Objectives
The final objective of Terra is, of course, peace and prosperity for all. But sadly, something as seemingly simple as this is interpreted in a multitude of ways, and none of them are easy to implement. Witness the battle of existing organizations, who number thousands of members in dozens of countries, but still face staggering odds to do anything but keep the dream alive.
While keeping the dream alive is important, we did not feel, that joining that project would be the way to reach our aims; the existing parties are quite able to keep it running. Instead, our decision was one of "humble" goals and "simple" methods.
Individual Steps
Instead of making demands for broad and far reaching reformations of the existing systems, we work with single, modular projects, and one is finished before the next truly begins. Within each step lies the seed for the next, though, and even the smallest victory serves as a symbol, which can ease the next fight along. Since each full step in itself would be a huge leap, the work is seperated into even smaller steps, each of which is a small, but important step forward. The simple act of making a deputy mayor answer a letter can help a lot of other things along. Sometimes, it will seem like petty projects, but they are vital parts of future success.
Objective 1:
The Open Peace Agreement
The one thing, upon which all else builds, is security, in this case military security. To pave the way for greater international cooperation, making armed conflict redundant is of the essence. The Open Peace Agreement is our way to work at this.
The concept of this is an agreement, which comes into action as soon as an initial group of nations has agreed upon it. This group could be defined by numbers alone (say, 15), or it could be more specific (2 from each continent, for example). But at any time, a nation fulfilling the basic requirements can join up. No nation can be discriminated against due to current geopolitics, as long as it follows the directives of the agreement.
The actual contents of the agreement are still being discussed. But some things are agreed upon:
1. The agreement is one of full non-aggression policy. All members agree to abandonning the use of military threats towards other members, as in the United Nations charter. Putting any military force on the ground, in the waters or in the airspace of any member without its consent is a breach of the agreement. No nation is exempt from this, no matter what the dispute.
2. The agreement involves the establishing and funding of an mechanism enforcing the peace, presumably a common military, seperate from the national defenses of member nations. This common military would furthermore protect any member against any attack from any non-member nation. The funding, one of the most common weak spots of international agreements, will need to be clearly dictated, or a nation would soon refuse to pay due to dislike of another nation. In the meantime, such a "fee" cannot be allowed to be a financial risk to members, or no nation in its right mind would join. The solution currently proposed is to base the fee on Gross National Income (GNI), since this will allow both rich and poor countries to participate on equal footing, and it will not be any bigger a task to pay in bad times than in good. However, refusing to pay it will always be considered a breach of the agreement.
3. The agreement is purely military; a joining nation does not obligate itself to change its system, its religion or its values. While this might seem like dealing with the devil, the reason is simple: Nations are scared of changes, and few will chance radical change to join an agreement, that in itself is limiting. Also, demanding such changes could very easily be considered an attack on national sovereignty, at best keeping many away, at worst hurting national pride and creating strong resistance.
4. The agreement must contain a "safety valve", keeping member nations from abusing it by thumbing their noses at human rights within their own territory (since other nations cannot threaten it into stopping) or provoking conflict with non-member nations (since if attacked, they can demand aid from the common military). Current suggestions involve allowing UN armed forces to act in member countries if needed, and forbidding armed provocation of outsiders if a certain number of member nations agree so. Carrying on the provocation in spite of this would be considered a breach of the agreement.
5. A breach of the agreement must have conseuences, or member nations will not respect it. While aggressive punishment is not an option, something like temporary esclusion from the benefits of the agreement (protection by the common military defense) could be. The nature of the breach might or might not affect the consequences.
Other than this, many elements have been thought of, but none have been fully agreed on yet. One important element is the degree of autonomy, which the common military would have. Unless a political head-of-command was instituted (a "global minister of defense"), decisions would have to be made unanimously or by majority vote between the involved nations, something that could easily delay a response by vital days. Such a vote would be among all members on equal terms; no "Security Council veto". Even with a single commander, some things will require agreement by member nations. The current (very rough) idea is to allow the common military to purge intruding forces in any nation as far as that nations borders. If forces building up on the other side of that border are to be targetted, political permission must be granted. Another problem is that of missile attacks, which cannot be prevented without forbidding them, which would be difficult. No current solution is offered.
Steps
Even though such an agreement of common military security would seem a logical thing to join by many individual people, it would be impossible to simply hand it to the powers that be for signing. Therefore, the work is split up as follows:
The immediate aim is to acquire statements from different people in various positions, mainly within local government and lower military ranks. Once sufficient statements have been acquired from such people in a given area, that area can approach people a step higher in the system, attempting to acquire statements from these. This will continue higher and higher up through government and ranks, until a statement can be acquired from government. The statements have to be acquired from a similarly broad line of people; political parties of both government and opposition have to be approached on equal footing, since showing an official person that the opposition has given the statement will be a valuable tool.
The content of the statements need not be made in public. Requiring that would be a sure deathwish on our behalf. The amount of detail is not entirely decided yet, but it will, in essence, be for the person to state "I support the idea of a global peace treaty, and a commonly funded organization to ensure it". The details will also need to be fitted to the persons position and political allignment. It would need to be in writing! This is the most difficult aspect, as some will feel it too commiting. It is our job to ensure, that they do not consider themselves to be binding themselves. And in fact, they will not be; the statements are to be wholy uncommiting, they are only symbols of agreement. This should be made clear at all time.
Paralel to this, the required details of such an agreement should be identified. Some sketched contents are listed above, but the "meat" of such an agreement would be far more difficult to define. People with experience in or knowledge of military matters must be drawn upon, from actual officers to military historians and political scientists. This will not start until a certain amount of statements have been acquired, though, as they will be needed as validation of the project.
Future Objectives
Even once all the work has been done and an agreement is being discussed or even signed by the powers that be, "peace and prosperity" is by no means accomplished. During the first period afterwards, the objective will be to motivate as many countries to sign up, which includes getting even more people to show support. Only once it seems to be growing by itself, that is, once nations start approaching the agreement instead of needing convincing, will the first objective be truly fulfilled. This is a good distance into the future, and we will need to be patient and persistent.
But once it is finally agreed, that our work is done on this, the next step must be planned. Details are impossible to predict at this time, but some rough elements are guessed at:
1. The concept of international institutions, such as the common military, will have to become an accepted feature on the world stage. This will involve creating a few more with highly valued purposes but little intrusion into political matters. A common emergency outfit to fight disasters like rampant forestfires (like in Florida, Indonesia and France) is currently envisioned.
2. Troublesome members have to be identified, that is, member governments trying to abuse the agreement. The agreement has to prove, that it is not just a tool to dominate others or potect tyrants.
3. The next agreement, which does intrude into domestic matters, will have to be drawn up. While it is impossible to know for sure, it seems likely that the work will resemble that of the current objective. This agreement is currently envisioned to concern itself with internal stive and government attacks on their own populations. In short, security against civil war.
These are, however, future topics. The will be open for discussion, but work is not focused on them at the moment. The first enemy is armed conflict between independent nations. The first enemy is international war.