Chenango Confederacy
Chenango Confederate Republic Saunee Cheenango'an'aal | |
|---|---|
 Flag of the Chenango Confederacy
 Coat of arms
| |
Motto: Frèash yonu se òs nouoy ("Our brothers are our strength") | |
 | |
| Capital | Mahatnoy |
| Recognized languages | Housatonish |
| Ethnic groups |
|
| Religion |
|
| Government | Confederation |
• President | Helki Adohy |
| Legislature | High Council of the Chenango Confederate Republic |
| Independence from Algoquona | |
| 2024 | |
| Population | |
• 2030 estimate | 8,682,669 |
| GDP (nominal) | estimate |
• Total | $27,628,252,758 |
• Per capita | $3,182 |
The Chenango Confederate Republic, commonly referred to as the Chenango Confederacy, is a country in Cusinaut. It became independent in 2024 from Algoquona during the Final War of the Deluge.
The Confederacy is comprised of three major ethnic groups - the Island Honeoye, the Great Chenango, and the Little Chenango. All three peoples were members of the Northern Confederation, and despite their outward differences, all three are bound together by a complex series of social ties known as omàmìwis. With the collapse of the Confederation and the Algosh coup, the peoples of the Chenango Peninsula were made subject to Algoquona. During the Final War of the Deluge, the three peoples aligned themselves with Urcea and declared their independence. Prior to 2033, the Confederacy held a larger de jure territorial sovereignty than it controlled de facto, including both Housatonic and Pachaug at various times. This occurred as a transfer of the original charter between Housatonic, Pachaug and Urcea while it was part of Algoquona's sovereignty. They were transferred from nominal Algoquonan sovereignty to Chenango sovereignty in 2024. Housatonic became formally independent of the Confederacy with its reorganization as a republic in 2030. In 2033, Pachaug was territorially integrated into the Confederacy.
The Confederacy is a member of the Nysdra Sea Treaty Association.
Name
The Confederacy's official name, the "Chenango Confederate Republic" was so-named in the Declaration of the Independence of the Chenango Peninsula. Despite common misconceptions, the Confederacy is named for the geographical feature rather than for the Great and Little Chenango peoples who form a major part of its population. The word Chenango is accepted to have derived from the Housatonish word O-chenang, meaning "land of the bullthistle."
Geography
The Confederacy is almost entirely located on the Chenango Peninsula, from which it takes its name. The peninsula is located on the eastern shore of Cusinaut and extends into the Sea of Nysdra. The entire country is within the subarctic climate region, and as such it has long cold winters with cool summers, though the coasts of the peninsula experience slightly warmer summer temperatures. Flora diversity in the area is extremely limited, with a small variety of hardy trees that cover much of the non-urbanized part of the country. Notably, bullthistle is present in the southern half of the peninsula, giving the country its name. The majority of human settlement on the peninsula is in urban centers along the coasts of the peninsula, though a smaller urban corridor exists roughly on the country's western border with the Algosh Republic.
History
Early history
The Chenango peninsula has had a documented human presence dating back thousands of years, with the first urban settlements emerging around 300-200 BC. The two Chenango peoples of the Chenango Confederacy share the same origin myth, which relates a story by which the peoples now living in the Confederacy migrated far from the south fleeing a variety of natural disasters which were a sign of displeasure and judgment upon that area by Makuahine. Historians and scholars posit a number of theories regarding these origin myths, with the two predominant theories being either a factual remembered migration from central Crona to Cusinaut prior to the Nysdran Collapse or a primarily mythical explanation of the story influenced by other origin stories common throughout the Nysdra. Geneticists have proven a DNA link between the peoples of the Chenango peninsula and central Crona, with shared genes with Varshani people, though some have attributed this to medieval and later interactions between Cusinaut and central Crona. Whatever the case, the two Chenango peoples now occupying the Confederacy - and, by centuries of intermarriage, most of the Island Honeoye as well - almost certainly diverged from a common ancestral people that settled the peninsula in the first milennium BC. The divergence of the Great and Little Chenango is not generally understood, though origin myths for each peoples dispel the concept of a common ancestor and instead portray their particular culture as the lone descendant of the ancient migrants with the other being either already settled in the area or foreign interlopers who accumulated there over time. In any case, the distinct Little and Great Chenango peoples both have evidence of being separate cultures by about the 700s AD based on different material cultures and the written record of Varshani and proto-Algosh travelers to the area.
