Privateers

Grim's sense is that privateers could work better than the more bureaucratic armed forces. He has far more experience with them than I, but I worry about a few details.

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?