RE: Pirates and Privateers

I understand your point of view. 
But if a FSE patrol cruiser was attacked by (bother! now I have to go
look
up an AE government) ...Republic of Marxgrad (picking a name out of the
hat), the FSE would likely hold the AE responsible (they failed to
exercise
control over thier citizens). Granted the primary target of retalitory
strikes would likely be the Marxgrad holdings and property, but any AE
ship
that they would meet would likely be deemed hostile until a diplomatic
solution (including repreations) could be agreed upon.

It would be a somewhat similar situation to an attack from a territory
of
the US (example Puerto Richo) against Cuba. The US could claim that the
attacking force was made up of only native forces using equipment
purchased
with funds gathered by natives in the territory without any official US
envolvement. But Cuba would most likely hold the US responsible.

A lot of it would depend on the state of relations between the AE and
the
other governent. If relations were neutral to friendly, and the AE was
quick
to denounce the attack, any reprisals would likely be directed to the
specific offenders. If the AE denied or supported the attack, it is
likely
that the whole AE would be held responsible.

Now I am using the AE as an example. The same would hold true for any
government that has more than one stellar holding.

-----
Brian Bell
bkb@beol.net	
-----

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Izenberg, Noam [SMTP:Noam.Izenberg@jhuapl.edu]
> Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2000 11:15 AM
> To:	'FT List'
> Subject:	RE: Pirates and Privateers
> 
> Brian Bell wrote:
> 
> > On a military level, I would guess that most governments have taken
the
> JFK
> > possition with respect to the AE (i.e. an attack fron one memeber of
the
> AE
> > will be considered an attack by ALL members of the AE).
> 
> I don't know how true that can be. Some of the smaller AE outpusts are
> small
> family groups or even lone (intrepid, insane, fill in the blank)
> adveturers/claimstakers/homesteaders/etc. I would imagine the
particularly
> far flung outpsts are quite vulnerable to true pirates and "plausibly
> deniable" local power antagonism. When Old Zeke way out on some rock
> somewhere stops transmitting and all the AE investigation patrol finds
is
> a
> big glass crater where his dome used to be, what's the emperor going
to
> do?
> What if the antagonist is an entrenched power larger than AE? What if
it's
> a
> roving pirate band?
> 
> Iceberg Raphael, founder, Actuarial Nightmares