Medieval period
The Occidental medieval period broadly coincides with the period of political consolidation in what is today the Chenango Confederacy. Semi-nomadic and nomadic tribal peoples which circled the peninsula during antiquity while forming the antecedents of modern Great and Little Chenango people gradually began to settle into small cities, eschewing tribal leadership for settled polities modeled after the Quetzen peoples. The impetus for the change was almost certainly the limited influence of the Quetzen thalassocracy, which established the city of Mahatnoy in and around 1143. The Quetzen largely introduced urban living patterns to the indigenous peoples of the peninsula, who began to emulate the Quetzen. The Quetzen also introduced the Quetzo-Varshani style of recorded history, greatly revolutionizing not only the Chenango conception of the world but also later scholarly abilities to investigate the period. Mahatnoy itself would gradually transform from a Quetzen colony into a Great Chenango city as nomads abandoned their former way of life to adopt agricultural lifestyles in and around the city. This transformation was primarily demographic at first, with the political separation of Mahatnoy from the rest of the thalassocracy coming in the late 1200s. By 1300, the Great and Little Chenango had formed about fourteen distinct city-states with a large number of semi-nomadic peoples (referred to historically as the "outsiders") existing in the space between them and providing both arms and labor for the cities on a contractual basis.
The medieval period produced the first record of the omàmìwi system - the Confederacy's M'acunist-based clan system - in about 1250, though most historians agree that some form of the system predates that period. In this early form, the system still existed primarily within the constituent peoples and did not extend to the cross-ethnic system of networks that exists today. The omàmìwi primarily formed in the cities and gradually came to incorporate the outsiders over time as they were settled and incorporated into agricultural society.
At the end of the medieval period, one of the most pivotal events in the history of the Chenango peninsula occurred. The Honeoye, a partly maritime people from the region southwest of the peninsula, began to establish fishing settlements in the territory of the Little Chenango in the 14th century. These settlements presaged a larger settlement of the region by the Honeoye, including not only fishermen but also political and social outcasts as well as opportunists. Some modern historians have also posited that the area became home to runaway slaves from Varshan and elsewhere who passed themselves off as Honeoye, with local Little Chenango people not knowing the difference. In any case, by the dawn of the 15th century, the so-called "Island Honeoye" people were settled on the peninsula under the political domination of the Little Chenango.
Northern Confederation
The various polities of the Chenango peninsula joined the Northern Confederation in the Great Confederation of 1660 with the exception of Pachaug, a community at the tip of the peninsula. From then on, they were organized loosely along ethnic lines, with the Great Chenango and Little Chenango represented collectively as they collaborated to choose mitei to represent them. This period saw the further consolidation of the two peoples into Great and Little Chenango Federations with single ruling councils for both peoples, and a greater overall focus on progress and development as a result of the peninsula now being effectively shielded from external military assault. Though not part of the Confederation, the Island Honeoye city of Pachaug formed and became a major trade hub in the 18th and early 19th centuries, though it became the site of increasing foreign raiding and potential Occidental attack. In 1834, the Island Honeoye were elevated to full membership in the Confederation, being released from the political domination of the Little Chenango. In 1852, Pachaug voted to join the Confederation, largely completing the work of Island Honeoye incorporation into the political life of the Confederation. From then on, Pachaug became the great city of the Island Honeoye and a major economic conduit between the peninsula and the rest of the world.
The period in which the Chenango were part of the Northern Confederation was generally peaceful and resulted in significant intermarriage between the three ethnic groups in the peninsula, greatly expanding the influence of the omàmìwi as they became cross-ethnic clan-like organizations. The 19th century saw the zenith of the role of the omàmìwi in public life, as gradually all individuals who did not belong to omàmìwi were shut out from important roles such as tribal/familial chief. During that century, ethnic affiliation gradually became less important relative to the omàmìwi, though ethnicity still had an important political - if not social - connotation, as remains the case in the 21st century.
