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Comment by weatherlight | Hacker News Reader

Time to start sinking ships.

Start accrediting privateers to protect the waters!

Letters of Marque and Reprisal.[1] This is how the early U.S fought the Barbary pirates in the Barbary Wars[2] in the early days of the republic. This power is actually authorized explicitly in the U.S Constitution.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Barbary_War

Our 21st century take: sell the rights to the history Channel for a pirates reality series

And abolished since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, if memory serves well. And thus illegal.

It would be better to fight the defacto slavery of the crews (agencies, owners and so on), the abysmal conditions in these crews home countries and sanction the hell out the owners of these ships and the people / companies making a healthy profit from them. But why bother, because you would just end up with more expensive shipping im general and more expensive fish.

The 1856 Paris Declaration, in fact. Also the 1907 Hague Convention. The US was not a signatory to the former, and did not agree to the provision against privateering in the latter, so for the US, at least, privateering is still on the table. Argentina, however, was a signatory to the Paris Declaration. Perhaps they can change their minds, but probably they won't for something like this.

I do see a pattern here. The US didn't ratify the court in The Hague neither.

I think it’s too late to stop China

And Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia... The list is long. Western democracies don't seem to care of all the sweet dollar that is to be made in these countries. At least Russia used to pretend to play by established rules.

The problem with these rules, IMHO, is that they were created to serve the interests of western powers. Hard to force other countries to play by them, then.

You are very right.

The "our bastard" doctrine was an idiocy on massive scale, and continues to be one.

The West has bred all the snakes in the snake pit they ended up in now itself.

> "He may be a bastard, but he's our bastard."

There is no yours, or their bastards, there are just bastards.

The very reason you're downvoted is the reason you're right. People have their heads in the sand. They don't realize that there's no political will to oppose China because China has already bought the needed to control to tamp down on any efforts to oppose them.

Hell, we're witnessing in-your-face genocide of the Uighurs, takeover of Hong Kong, imminent takeover of Taiwan, support of North Korea's psychopathic regime, destruction of the environment in every way possible (as in this story), etc... and the rest of the world sits on its collective hands. China knows how to boil frogs nice and slowly.

Killing civilians many of whom are effectively slaves from other countries probably isn't a great look

The rules of engagement are such that killing usually isn't required. They would announce who they are and tell the boats to turn around and exit territorial waters. Those who do not comply, or repeat or suspicious offenders, might get stopped, boarded, and their cargo confiscated, perhaps even their boats sold at auction. Any sailors aboard could request amnesty if they are truly in an effective-slave situation.

The only way it turns to shoot-and-sink is if the boats flagrantly disregard orders through multiple points of escalation. Even then the attempt would be to disable the ship, not destroy it (by shooting out the engine or rudder, for example).

> and tell the boats to turn around and exit territorial waters.

This feels like a way to get into a game of "you can't be everywhere at once".

Or just confiscating them... steel is expensive.

There are obvious reasons why killing people with one’s military isn’t the most desirable way to protect one’s national waters.

It is kind of amazing that the Chinese gets away with this.

Or some kind of tech like microwaves that causes the fisherman (or the fish?) to scatter.

This tech exists, but is probably too expensive for argentinia, but what is wrong with a good old warning shot in front of the ship?

Fisherboats do not want to fight gun ships - and just retreat if they see, the threat is serious.

Hire the CRACKEN!!!!

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