Raiding or Piracy?

One old saw is that "War is armed robbery writ large."

Poker

I think you are wrong a state of war was declared by manticore ART page 274 hardback.

" I repeat my original warning. If the forces under your command cross the hyper limit of this star system you will be engaged and destroyed and a state of war will exist between the Solarian League and the Star Empire of Manticore and its allies"

" Alexander-Harrington, clear."

garmine wrote:I think you are wrong a state of war was declared by manticore ART page 274 hardback.

" I repeat my original warning. If the forces under your command cross the hyper limit of this star system you will be engaged and destroyed and a state of war will exist between the Solarian League and the Star Empire of Manticore and its allies"

" Alexander-Harrington, clear."

You certainly are right to point out that Harrington's statement recognizes a defacto state of war. To become de jure, however, it requires a delaration by Parliament.

For past precedent, look at Field of Dishonor for the fight to get the original declaration against the Peeps through. Without the declaration, the were legal restrictions that prevented the RMN from going on the offensive, restricting its activity to the defensive.

Don

n7axw wrote:

garmine wrote:I think you are wrong a state of war was declared by manticore ART page 274 hardback.

" I repeat my original warning. If the forces under your command cross the hyper limit of this star system you will be engaged and destroyed and a state of war will exist between the Solarian League and the Star Empire of Manticore and its allies"

" Alexander-Harrington, clear."

You certainly are right to point out that Harrington's statement recognizes a defacto state of war. To become de jure, however, it requires a delaration by Parliament.

For past precedent, look at Field of Dishonor for the fight to get the original declaration against the Peeps through. Without the declaration, the were legal restrictions that prevented the RMN from going on the offensive, restricting its activity to the defensive.

Don

Yah, but the fact that she said "a state of war will exist," implies, to me at least, that either Parliament is ready to vote a deceleration out immediately, or they have already voted out something that said "If any war ships from the Solarian League cross the Manticoran Hyper limit with the intent to attack or destroy our system, a state of war will exist between the Star Empire and the Solarian League."

n7axw wrote:

garmine wrote:I think you are wrong a state of war was declared by manticore ART page 274 hardback.

" I repeat my original warning. If the forces under your command cross the hyper limit of this star system you will be engaged and destroyed and a state of war will exist between the Solarian League and the Star Empire of Manticore and its allies"

" Alexander-Harrington, clear."

You certainly are right to point out that Harrington's statement recognizes a defacto state of war. To become de jure, however, it requires a delaration by Parliament.

For past precedent, look at Field of Dishonor for the fight to get the original declaration against the Peeps through. Without the declaration, the were legal restrictions that prevented the RMN from going on the offensive, restricting its activity to the defensive.

Don

That was Manticoran law - Capareli notes that, if the government asks them to, the navy will prosecute the war until it runs out of money, despite the lack of declaration.

All of these responses to my previous post may be true,

BUT...

it remains true that Honor Harrington as a fleet commander cannot issue a de jure declaration of war. It takes Parliament to do that. Full stop. That was my point.

Don

The Manticore Parliament probably meet off screen and voted through an act of war if certain criteria were meet (i.e. SLN attacked the home system) as Honor wouldn't have been able to make that statement with the Government approval.

But given the current political parties, would have probably been,

you know the SLN, destroyed three of our ships, has just attacked Talbott with X SDs, there sending x SDs here, we've warned them, we've pleaded with them, we've told them there being manipulated. Any one think that there going to back down now?

So if they cross the line with the intention of attacking us, do we go to war?
Parliament - lower house
Centralist (Alexandrea's Party) - Yes
New Liberals (Catharine's Party) - I don't like it but - Yes
Crown Loyalists (not sure) - Yes
New men (not sure) (given the way the winds blowing) - yes

Parliament - Upper house
Centralist (Alexandrea's Party) - Yes
New Liberals (Catharine's Party) - I don't like it but - Yes
Crown Loyalists (not sure) - Yes
Old Liberals (Houseman and co) - please just go away

Not a very interesting part of the story

n7axw wrote:All of these responses to my previous post may be true,

BUT...

it remains true that Honor Harrington as a fleet commander cannot issue a de jure declaration of war. It takes Parliament to do that. Full stop. That was my point.

Don

As I have said before; the current US Congress, if on fire, couldn't pass the "Pour Water on Congress Act." However, if a hostile attack fleet sailed into San Francisco Bay, it wouldn't take more than a day to get a declaration of war voted out.

Manticore, on the other hand has basically no opposition party. If Grantville asked for a declaration, he would get it.

crewdude48 wrote:

n7axw wrote:All of these responses to my previous post may be true,

BUT...

it remains true that Honor Harrington as a fleet commander cannot issue a de jure declaration of war. It takes Parliament to do that. Full stop. That was my point.

Don

As I have said before; the current US Congress, if on fire, couldn't pass the "Pour Water on Congress Act." However, if a hostile attack fleet sailed into San Francisco Bay, it wouldn't take more than a day to get a declaration of war voted out.

Manticore, on the other hand has basically no opposition party. If Grantville asked for a declaration, he would get it.

I have no quarrel with your statement, either of them, for that matter. My statement was is response to the notion that Honor's statement to Fileretta constituted a declaration of war, which coming from a fleet commander could not be true -- a small but important point.

Don

n7axw wrote:

crewdude48 wrote:As I have said before; the current US Congress, if on fire, couldn't pass the "Pour Water on Congress Act." However, if a hostile attack fleet sailed into San Francisco Bay, it wouldn't take more than a day to get a declaration of war voted out.

Manticore, on the other hand has basically no opposition party. If Grantville asked for a declaration, he would get it.

I have no quarrel with your statement, either of them, for that matter. My statement was is response to the notion that Honor's statement to Fileretta constituted a declaration of war, which coming from a fleet commander could not be true -- a small but important point.

Don

And that small but very important point is why I asked the question in the first place.

Thank you Lazarlives for your response. It contained everything I thought I wanted to know when I started this. Mike is covered, barely, by the fig leaf of the offensive acts of the SLN. Since everything up to and including Crandell were responses to direct attacks, there is absolutely no question about their legality, even though not all of those actions were within the borders of the SEM. Her attack on Mesa could be covered two ways. First, by the fact that they had uncovered evidence that Mesa had instigated and funded terroristic attacks on the SEM. Second, Torch is a "client" state or "allied" state and they have formally declared war on Mesa. The RMN is simply giving them a hand with their war.

Meyers, however, is a different kettle of fish altogether. It is an independent star nation in it's own right. It is not part of the SL. It is simply a planet where the SLN and OFS has set up an administrative hub. It has done so with a formal treaty with Meyers. The fact that the treaty was extorted at gunpoint is, for the moment, immaterial. Since Mike has not received a formal declaration of war against either Meyers or the SL, she is in effect committing acts of piracy to protect her nation. Although, since she has not taken anything from Meyers, that might be a debatable point in their case.

Since many, if not most, of the Verge planets are nominally independent systems, how can the RMN justify their actions in those systems without a formal declaration? They are not legally part of the SL, even if they are administered by OFS. They will not be covered by even a formal declaration against the SL. All that does is make any SLN and OFS operations within a given system legitimate targets. How does Mike and 19th Fleet, or for that matter, any other Fleet/Task Force/ Task Group make that distinction?