Menu
Sign In Search Podcasts Charts People & Topics Add Podcast API Pricing
Podcast Image

Astral Codex Ten Podcast

Highlights From The Comments On March Links

05 Mar 2021

Description

https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-march   [link back to the original links post: here] On the article about privateers, local naval expert Bean writes: It's time for the standard disclaimer any time Proceedings comes up: Proceedings is intended as a forum for discussion of matters of interest to naval officers, and it is not peer reviewed. Often very not peer reviewed. Like in this case. Please don't judge the USNI on the basis of this stuff. They do a lot of good work. And yes, it is that stupid. First, privateering is probably illegal today. The US didn't sign the 1856 Paris declaration outlawing it, but the ban is almost certainly considered customary international law today, and thus binding on the US, too. (International law is very weird.) Second, it makes no sense. It was something that people did in an era when the ability of the state to do things was sharply constrained, and it was never all that profitable. These days, the government is a lot more effective, and if it wants to hunt Chinese commerce (never mind the issues about who owns the cargo, which is rather different in the days of worldwide communications and the shipping container) it will make auxiliary commerce raiders of its own. There's definitely no need to have a DDG sit outside a Brazilian port waiting. Take any reasonable civilian ship (big yacht, fishing boat, tug, whatever) and fit it with a couple of 40mm guns and a boarding party. Have it do the waiting instead. And our other defense expert, John Schilling, writes:

Audio
Featured in this Episode

No persons identified in this episode.

Transcription

This episode hasn't been transcribed yet

Help us prioritize this episode for transcription by upvoting it.

0 upvotes
🗳️ Sign in to Upvote

Popular episodes get transcribed faster

Comments

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.