To whom do the privateers owe primary allegiance? Their organization or the country for whom they are fighting? With just a smidgeon of corruption and media connivance (you tell me if that exists in this country) it wouldn't be hard for a cartel to get approval and funding to attack their rivals.
Even with an organization with less disreputable initial aims than a cartel, mission creep can turn it into a public menace.
Going further, what would privateering look like in an era of drones? Drones can be carried and controlled in a truck as easily as in a boat--probably more so. Inconvenient prosecutors or judges might have to hide. Organizations do go rogue sometimes.
And as the cited Sal Mercogliano video notes, it isn't as though the US has a small navy anymore: 2nd largest in the world (Sal says 1st, but that's the Chinese). Recent events show that bureaucracies don't have to slow it down that much.
The law might have one useful side effect--it could force Congress to decide what sort of relationship we have with hostile non-state armed organizations. Is it a war, or something else--and when do we know we've won?
2 comments:
That was Thomas' post, I think, but I do favor privateering as a solution to some crises -- as well as the land-based form, especially to pursue things like terrorist groups and cartels.
The problem of loyalty was traditionally resolved the same way that other private companies' loyalty to the constitutional system is assured. Officially any corporation exists not to be loyal to a government, but to execute its fiduciary (and only!) duty to enrich its shareholders. Yet corporations have property they want protected by law, contracts they want enforced, and so forth. Thus, they end up coordinating with the government and pursuing their fiduciary duty within a legal framework -- it's in their best interest, even if their 'real' loyalty is to the shareholders rather than the citizenry.
Privateers hold a letter of marque from Congress that allows them to take prizes, which they then have to submit to what was called a "prize court" for adjudication. The legal system confirms that the prize was legitimate and gives them a legal title to it. In order to get the gains of their action transferred into a form they could sell and profit from, in other words, they have to remain loyal and submit to licensing and inspections of their actions.
That part, at least, doesn't worry me. The reason we stopped using privateers wasn't that they weren't adequately loyal -- in fact they were extremely effective in pursuing American interests in the Revolution and again in 1812. The reason was that the United States government, like European governments, created a large enough navy to pursue its interests abroad without needing them. While we still have a large navy, it is much smaller now than once; and aging, no longer capable of producing warships in anything like a reasonable time frame. This could be a useful way of addressing those shortfalls.
Yes, it was Thomas' post, but I was relying on your comment on it to get your sense on the issue.
I worry about the integrity of the "prize court", especially if the tools for attacking hostile non-state vessels (e.g. drones) are dual-use for land attacks that can be used in intimidation.
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