allowed to appoint it’s own security franchisee within its own borders.
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I apologise, though I may disagree with you on some of the matters discussed looking back at what has been said it was probably not fair to address this in such a way where it was left open to be seen as an attack.
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