Effect: SL formal declaration of war

How would a formal declaration of war by the League change things? How, or, would it affect Beowulf? How would it affect the Harrington plan? Would it alter it in any way?

Solarian citizen sentiments are running very high now. Could the League harness that anger and therefore financial backing?

Simply curiosity on my part.

cthia wrote:Solarian citizen sentiments are running very high now. Could the League harness that anger and therefore financial backing?

The hoi polloi of New Chicago are stirred up by the "Ministry of Education" but I doubt the rest of the League is anything like as demonstrative or angry. All it takes is one member to veto a declaration of war and it is doubtful that there is only one system that would veto; roughly 25% supported Beowulf against an "investigation of possible treason."

One of the scenes with the Mandarins covered the possibility of a DoW and dismissed it as impossible.

cthia wrote:Would a formal declaration of war by the League change things?

A DoW allows the SLN to conscript SDFs and require cooperation of member states. It also allows for direct taxation; it at least frees up funds beyond the normal income levels.

cthia wrote:How, or, would it effect Beowulf?

Beowulf is already on the path to Secession and the SLN is enroute to "monitor" the vote in its usual non-partisan way -- which is to say, "stop a secession at any cost." It is doubtful that a DoW could be passed soon enough to actually make secession illegal (which would seem a logical consequence of a DoW.) Therefore, Beowulf would be unaffected by a DoW since they will have seceded and joined the GA openly before any changes prompted by a DoW could affect them.

cthia wrote:How would it effect the Harrington plan? Would it alter it in any way?

It might make it harder to negotiate League members into seceding or it might make it easier. It would probably be a wash and have no real effect on the Harrington Doctrine or GA strategy.

Like Harold said, there is zero chance that the Assembly will approve a declaration of war.

However, even if it managed to do so nothing would change. Beowulf, and shortly several other member worlds as well, have already taken the first steps towards secession. Legally - that is to say, constitutionally - nothing and no one can prevent a member world from seceding. The member states can do so whenever they choose, with no reference to galactic events or concerns.

As for Honor's plan, there already exists a de facto state of war between the League and the Grand Alliance. Right now and for several years to come the GA holds an insurmountable technological, tactical and strategic advantage over the League, but that advantage will start disappearing within just a handful of years. It would therefor be criminally negligent, possibly even treasonous, for the GA leadership to back down from the war effort, as it will simply give the League a chance to catch up. As such, the GA needs to strike now and strike hard, whatever the de jure status of their international relations with the League might be. Certainly, a formal declaration of war by the League won't change the internal dynamics of the League - its union will remain extremely brittle and will shatter under a sufficient external onslaught.

Nico wrote:As for Honor's plan, there already exists a de facto state of war between the League and the Grand Alliance. ...

From the same conference where she proposed the :Harrington Doctrine" just a paragraph or two later:

Storm From The Shadows
Chapter Forty-four wrote:"Well, maybe I've got a point, and maybe I don't," Honor said a bit more briskly, and her expression had turned bleak once again. "But assuming I do, then the most dangerous thing I can see the League doing is simply refusing to declare war on us and conducting whatever operations are going on in and around the Talbott Quadrant as a 'police action.' If they refuse to extend their operations beyond that area, no matter how intensive their operations are within that area, and if they consistently take the position that they're reacting defensively, then we can't expand the fighting into the other areas where we would need to take the war to them before they manage to duplicate our hardware advantages without becoming the aggressor in the eyes of all the rest of the League. And if we do that, our chances of breaking the League and 'destroying our enemy by making him our friend' probably go right out the airlock. Which means they get the time they need to build the steamroller they need to roll right over us."

The Mandarins and Adm Rajampet clearly did NOT follow that course of action and Manticore and the GA are free to conduct "unrestricted warfare" on the Solarian League. They don't intend to actually conduct unrestricted warfare as that would be counter-productive, but they aren't limited to responding to SLN actions in a restricted area, either.

From ART:

Honor Harrington wrote:"I hereby inform you, Admiral, that you are in violation of Manticoran territorial space. I further inform you that the Star Empire of Manticore considers your presence here, given the many previous instances of blatant and unprovoked Solarian aggression against the Star Empire, an act of war. Should you not immediately depart Manticoran territorial space, Her Majesty's Navy and its allies will respond to that act of war with deadly force. Should you cross our hyper limit after this warning, I am instructed to inform you that Empress Elizabeth and her government will take it as incontrovertible proof that, despite its pious diplomatic protestations and posturing, the Solarian League in fact actively desires a state of war between it and Manticore. Should that be the case, we will certainly give you one."

...

"... 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."

As we know, Filareta crossed the hyper limit and his forces were engaged and destroyed. The recordings of those conversations and events were sent to the Mandarins and then released to the public.

It will be interesting to see how the League responds, given it isn't a coherent entity. The Mandarins, Assembly, Battle Fleet, Frontier Fleet, OFS et al are all shattering into different factions, some of them pre-prepared(Maya, RF) and many not.

