R3nowned's Blog

For the last 2 years or more there was thread after thread saying the treaty web and chaining treaties were moronic, made sure there were less wars and meant a little nothing incident could end up in a messy global fight. When you sign a treaty with your ally you dont want to fight for the ally of his ally. Non chaining has been argued and argued as a good thing or the right direction for so long now you will have to do better than this to get people to revert back. I have no wish to fight a war for an alliance 3 or 4 treaties away in the treaty web. Its stupid and gives up control of your alliance to random chance global events or mistakes. This way you have actual control of your own foreign policy in war time

Yes, that's why you should control your own war through the use of ODPs and only use MDPs with allies that you know you will die for, regardless of what they did to get into war.

More value needs to be placed on both ODPs and MDPs

I don't think he is saying that he doesn't want to support an ally, but why an alliance support an ally's ally ? Which is why only then is the treaty considered a Non-Chaining. If a direct ally is attacked then it still is a MD. That's my opinion as to why non-chaining is needed also I do hope interpreted AlterEgo's post correctly.

Why would anyone want to enter a war on an ODP when entering on an ODP is seen as reason for reparations? Non-chaining treaties means fighting on your terms, not whether someone 4 or 5 treaty chains away became involved in a fight.

Salmia, the reason reparations exist is because alliances choose to accept them rather than continue to fight. No nation or alliance can actually be forced to pay. You just have to have the fortitude to choose the tougher path when you reach that fork in the road...continue war or pay reps.

Why do treaties even exist? All they turn out to be is a cluster $%&@ when they are announced and reason for callouts when war begins and they are not activated when the enemy wants them activated. Treaties make everyone act like school children.

This idea of ending certain types of treaties is pointless though. It won't happen. Treaties are the best way to "protect" your alliance. If you are going to lose, you find a way to stay out of the war and or try to enter on the winning side.

RoK almost didn't defend NpO because they were going to try and say NpO was at fault. They have an MDoAP. So, binding MD+ treaties are not really binding when you can get out of war by blaming your treaty partner.

All treaties are useless.

You can argue that line about it being a choice but that is mostly a choice between "I kill my alliance or I pay reparations." That is not a true sense of a choice though it is a choice.

Treaties only matter as far as much as the alliances who hold them matter. However, as I said, ODPs have a bad name to them so I am not sure why anyone would even enter a war based on them if you go with the OP's scenario of changing all treaties to ODPs.

Yes, that's why you should control your own war through the use of ODPs and only use MDPs with allies that you know you will die for, regardless of what they did to get into war.

More value needs to be placed on both ODPs and MDPs

so replace an ODP with an ODP? Good choice.

It doesn't matter what you put in the treaty - the norm here is for treaties to chain, and that's going to be the expectation for a while.

The only viable option at this point is to refuse to sign treaties with people caught up in the treaty web, as DNA has decided to do. Until people wake up and realize that the same 4 or 5 alliances drive all of the drama in this game, nearly everyone in the web is basically a satellite alliance of a bigger, more aggressive power. Therefore, having a treaty with one of them means that you will end up defending that bigger, more aggressive power sooner or later.

PS: ODP's are a joke. We can and will defend whoever we want.

Yes, that's why you should control your own war through the use of ODPs and only use MDPs with allies that you know you will die for, regardless of what they did to get into war.

More value needs to be placed on both ODPs and MDPs

I agree with this.

Being able to decide when and in what war to fight (or not) is an extremely important part of sovereignty...aka: freedom from external control. ODP's allow alliances to maintain their full freedom in deciding when to go to war and when to stay out. Mandatory non-chaining allows for alliances to prearrange "we will fight for you for sure, but not necessarily for anyone else" which to me IS the meaning of defense.