The 20th century saw limited economic growth in the peninsula, with a majority of new activity focused in and around Pachaug. The city, by now the main port by which Occidental trade entered eastern Cusinaut, began to industrialize in the 1930s, and it became the richest city in the Confederation in 1950 with a GDP PC of $10,000 that year. Pachaug, and the peninsula in general, entered gradual decline after around 1960 as the Confederation grew less stable and destructive blood feuds began to characterize the relationship between the Confederation's members.
Algosh domination
The War of the Northern Confederation between the Confederation and Urcea began in 2008 as the latter attempted to intervene in the internal affairs of the Confederation. Over the course of the conflict, several units from all three peoples of the peninsula fought the Urceans with distinction, even in defeat. The Confederation was on the defensive and losing the war by 2009, presenting an opportunity for the neighboring Algosh to launch a coup, leveraging their prominence within the Confederation's military to dissolve its institutions and establish the Algosh-dominated state of Algoquona in place of the Confederation.
.jpg)
The establishment of Algoquona was disastrous for the economy of the Chenango peninsula. In addition to the ravages of war brought on by resistance to the coup, the formation of the Algosh-dominated state precipitated a period of looting whereby most of the already limited movable wealth of the peninsula was taken and relocated to the Algosh heartland. In addition to the obvious items, including cash and precious metals, the cultural patrimony of the peninsula (such as valuable artwork and historical artifacts) as well as any technical experts were carried off to Kaigwa and its environs, creating significant deprivation. A minor uprising in 2013 also led to the deportation of many of the participants into slavery in Varshan as well as the abduction of Chenango women by the Algoquonan military. Though it did not participate in the 2013 uprising, the leaders of Pachaug began to agitate for greater autonomy within the Algosh state and, later, right to appeal to Urcea. These agitations resulted in Operation Western Blizzard and the declaration of Pachaug's independence as an international charter city in 2017. Though the ethnically Island Honeoye Pachoy achieved their freedom, it led to further deprivations for the rest of the peoples of the peninsula as it was one of the major trade centers of the area. By 2020, the Chenango peninsula had gone from a unremarkable backwater in Cusinaut to one of the poorest places on earth. Significant resentment at the Algosh became a unifying element of society between all three peoples, activating the omàmìwi to organize armed resistance in secret.
Confederacy established
As the Final War of the Deluge began, the omàmìwi of the Chenango peninsula began to work with clandestine Urcean organizations to stockpile weapons. After two years of preparation, the omàmìwi launched their uprising in October of 2023 against Algosh forces under the name of the Organized Militia. Following the Four Neighbors campaign which liberated the Nysdra Provisional Republic to the peninsula's southwest, the peninsula was the site of a significant Algosh military presence. The uprising generally became a stalemate, with the Algosh controlling major strategic sites and cities while the Organized Militia controlled the countryside. In December 2023, Urcea and NSTA recognized the Organized Militia as legitimate state actors in Chenango and began to provide coordinated air and naval support to the rebels, allowing them to make some progress. Urcean ground forces did not begin to mass for a Chenango liberation until spring 2024 due to the commitments required in Varshan, but as the war there came to a close, Urcea launched its Chenango campaign in April of 2024. Though Urcean forces did most of the heavy frontline fighting, rebel forces provided important support on its flanks and also disrupted Algosh logistics and supply, leading to the ejection of Algosh forces from the territory of the Great Chenango by May, after which time a westward offensive out of Pachaug completely liberated the peninsula. Urcean forces largely handed cities and strategic points over to the Organized Militia while maintaining three large military bases within the country. On June 30th, 2024, the three peoples of the peninsula declared independence, forming the Chenango Confederate Republic. The new republic was assigned the de jure territorial control of the two international charter cities of Housatonic and Pachaug, largely in an effort to remove territory from de jure Algosh control rather than any intentionality to include those two city-states within the Confederacy. The Confederacy was admitted to the Nysdra Sea Treaty Association in late 2024.