I think we all agree that the League actually achieving a formal DoW is slim to none. (Although it wouldn't surprise moi.)

Yet, on the off chance that they somehow managed to, my mind began to wander. When I first puzzled over it, what came to mind is the baggage I carry from movies when someone is trying to diffuse a bomb, trick wired with tamper-proof mechanisms such as collapsible circuits resulting in an inexorable steady tick down to detonation. When some poor soul attempts to diffuse it anyway out of desperation, the countdown speeds up resulting in a dramatic Hollywood style "Uh Oh!" IOW, I imagined that a League DoW would hasten their demise. Harold's post of Harrington's intimations seem to support that.

However, I'd think that it'd plunge Beowulf somewhat into limbo. At the very least delaying their secession until after the disposition of the war. If the fleet dispatched to "observe" the secession vote at Beowulf somehow wielded a formal DoW wouldn't that complicate matters somewhat? After all, if the League carried out further operations involving Beowulf yet again, not yet having seceded, wouldn't Beowulf be Constitutionally obligated to carry on their "wifely" duties?

Insightful post Harold. And I think you hit the bullseye dead center. Honestly, I have no idea either way - except some nagging suspicions toward it muddying Beowulf's waters.

There is one concern of my own that came to me. While reading ART, there was a passage concerning the intimations of one of the Mandarins (I think), not sure which, which pretty much pegged the Harrington Plan w/o even being aware of it. I think it was in a reference to this "'cabal' claimed by the GA" and an afterthought of its effect.

I don't understand why the League Constitution doesn't have "emergency" powers to save itself when "National Security" is threatened. Everyone seems to agree that the League has a noose around its neck. Barring that the League government is weighted down by beaurecracy and couldn't quickly pass a "bill on a hill of beans," surely the correct strings to pull has to be there in case of a threat to national security?

Weird Harold wrote:

cthia wrote:Solarian citizen sentiments are running very high now. Could the League harness that anger and therefore financial backing?

The hoi polloi of New Chicago are stirred up by the "Ministry of Education" but I doubt the rest of the League is anything like as demonstrative or angry. All it takes is one member to veto a declaration of war and it is doubtful that there is only one system that would veto; roughly 25% supported Beowulf against an "investigation of possible treason."

One of the scenes with the Mandarins covered the possibility of a DoW and dismissed it as impossible.

cthia wrote:Would a formal declaration of war by the League change things?

A DoW allows the SLN to conscript SDFs and require cooperation of member states. It also allows for direct taxation; it at least frees up funds beyond the normal income levels.

cthia wrote:How, or, would it effect Beowulf?

Beowulf is already on the path to Secession and the SLN is enroute to "monitor" the vote in its usual non-partisan way -- which is to say, "stop a secession at any cost." It is doubtful that a DoW could be passed soon enough to actually make secession illegal (which would seem a logical consequence of a DoW.) Therefore, Beowulf would be unaffected by a DoW since they will have seceded and joined the GA openly before any changes prompted by a DoW could affect them.

cthia wrote:How would it effect the Harrington plan? Would it alter it in any way?

It might make it harder to negotiate League members into seceding or it might make it easier. It would probably be a wash and have no real effect on the Harrington Doctrine or GA strategy.

cthia wrote:I don't understand why the League Constitution doesn't have "emergency" powers to save itself when "National Security" is threatened. Everyone seems to agree that the League has a noose around its neck. Barring that the League government is weighted down by beaurecracy and couldn't quickly pass a "bill on a hill of beans," surely the correct strings to pull has to be there in case of a threat to national security?

Probably for similar reasons that the EU (as far as I can see) doesn't have emergency powers. None of the sovereign nations that agreed to form it (or join later) were willing to give up that much control. They're probably more worried about how a emergency could be exploited (or created, and then exploited) to override their rights than they are that the system might come apart by paralyzing itself during an actual existential emergency.

(That probably goes double for the League since, unlike the EU, when it formed there literally were no external forces powerful enough to threaten or seriously harm it)

"I don't understand why the League Constitution doesn't have "emergency" powers to save itself when "National Security" is threatened."

Perhaps a perfectly adequate number of people in designing the League realized that the largest single danger to any country is people who think there should be states of emergency.

Cthia, there are no restrictions on secession by a League member world. Any one of them can decide to secede in the middle of a war, if it comes to that, and the League will have no constitutional grounds to protest such a move.

However, might makes right, the winner writes history (and sets precedent), etc etc. As we saw, the Mandarins and their lackeys in the Justice Dept and Assembly are arguing that since that provision has never been utilized before, it therefor is no longer valid. That is a decision that will ultimately be decided on the field of battle.

It is actually pretty similar to the whole 'state sovereignty' question during the lead-up to the American Civil War. The US Constitution actually regards the States as sovereign polities, which, given the legal definition of the term 'sovereign', means that technically the secessionist states were within their rights to leave the Union. However, the Unionist states contested that right on the grounds that the states all agreed to a 'perpetual union' when they were admitted to the Union. Ultimately the Unionist argument emerged victorious due to the Union victory.