The reason "non-chaining" has become popular is because the MDP (mutual defense pact) has come to mean that whenever an alliance decides to get involved in a war through a different treaty, the alliance with a mandatory "defense" agreement MUST help out IF their treaty partner is attacked by the other side's treaty partner, even IF the alliance who they need to help got involved in the war based on signing a treaty with an alliance the other one doesn't even know, never agreed to get involved militarily with or in some cases even like. It really makes no sense to begin with, but since it's "common practice" at this point, the alternative of making "non-chaining" treaties has become (rightfully) popular.

There is a difference between non-chaining and optional:

Non-chaining mandatory defense = We agree to defend you if you are attacked (and not if you get involved in a war by attacking another group, even in defense of someone else)

Optional defense = We may or may not help you out if you're attacked for any reason

In my opinion, if a group is going to sign a treaty where they agree to go to war for another group in every situation, the two groups should seriously consider a merger.

Cancel your treaties, stand by your friends.

Simple really.

Non chaining is probably the worst addition to treaties in CN ever. It's one of products of this massive treaty web that's spun up, and I suspect that if they were abolished, more people would be more careful of who they treatied with, rather than treatying anything that moves.

Before the advent of non-chaining treaties you never saw such caution. Why would things change now?

Yes, that's why you should control your own war through the use of ODPs and only use MDPs with allies that you know you will die for, regardless of what they did to get into war.

More value needs to be placed on both ODPs and MDPs

I'd say the opposite: less value needs to be placed on treaties in order to allow a political scene with greater dynamics. If treaties mean too much then acting in your own best interest without a treaty will see you ostracized. It reduces your options and forces you to play to others benefit.

All treaties are useless.

Treaties may not ensure one has power but they certainly are not useless. They create an aura of influence and migh around those who have a large number of them simply by people knowing that these other alliances with all of this NS might have their back in a war or otherwise support them in conflict. Their use is in soft power, for the real muscle you rely on good close relations and having similar philosophies.

Treaties only matter as far as much as the alliances who hold them matter. However, as I said, ODPs have a bad name to them so I am not sure why anyone would even enter a war based on them if you go with the OP's scenario of changing all treaties to ODPs.

The bad name ODPs have results from the opportunism they've been used for. If given a real purpose and not used as a "get me into a fight with a specific alliance" tool then the reparations aren't all that likely if it could be consolidating with the larger policies an alliance has.

PS: ODP's are a joke. We can and will defend whoever we want.

Sounds like a position in opposition to military treaties in general.

Cancel your treaties, stand by your friends.

Simple really.

Is that you, Ramirus!?

Is that you, Ramirus!?

A member of FAN, actually. And I don't see many folks telling them they're 'doing it wrong'.

On the subject of chaining treaties, I've changed my mind several times over the last year or so. The only time a non-chaining treaty can be activated is if an alliance is the first one attacked in a war (for example, the NpO in the current conflict) or, as you say, if an alliance is pre-empted (as seems to be the case with the NPO).

I still haven't made up my mind about them. On the one hand, they give one an 'out' if an ally's ally's ally does something stupid or gets involved in a war you don't really care about. On the other hand, and this has also been noted, more often than not they reduce a defense agreement to an 'optional' agreement. The only advantage of the latter, I suppose, is that at least one finds out who are really one's friends.

I've been involved in the negotiation process of only a couple of Nordreich's treaties, so I can't really comment on why all of them are non-chaining. I can make an educated guess, though.

As is probably obvious to anyone who has followed Nordreich's twists and turns during this war, we have friends at various points on the treaty web. Some of these allies have allies we regard quite highly and would more than likely defend if asked to do so. Other allies have friends whom we would be "less than enthusiastic" about backing.

As an alliance that is not part of an MADP bloc, non-chaining clauses make sense for us.

I have previously said that one way of moving toward a solution of this dilemma would be for alliances to belong to blocs or sign individual treaties, but not both. We have seen what happens when people don't do this. NOIR members have fought on both sides of the war. Ragnarok has found itself on the opposite side from the rest of the SuperFriends. RIA joined both sides at the same time which, although it made people laugh and make jokes about how "random" this was, only underscored how ridiculous things can get when a bloc and individual treaties pull one in two different directions.