Unlike the other post-Northern Confederation states, the Confederacy took relatively little time creating a new permanent government for itself. The Constitution of the Chenango Confederate Republic was drafted over the course of August and September 2024 and adopted on 1 January 2025, with a provisional government running the country until the regularly scheduled election later that year. The Confederacy functionally restored the Northern Confederation's ethnicities-based structure, creating three republics governing the Great Chenango, Little Chenango, and Island Honeoye respectively, with a small but functional central government extant to conduct foreign policy and mediate disputes between the republics. The Confederacy was, as a result of the Algosh occupation, deeply impoverished, and began to accept a large number of foreign aid funds from Urcea as well as pursuing a large number of non-Urcean international loans in a bid to maintain some financial independence. After the country's first organized democratic election in 2025, a new government took control in 2026. The first national government of the Confederacy reorganized the Organized Militia into the Trinational Army and began to use international funding to transform it into a highly organized modern fighting force along Occidental lines. The Chenango experience of Algosh occupation had created a more militant and defensive outlook, and accordingly the military transformation enjoyed wide public support despite the considerable expenses put on the state.
In 2028, the Confederacy entered a significant financial crisis due to its military expenditure and large number of international loans. The Confederacy entered a risk of default, requiring Urcea to eventually absorb its outstanding bonds in exchange of the creation of a Urcean-appointed Financial Control Board. The FCB managed to secure additional Urcean grant funds and removed some inefficiencies in the military and government apparatus, ending the crisis and restoring the Confederacy's financial position. In 2029, the newly modernized Trinational Army participated in the League of Nations occupation of Varshan, the only country from Cusinaut to contribute troops. In 2029, Housatonic began to pursue formal independence as it transitioned from a charter city to a sovereign state, a process which had the full support of the Chenango Confederacy. Housatonic became independent in 2030 as the Housatonic Republic.
Pachoy Rebellion aftermath and integration
The independence of Housatonic led to significant calls for government reform in Pachaug, which had suffered as a consequence of the economic rise of other parts of NSTA. New leaders took charge of Pachaug following elections in 2030 and began symbolic efforts to signal their city's attempts at independence. The symbolic measures encouraged street protests which evolved into an uprising over the course of March and April 2032. As the uprising progressed into creation of an insurrectionary government which took hostages, NSTA members met on 4 May 2032 and voted to respond with force. The Trinational Army was chosen to act because of a desire to avoid Levantine or Occidental forces against protesters, as NSTA was instead desirous of Cronans being seen to resolve their own issues; as Pachaug was de jure part of the Confederacy's territory, it was determined that the TNA would be deployed. On 5 May the Confederacy voted to intervene. The TNA entered Pachaug territory on 10 May and, following quick gains, its advance slowly bogged down into a siege that would last until August. Operational failures on the TNA's part led to the death of most of the hostages and a massacre on 18 August once Pachaug had been retaken. The Pachaug debacle instituted a period of reform of the still less-than-a-decade old TNA which included foreign advisors.
After the rebellion was crushed, it became clear that Pachaug required a final political solution, and most agreed that independence was not in the cards. Due to the legal and ethnic ties between Pachaug and the Confederacy, it soon became consensus both in and outside of Pachaug that union with the Confederation was the best outcome. Following months of military occupation and negotiations between both parties, Pachaug was admitted as the Fourth Republic of the Confederacy on 1 July 2033. Since that time, the Confederacy has been focused on economic and social integration of Pachaug as well as its continued climb out of poverty via the improvement economy.
Government and politics
The Chenango state is a confederacy of four units, each with large autonomy over internal affairs and public administration. The Constitution of the Chenango Confederate Republic is loosely based on the Northern Confederation who coordinated its members external affairs but mostly left members to govern themselves autonomously with loose conflict resolution powers. The Constitution grants extended powers to the central government, however, such as binding arbitration, making it illegal for the Republics to defy a conflict resolution order from the government, as well as centralized custom controls, powers to tax for, create, and regulate transportation networks, and critically the central government is empowered to raise and maintain armed forces. Some observers have noted that the Constitution provides for something more like a "loose federal republic" than a "strong confederacy".
