Theemile wrote:Kael Posavatz wrote:
Why would the same limitations apply?
Using the same rationale the US hasn't been in a 'war' since WWII. And yet, a state that is close enough in resemblance to war has existed at multiple points in time since that pretty much everyone calls them 'wars.' There has probably been one person since Truman has in all seriousness referred to Korea as a 'police action,' but I would not want to wager on there being two.
As a practical matter, whatever limitations exist, exist only so long as a political entity either A) holds itself to whatever standards it has set, or B) finds it convenient to do so.
Manticore is a case of the former (I'm sure that Elizabeth would have found it enormously 'convenient' to ignore parliament's dithering over the initial declaration of war against the People's Republic of Haven). The Mandarins and League Navy are a case of the latter (not SL as a whole, the distinction, I think, is rather important).
I don't have ART in front of me, but I recall a discussion about a legal article that allows the SLN to commit combat forces in face of 'imminent threat' or something similar without obtaining a declaration of war owing to League's size, travel times, need for commanders to be able to defend themselves, etc.
In the US, the President has the ability to use the US armed forces for 90 days in a conflict, before he has to ask Congress for a declaration of war.
But, he can only deploy what the armed forces already has or has the money to purchase. He cannot hire more than the previously allotted # of soldiers, he can't buy new tanks, he cannot buy more gas or bullets. He cannot call up any reserves, or State guards forces not already assigned to federal work.
This is what a declaration of war means: $, recruitment, procurement, and power to pull up reserves and regional guard forces.
Without it, you have your normal ops budget, and your normal forces. Small issues you can deal with and react to. Large ones, you can start the wheels moving, then you need the declaration to do more.
Essentially, the SL Constitution and legal precedent recognizes that the same rules which apply to the SLN in a formally declared war also apply in any "state of conflict" situation. Now, there are various levels of conflict, ranging from swatting a single pirate in the Fringe to suppressing an entire System Defense Force that goes rogue, and the constitution has always given the federal government the authority to commit forces without a formal declaration of war to deal with emergency threats.
This means everything the SLN has can be sent off to war, and they can buy more hardware and hire more people all they want as long as they can divert the money from other sources without a new, formal appropriation to support ops. The
intent of Article Seven was to allow response to time-critical situations in light of how long it would take (and how hard it would be) to get a formal declaration of war voted out of the Assembly, and the government has specific authority to apply existing funds
from other accounts to the war in the short term (i.e., between the exercise of Article Seven and the formal declaration of war). The drafters never envisioned a situation in which other accounts would be
drained without a declaration's ever having so much as been formally requested, but they never envisioned the growth of the eventual bureaucracy of the Mandarins, either. It may not have been made sufficiently clear, but it wasn't just the SLN that was in danger of collapse when the till ran dry; it was the
entire federal government.
Article Seven has been used many times in the past, however, and the legal precedents are abundantly clear. SLN units operating under Article Seven are legally in "a state of war" whether or not war has been declared. That means they are bound by the Articles of War which govern active hostilities.
