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Foreign and Internal Policies
The Committee of Five has two separate policies: one for internal political action within their immediate zone of control, and a second, “foreign policy” for dealing with less immediate threats within the larger theater of operations.

The combined effort can best be summed up as “keep potential adversaries occupied with a variety of divide and conquer tactics while bringing the maximum possible force to bear against those threatening the immediate zone of local control.” The external threats are, for the most part, dealt with via covert agents, subverting local democracies and supporting the major substructures of the various warlords who have risen since the war. In a surprising, even breathtaking, radical policy, the Free State allied itself with the minorities for the purpose of exploiting their large manpower pool in order to seal off the borders of the Free State from interference. While the very notion of treating with these “inferior people” would seem to be highly unorthodox to the Free State’s founders, the ability to secure the Free State in the aftermath of nuclear war by the act of allying themselves with the various minorities with complete confidence in their devotion allowed the Free State the ability to operate freely and securely. In the one hundred and forty years since this policy was started, this confidence has been absolutely justified. The result is that during the critical early years, any power hostile to the Free State, and any criminal trying to escape Free State justice, had to pass through territory where the local population supported the Free State.

This foreign policy is run almost completely by the Social Security Service. Their handpicked agents keep the barbarians off the doorstep of the Free State. These agents are some of the brightest, most self-sufficient and resourceful operatives ever to practice the ancient crafts of murder, blackmail and bribery. Publicly, the Free State maintains the image of a kindly and efficient group of modern-day Zionists, laboring to build a new life out of the ruins of a post-nuclear America. Social Action Projects such as building sewage treatment plants, drilling a new water well, building a rural electrical power plant, building schools and churches are broadcast proudly to all, thus demonstrating to all, the high moral and ethical position of the Free State. Meanwhile, its agents conduct a brutal foreign policy that out-cheats, out-bribes, out-assassinated and out-manipulates anything that ancient Constantinople ever did to create the modern meaning of “Byzantine Intrigues.”

The Social Security Service maintains a network of agents that covers much of the Eastern and Midwestern United States. Their operations range from supporting a bandit kingdom on the shores of Lake Michigan, to a quasi-military pirate empire in New England. The SSS supports both sides in a bloody and bitter mini-civil war in Virginia and has people in Iowa eating their own belts and shoe leather in order to survive.

Internal policy is equally convoluted. The Free State is run like a cross between an armed kibbutz and a fundamentalist revival retreat. Everywhere that one goes within the Free State, one sees happy faces and busy hands, all working at feeding society, keeping it clothed, educating the young, maintaining the vital community facilities and meeting, classifying and integrating all new comers into what appears to be a strict, but reasonably fair and efficient society. There are no gas chambers, no concentration camps and no downtrodden masses of brutally oppressed slave races. Free State society projects a rather martial, but not a draconian regimented air of people, “forced by the harsh necessities of the world they find themselves in, to take up arms and protect what they have labored to build here by the honest sweat of their brows…etc…etc…etc.” If portions of the Free State seem a little biased or unfair, the fault, if there is one, lies with the current times, not the present government, which is “obviously doing the very best it can under trying circumstances.” As far as such things as racial animosities and crime go, prewar America should have had it so good. This is not Heaven on Earth, and the Millennium has come and gone without bringing a deliverer. But until Christ can get around to it, the Free State Committee of Five seems to be doing just fine by the citizenry, and they are giving this new nation a really good running try at being, if not paradise, at least not a living hell either. “Now, if only our neighbors could see things more reasonably.”

While shortages, hard work and even the minor stubs that occasionally gum up the government bureaucracy may provide a sticking point in the craw of most residents, it is obvious to most people who live here (and they will tell you so) that this is a great place to live and to raise a family. It would be an even better place if it weren’t for the intransigence of the (fill in the blank with the name of the current enemy)---”that slimy and unspeakable pack of low-down curs, who continue to resist those kindly folk who govern this great Free State.” The heartbreak, the grief, the genuine sorrow, and the pity of the Committee over the losses suffered by heroic boys who are fighting this hateful war is such a terrible thing to see that no one could possibly doubt that they have ending it and bringing peace as their up-most goal. “But it’s those lowlifes in (name the current location undergoing the Free State’s intentions) who’ve brought this grief and suffering down on us common folk. And don’t ever forget that everybody suffers when those murdering Morrow terrorists attack the citizens and other residents of this great community.”

And so the propaganda goes…