About NOIR, its provisions and its membership. The actions of certain alliances (and the subsequent silence from many NOIR members) seems to imply that its optional defense clause is a dead letter. Furthermore, we saw how NOIR's non-aggression provisions were used to shut others out with respect to the defense of genuine treaty partners. I have my doubts as to its post-war future. (And now would be a good time to remind anyone reading this that I hold no government positions and thus have no sway over Nordreich's foreign policy.)

There are many different replies here, most of them critical of my stance of being against non-chaining treaties.

My general reply to that will be: Sign an ODP with that alliance if you're not willing to sign a chaining MDP.

Frankly, we need to drastically cut down on the number of binding military treaties we sign. At all. It's one of the greatest unrealistic things about CN, most nations in the real world have at the most one binding military treaty.

Most real world treaties have a clause where it outlines scenarios where one will come to the defense of another. This is CN though. The CN equivalent will be abandoning MDP+ treaties for most part (except for alliances you're REALLY close with), and using ODPs as the standard treaty.

Non-chaining treaties have a specific and sensible purpose. While you probably want to fight for your friends, it's much less certain that you want to fight for their friends as well. Considering we're currently in a global war with two separate fronts opened up by direct attack, and the last war also had two separate direct attacks, your justification is also incorrect. And finally, back in the old days (pre GW3), MDP treaties were conventionally non-chaining, so it's hardly something that's come out of the complex web we have now.

Non-chaining treaties have a specific and sensible purpose. While you probably want to fight for your friends, it's much less certain that you want to fight for their friends as well. Considering we're currently in a global war with two separate fronts opened up by direct attack, and the last war also had two separate direct attacks, your justification is also incorrect. And finally, back in the old days (pre GW3), MDP treaties were conventionally non-chaining, so it's hardly something that's come out of the complex web we have now.

If you're not willing to fight for your friends (and their friends), sign an ODP.

Before non-chaining treaties was the era of mass cancellations. End result was the same, just different method of achieving it.

Arguably the mass cancellation tactic was much more volatile and made bigger waves in the political environment, but as alliances nowadays prefer to keep their friends, even if they end up on the wrong "side," non-chaining clauses have been inserted.

imo. ^

If you're not willing to fight for your friends (and their friends), sign an ODP.

I don't agree that (and their friends) is a part of supporting my friends. An ODP leaves them far more open to attack than an MDP does (in particular, our entry would then itself not be mandatory and would trigger MDPs on the other side).

An ODP says 'I might support you if you are attacked, depending on circumstances'. A non-chaining MDP says 'I will support you if you are attacked, but I won't necessarily follow you into something you, or one of your other friends, created'. That's much closer to what most people actually want to say than the meaningless paper of an ODP (you always have the option to defend someone, paper or not).

This post and the ensuing debate has been a very interesting read, and I feel that both sides have valid points. There are cases in which non-chaining treaties do certainly have a use, at least as far as politically and for self-preservation, but I do feel that the large number of MDP/MDoAP treaties are signed these days simply to create an inflated sense of strength, rather than actually signifying legitimately strong bonds and actual action in the event of trouble.

My own opinion on treaties is that there needs to be less of them in general. I personally support the idea of having very few treaties, and only have them at a level that legitimately matches the level of trust, respect, and friendship that exists. If you are friends, but not always sure about their judgment, other commitments, etc, then sign an ODP, PIAT, or similar level treaty. If you are willing to trust their judgment as far as who else they sign with and other factors, then sign the MDoAP and be ready to go go guns blazing if something comes up.

As far as the whole chaining/non-chaining goes, it really does depend on the people involved. I remember some months back (when I was still in Krynn) I was talking to a good friend who mentioned that one of their allies wanted to re-work their treaty to explicitly have a non-chaining clause in it. In that instance, I told my friend to just dump the treaty entirely as I saw it as pretty clear indication that the other alliance in question would most likely not be there when needed the next time around. I sooo called it.