Military

Ethical Norms and Behavior

"There are other constraints against warfare in the Greater Community. Most trading societies belong to large guilds that have established laws and codes of conduct for their members. These serve to constrain the activities of many who would seek to use force to gain access to other worlds and their proprietary ressources. For warfare to break out on a large scale, many races would have to be involved, and this does not happen often. We understand that humanity is very warlike and conceives of conflict in the Greater Community in terms of warfare, but in reality you will find that this is not well tolerated and that other avenues of persuasion are employed in place of force."

"Because you live in a relatively stable region of space, you do not need a great military power, but you will need to maintain sufficient balance and order within your own world, and you will need to maintain a very clear and determined control of your solar system."

"Terrestrial planets create biological hazards for visitors. And that is why colonization is usually attempted once the native race has either established a usable network that the visitors can use, such as is the case here on Earth, or have destroyed themselves through conflict and war, leaving an open door for intervention to occur, even military intervention. Military intervention is allowed in this region of space under such conditions. This represents part of the ethics of contact that are assumed and are practiced by many nations in this part of the Greater Community."

Uncharted Areas

"If your world existed in a very remote or uncharted area, an area where these kinds of rules of trade and conduct had not been established, then military conquest would be attempted, for there would be nothing to prevent it from happening."

"In areas where there is not a large concentration of nations, free nations will have to maintain their security through military means, aggressively challenging anyone who would come into their vicinity. This is less desirable, of course, but in sparsely populated regions in uncharted territories, this is definitely required. Everyone in the universe is looking for resources.

Limits of Military Force

Balance of Power

"Nations in your region of space have security forces and can amass together a great military power, but this is only for the mutual defense of their trading networks. They have realized that they cannot overwhelm each other by force, and so they seek to influence each other through persuasion and thought. This represents a more mature use of power in the universe and a new threshold of learning for humanity."

"Rogue nations and those who are destructive and aggressive are quickly countered, particularly if they exist in well-populated areas where commerce is carried on."

"In an environment with a great deal of trade, military aggression is prohibited with great emphasis. Nations have military forces, but they function more as security forces. Only if an entire region was threatened by some external power could these forces be gathered together into a larger and more potent line of defense. Yet in an environment where war does not exist, large military forces would have no purpose. Here the reliance upon weaponry and power in the mental environment becomes ever greater, and the reliance upon defense becomes of the utmost importance."

Protecting Environments

"Warfare on an interplanetary scale is so destructive that everyone loses. What are the spoils of such a conflict? What advantages does it secure? Indeed, when such conflict does exist, it happens in space itself and rarely in terrestrial environments."

Collectives

"In most regions, Collectives are prevented from having a military presence beyond their own security forces. As a result, they must engage in more subtle and more time-consuming activities."

"In the region in which your world exists, Collectives are not allowed to have armies or military forces. They are allowed to have security forces, however, for their own defense. Being primarily economic institutions, they do seek to protect their interests and their avenues of trade with their own forces. But they do not have large armies such as you might imagine. They may hire security forces when travelling in areas that are considered unsafe for trade or which are politically unstable between resident nations."

Collective Breeding

"The problem of collective breeding is also demonstrated in the establishment of military forces. Here it must first be emphasized that collective breeding is incredibly expensive, requiring a major infrastructure to educate and to direct an individual’s development. If a military body is established through this means, they may be completely loyal to their masters, yet they will be ineffective against an opponent who uses creativity and intuition. They will also be ineffective against an opponent that exerts a power of influence in the mental environment ... That is why military forces that have been established through collective breeding have proven to be ineffective. They are not creative. They do not adapt well to different environments, and they are subject to persuasion in the mental environment."

See Also

War

The Intervention

The Greater Community