The Confederate central government has two branches, an Executive and Legislative. All judicial matters are the matters of the Republics and disputes between Republican courts are resolved by a direct act of the Legislature. The Legislature is unicameral and is referred to as the "High Council of the Chenango Confederate Republic", which is elected every five years in years beginning with 0 and 5. Seats are apportioned in a system known as "proportional plus five", wherein the seats are assigned each decade in proportion of the population of each Republic out of a pool of 85 seats. After apportionment, each Republic receives an additional five seats. This system was designed to ensure a relative balance between the four Republics. The High Council has authority to approve or reject treaties and has all legislative powers over the limited authority delineated to the central government. The Executive branch is lead by the President, who is elected nation-wide using an electoral college in the same terms as the High Council. The President negotiates treaties, generally conducts war and peace on behalf of the Republic including oversight of the military, and has administrative control over the Transportation and Customs Departments, the two main agencies of the central government. Unlike nearly all other countries, the High Council and President do not have a permanent seat of government, instead meeting in various buildings offered by the four republics on a rotating basis. The military and customs department do, however, have permanent headquarters in Mahatnoy.
Due to the foreign influence exerted on the Confederacy by Urcea in supporting its constitution, the Chenango Confederacy is sometimes referred to as a benefactor confederacy.
Republics
The Confederacy consists of four confederate units known as Republics. Unlike many other confederate and federate states, each of the republics is numbered rather than named for the place or people it encompasses. Accordingly, the First Republic encompasses the lands of the Great Chenango people, the Second Republic of the Little Chenango people, and the Third Republic of the Island Honeoye. The Republics are largely free to determine their own form of government and how it functions. In 2033, the territory of Pachaug was incorporated as the Fourth Republic.
The First, Third, and Fourth Republics share the same form of government which is based on the model of the Urcean province except with unicameral rather than bicameral legislatures that elect the Republic's chief executive, in each case referred to as the "Republican Executive". The unicameral legislature for both the First and Third Republics are simply referred to as the "Republican Constituent Assembly", which assigns its own electoral districts on a decade-by-decade basis. Republican Executives are typically chosen by heritage rather than by political party within the First, Third, and Fourth Republics, with relatives typically succeeding along clan or tribal basis. In both of these Republics, terms for the legislature are five years along Urcean lines; the Republican Executive serves at the confidence of the legislature.
The Second Republic has a hybrid-legislative model wherein all legislative and executive powers are invested in the Council of Five, the leader of whom normally represents the Council but has limited institutional power over his or her peers. The Council is comprised of the hereditary heads of the four largest clans of the Little Chenango people which represent the vast majority of the population. The fifth member is elected from a constituency of all Second Republic citizens who are not members of the four largest clans. The clan leaders serve for life unless removed by a vote of their clan, which a non-governmental function, whereas the fifth, elected, member serves four year terms.
Politics
Political movements in the Confederacy are organized as "Leagues", loose alliances of similar political parties and groups within each of the four confederate republics. These leagues themselves generally consist of a shifting group of omàmìwi, the clan-like social institutions which dominate Confederate society. There are around seven to ten major leagues within the Confederacy at any one time, with the most powerful one being broadly associated with traditional values,a nationalist ethos, and a vaguely pro-Urcean foreign policy.
Culture
The Chenango Confederacy comprises of three main cultural groups, with the Great Chenango making up a majority of the population, the Little Chenango a sizable minority, and the Island Honeoye a small minority, which was slightly increased by the integration of Pachaug into the Confederacy.
The three main ethnicities are the cultural backdrop, rather than the primary organizing element, by which the Confederacy should be understood. Instead, cross-ethnic networks of common ancestor worship are the main societal institution within Confederate society. These clan-like groups are called Omàmìwi, a term that means a kind of kinship group that is larger than family but larger than nation, and should not be understood to be synonymous with tribe. The omàmìwi are distinguished from one another by their shared Kānenaka or revered ancestor. Crucically, the omàmìwi are cross-ethnicity; the milennia of intermarriage between the three ethnic groups means that many people from all three groups could see a common ancestor as Kānenaka despite their other cultural or linguistic differences. Scholars have observed approximately two hundred and eighty four major omàmìwi within the Confederacy. Due to their prevalence, the Confederacy is sometimes casually referred to as the "Republic of the Omàmìwi".
