Zakharra wrote:There's going to be a military conflict between the RF and the GA sooner or later. The RF's goals are not going to coincide with the GAs at all in the long run. The RF's stated hidden goal as laid out by Albretch (?) is it replacing the SL in it's entirety. It will seek to have the rest of the SL systems join it, it will seek to be militarily equal with Manticore and the GA, it will seek to be better technology-wise over the GA and it will seek ITS best interests and its own policy over that of the GA.
For the short to medium term, the RF's goals and the GA goals are going to be roughly the same as every other former SL system: Stop the Chaos and bring back business as usual.
In the long-term to very long term, the RF's goal of becoming a new, more authoritarian SL, is going to conflict with almost everyone's self interest. If their expressed strategy of "going slow and letting other systems ask to join" is followed, it will be several centuries before there is any military element to the conflict. By that point, the Solarian League will be a historical footnote and the political situation will have evolved beyond recognition.
Zakharra wrote:Weird Harold wrote:Yeah, but I hardly consider High Ridge and his merry band of bandits as typical of Manticore's foreign policy traditions.
Probably not, but the fact a group like High Ridge was able to get into power doesn't mean another one like him cannot get into power again. Unless the SEM changes its laws, eventually, a group like High Ridge's will ascend to the Prime Ministership and control of the government, and there won't be anything the Queen/King will be able to do to stop it, nor will the treecats be able to stop it just because they dislike those people.
The regime of the High Ridge government will be precisely why the next Monarch to face such a choice will opt for the Constitutional crisis over "don't make waves in the middle of a war" -- the latter is the choice Elizabeth made, and in hind-sight sees as one of her greatest mistakes.
It is impossible to state categorically that such a venal and corrupt group won't get control of Manticore in the future, but the mere fact of the dog's dinner High Ridge and his merry band of bandits made of their time in office will work against anyone else doing something similar.
On the other hand, you're ignoring the point that the High Ridge administration represents slightly under 4/471 of Manticore's Constitutional Monarchy -- 0.8% of Manticore's history.
Zakharra wrote:Peoples intentions and cultures change and arrogance and self entitlement settles in, so how the treaties are interpreted will change over time. Look at what happened to the Solarian League and how it interpenetrated its own constitution and laws.
That is true. I tend to think that 471 years of fairly consistent non-aggression and non-expansion would tend to impose a bit of restraint on drastic changes. The SEM has stated a policy of non-expansion to the point of declining requests for admission except under extraordinary circumstances. This is especially true for former SL systems as the intent is to suppress any hint of expansionism or Imperialism.
I think it will take the Very Long term -- several centuries -- before Manticore changes enough to become predatory.
Zakharra wrote:If Manticore is seen doing this;
... The GA should be able to manage nodal fleet stations and random patrols over that many systems. Not that I believe complete Naval coverage will be either practical or desirable once Part One of the Harrington Doctrine is complete.
That comes off as being expansionist. Look at what happened to the Silesian Confederacy where the RMN ran patrols for a century. An empire and a kingdom split the Confederacy and it's now under their control.
Manticore ran anti-piracy patrols in Silesia for four centuries and was never seen as expansionist; Even when circumstances forced them to divide the Confederacy with the Andermani,
they effectively bought the systems from corrupt confederacy and system governors. Not much information beyond the bare fact of partitioning is given in textev, but there are hints that Manticore and the Andermani are seen more as saviors than conquistadors.
Note also, that nodal deployments are a Part One artifact and I specifically noted that they would be neither practical nor possible once Part One is complete.
What forces the GA maintains in the former SL sphere will be anti-piracy and mutual defense response forces -- mostly cruisers and smaller. IOW, the force mix appropriate to commerce protection and not the force mix of Conquistadors waiting to pounce.
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Answers! I got lots of answers!
(Now if I could just find the right questions.)
