POTA (Populist America)

The Pacific Ocean Treaty Alliance (POTA); also called "the Pacific Alliance", is an intergovernmental military alliance based on the Pacific Ocean Treaty which was signed on 18 November 2036. The POTA headquarters are in Taipei, ROC, and the organization constitutes a system of collective security whereby its member states agree to mutual defense in response to an attack by any external party.

For its first few years, POTA was not much more than a political association created to maintain order as China came back under control of the ROC, and promote economic recovery in Asia. However, the Baja Conflict galvanized the member states, and an integrated military structure was built up under the direction of one U.S. supreme commander and one Russian supreme commander. The first POTA Secretary General, Ma Ying-jeou, famously stated the organization's goal was "to keep Asia from falling apart, and the Middle East from coming together". Doubts over the strength of the relationship between the East-Asian states and the Russians and the US ebbed and flowed.

POTA was largely modeled after NATO, which collapsed officially in 2032. Though unlike the North Atlantic Alliance, POTA was designed to foster economic co-dependence as well as mutual defense. The creation of the Pacific Highway which linked Washington, Moscow, Beijing, and Tokyo by a single super-transit network, is widely considered the most successful measure to accomplish economic unity. While officially the organization does not permit the creation of political co-dependence, the Pacific Ocean Treaty did require the member states to encourage, "racial desegregation, gender equality, and economic fairness." This is widely believed to be the cause of the POTAs members all being Populist Democracies, and their high level of social equality.

POTA is widely considered the first functional implementation of a Post-Westphalian international system; that is to say it is the first system since 1648 in which through political organization a group of nations have successfully created a sustainable social contract, and by extension a sovereign entity (the Pacific Security Council) to ensure peace and security among nations.

Economy
POTA operates a single market spanning ever member state, and also functions with a single currency as of 2053, the Pacific Dollar ¤ (also known as Dollars, Pac, and Credits). The Pacific Dollar is a form of digital currency, and is also a form of Fiat currency based on hourerly labor (originally one Pac was worth 1 hour of work by a farmer, however it has become a true form of Fiat currency with most of the Pacific's farm labor outsourced to machines.

Military
The POTA Multinational Force was first established by the original Pacific Ocean Treaty in 2035 as a provisional security force to be used in the Post-War reconstruction efforts of nations whose militaries were still recovering from the Flood War. In 2041 with the signing of the Treaty of Moscow, POTA member states could now work cooperatively on defense projects and military contractors could now sell their wares to all member states. This gave POTA a truly unified military, and promoted a level of internal competition that strengthened the member states' militaries as a whole. This is similar to what NATO nearly achieved before its dissolution in 2031.

Pacific High Command
In 2044 following the end of the Baja Conflict, and the signing of the Treaty of Los Angeles, the POTA member states agreed to the creation of a single Pacific command structure. Known as the Pacific High Command, the organization extended the origional Pacific Ocean Treaty further stating that members militaries would still be free to operate within their own borders, however if a member nation were to be attacked, command of all POTA forces would be transfered to said nation under the Pacific High Command. This covered everything form actual wars to small and limited counter-terrorist activities. The US and Russia were the most resistant to the idea of an overarching command structure, arguing that they had sacrificed much of their sovereignty already. It was only under the insistence of Former President Edwards that the US eventually signed the Treaty of LA.

The Pacific High Command's duty's are typically limited to those of sea lane protection, operating the Pacific Fleet in the jointly administered waters of the ocean. Normally the High Command is not implemented for most domestic issues, it is usually called to action when a non-POTA nation enters into local turmoil or a terrorist cell needs to be eliminated. POTA's member armies have only been transferred under Pacific High Command three times since 2049.

The official leader of the High Command, and symbolically POTA as a whole wasn't established until 2049; prior to that a temporary Supreme Commander was chosen by the Pacific Assembly, however this was later abandoned in favor of a more overarching leader that came to be known as the High Commander, who would be elected to serve at most two, five-year terms, though only Admiral Idris Pal Tyagi and General Nicolas Washington Brittan have done so.

Navy
The Pacific Fleet is the official Navy of POTA, and under the High Command it may draw forces from member navies when necessary. Positioned in several strategic Pacific Islands, the Fleet's duty's are typically limited to sea lane protection and providing kinetic strikes on terrorist cells. The largest ships in the fleet are the Tsunami Class super-carriers, which command the sizable air force under the High Command, and the Midway Class Cruisers, which are fitted with one Rail Gun capable of striking a target with the force of a small nuclear blast from 1000 miles away.

Marine Corps
The Pacific Marine Corps is the successor to the POTA Multinational Force, and it contains soldiers from each member state. Acting as both the chief ground force of the High Command when not supplemented by domestic militaries, the Marines also operate the majority of VTOL aircraft in the fleet.

Battle Islands
As POTA is not permitted to operate within a member state's borders unless requested during a time of war, all military personnel are based out of huge facilities carved out of the various small islands of the Pacific. There are only a handful of these massive bases, however their range extends over most of the planet thanks to the already long range of most POTA ships and aircraft.

Nuclear Deterrent
Arguably the most radical change made under POTA was the United Nuclear Deterrent claus of the Pacific Ocean Treaty, which drew the most fire during ratification. The provision called for the creation of a single nuclear arsenal that would act for POTA as a whole. The provision required all existing stockpiles be decommissioned and a new, safer deterrent be created for the alliance. A cap was placed on the EMT (Equivalent Mega-Tons) of the arsenal, limiting it to 50 EMT. Bombs were made cleaner, smaller, more accurate, and easier to track. Most of these weapons are tactical nuclear devices on average just under 70 kilotons.

The Pacific Nuclear Deterrent requires that all launch silos be stationed out of the sovereign territory of the member states, so all Silos or stationed in the Pacific's international waters. The silos are all constructed similar to old oil platforms, in that they are tethered to the ocean floor and maintain balance via large ballasts. The tactical nuclear arsenal is maintained in underground vaults buried deep enough to ensure limited to no fallout in the event of sabotage.

Infrastructure
POTA's infrastructure projects are widely attributed to the general prosperity of the Pacific Rim nations. While each nation does maintain its own infrastructure, single super projects are maintained through a collective fund. These include the Bering Strait Bridge, the Korean Strait Tunnel, and the South Pacific Transit Network. The Pan-American Highway is a special case, in that the United States administers the entire North American segment, while POTA administers the South American portion. The 1st and 2nd Panama Canals are also administered by the United States, though the Panama Canal Zone has been back under American control since the passage of the Central American Recovery Act in 2039.

Communications networks are also maintained collectively, along with water treatment and waste reprocessing, allowing the Pacific to better distribute resources to member states that need them most, and better manage limited supplies.