Due to the nature of elevating a Kānenaka within the M'acunist religious tradition, some omàmìwi are divergent from others by identifying a different ancestor within a same familial line. Though individuals are typically born into the omàmìwi, this conflicting and divergent nature of the group identity means individuals can and do switch omàmìwi to identify more closely with one Kānenaka claimant than the other. These "rival" omàmìwis have generally hostile social relations with one another and do not readily associate, but many omàmìwi are what would be considered "neutral" towards one another due to unrelated ancestry and non-conflicting Kānenaka claims. Accordingly, the omàmìwi groups are not only religious in nature but also political and economic. Different omàmìwi will engage in specific "ancestral" trades, support certain political causes (especially those led by their fellow omàmìwi member) and individuals based on the balance of power between the various omàmìwis, and will often heavily discriminate based on one's omàmìwi affiliation. The omàmìwi ties are understood to be the major social cohesion between the otherwise disparate members of the Confederacy, binding it together as a single society rather than three nations allied together for political reasons. Most prominently, Pachaug - despite sharing common ethnic and linguistic ties with the Island Honeoye - does not have a significant network of omàmìwis, which is part of the reason why it was excluded from the Confederacy at its foundation.
Professional sports, particularly the Northern Crona Lacrosse Association, are very popular in the Confederacy, and lacrosse is widely played at both the scholastic and popular level. The country's enduring poverty and lack of significant capital has precluded the expansion of professional lacrosse to the country, though foreign investors and even some development organizations such as the Urcean Agency for Cronan Economic Development have been working since the late 2020s to site and construct a professional sports facility within the country.
Demographics
In 2030, the population of the Chenango Confederacy was 8,682,669. Of these, self-identified Great Chenango made up a majority of the population with 57%, followed by the Little Chenango at 38%, and the Island Honeoye forming just 5% of the population. A majority of the people in the Confederacy live below the poverty line, with the next largest group subsisting just above it. Income inequality is not common in the Confederacy as there are relatively few super wealthy individuals or families within the country. Educational attainment is very low, with only 33% of the country being literate. Healthcare outcomes are also very low, and the Confederacy has one of the world's lowest life expectancies at 57.5 years.
Most people within the Confederacy speak the Housatonic language. Over 90% of the population are M'acunist, though the country has a growing minority of Catholics, particularly in Pachaug and the areas bordering the former Unnuaq Mission State.
Economy
The Chenango Confederacy is one of the world's poorest countries, and it sits at the brink between a developing country and a least developed country. The Chenango peninsula was historically always the poorest part of the Northern Confederation, with few natural resources, limited agricultural viability, and poor positioning relative to the Confederation's major economic drivers. Pachaug was the sole economic light of the area, serving as an important port with a bustling fishing industry. The economy was significantly impacted by the fifteen year period of Algosh domination between the Algosh coup in 2009 and the declaration of the Confederacy's independence in 2024. Many of the country's leading technical and academic experts were relocated from the already-limited urban centers of the country to Algosh institutions, and in many cases much of the portable wealth of the country was literally carried away to the Algosh heartland during the period between 2009 and 2011. Another major economic blow came in 2017 when Pachaug became independent of Algoquona following Operation Western Blizzard, most of the economic ties between the peninsula and its most prosperous city were severed. This led to a major wave of deprivation, famine, and outmigration. It also precipitated a second round of expropriation by the government, as any strategically valuable industry was moved out of the now-vulnerable peninsula into the Algosh heartland. By the time of the declaration of the Confederacy's independence in 2024, the Chenango peninsula had recorded economic decline every year for the last fifteen years.
The reincorporation of Pachaug in the 2030s stimulated the economy slightly, as post-rebellion reconstruction and economic reintegration of the city precipitated renewed investment in the eastern tip of the Chenango peninsula. The modern Confederacy is one of the world's major recipients of development aid, and is a priority area for the Urcean Agency for Cronan Economic Development. Like many other countries in Cusinaut, it is subject to a system known as the improvement economy, or an effort to stimulate urbanization and economic modernization by means of massive infrastructure funding from Urcea. The Chenango Confederacy has been cited as a particular area of growth potential as it was one of the least developed parts of the Northern Confederation with few miles of track and virtually no major highways to speak of. Accordingly, significant development has occurred with the nation's physical infrastructure in the past several years, giving foreign observers the opportunity to observe a rare case where the improvement economy model is being used in the case of so-called "virgin roadways" rather than restoring or upgrading previously extant networks. In addition to the major networks, the Confederacy requires the construction of more schools and hospitals than other developing Cronan countries due to a lack of investment in education and healthcare in the Confederacy in the past. Most economists project the Chenango Confederacy will require additional time to see growth from the improvement economy model due to the newness of the networks being created, as it will take time for Chenango society to adjust and form new economic and social spheres of gravity. Nonetheless, the investment in the workforce and sudden appearance of well-capitalized local contracting firms has had a limited positive effect in ending the economic decline of the 2010s and stagnation of the 2020s, with modest economic growth recorded every year since 2031. In 2034, foreign capital-funded resource expeditions discovered an economically viable amount of cobalt under the Confederacy, spurring significant interest among Occidental as well as Nysdrine firms to begin exploitation. While such mines have not opened as of yet and further exploration continues, some have suggested cobalt exports may join together with the improvement economy to propel the Confederacy out of poverty and into global relevance.
In addition to foreign investments and attempts to modernize the economy via infrastructure investment, the independence of the Confederacy and existence of a public administrative apparatus in the Confederacy has produced modest gains in and around the capital city of Mahatnoy. Additionally, the country's relatively modern military is one of the largest sectors of domestic economic growth as a result of military wages and the opening of a small arms production sector in the country, mostly including regional branches of well known Levantine arms manufacturers. The military was, as of 2033, the government's top funding priority.
Military
The Chenango Confederacy has two military branches as well as a shared naval force. The primary component of its armed forces is the Trinational Army (TNA), which is the Confederacy's ground-based military force with some limited maritime and airborne assets as well, primarily helicopters of various kinds. The Trinational Army replaced the Organized Militia of the country, which conducted operations during the Confederacy's quest for independence in the Final War of the Deluge and operated from 2023 through 2026. Unlike the Organized Militia, the Trinational Army is a professional, standing army, and in 2032 it had an on-paper strength of 38,000 men, though many of these personnel are still considered to be in training or fit only for garrison duty. The TNA is organized into three mechanized brigades, a marine and coast guard regiment, an artillery regiment, an engineer regiment, a logistical regiment, and several specialized battallions as well as a training center command. In 2026, the Trinational Army sent its 1st Mechanized Brigade to serve in the joint League of Nations occupation of Varshan, the only Cusinautic country to do so. The mission there concluded in 2029 and served both as a participation in the international mission as well as a continued training and military development exercise, as commanders and personnel from the TNA regularly interacted with military personnel from other occupying countries. The TNA is largely equipped with refurbished versions of previous generation Urcean equipment, but in 2032 it placed orders for more modern Urcean equipment to be delivered in the future. The TNA is the fourth largest army in NSTA, following the armed forces of Urcea, Quetzenkel, and New Harren. In 2032, the TNA entered Pachaug to suppress the Pachoy Rebellion. Although professionally organized, the TNA is generally thought by most international observers to have performed poorly during the rebellion, including and especially in their partially failed attempt to rescue hostages during that conflict as well as during a high profile friendly fire incident. In the wake of the rebellion, the TNA contracted with Intrepid Enterprises to examine its shortcomings, retrain officers and key personnel, and offer recommendations for future improvements to the Army.
The Trinational Air Force is a small air force designed to largely conduct operations in tandem with the larger Urcean Royal Air Force.
The Nysdra Sea Guard serves as the navy of the Chenango Confederacy as well as of several other NSTA members.
The military composes a large part of public expenditure in the Confederacy, and its preeminence has become a significant domestic political issue given the country's poverty.