Calling all pirates: This US lawmaker wants you to seize Russian vessels | Hacker News Reader

Calling all pirates: This US lawmaker wants you to seize Russian vessels

militarytimes.com

75 pointshdivider85 comments

So, this guy is basically advocating that the US, unilaterally, can ognore the Paris declaration of 1856? Well, the US never signed it (what a surprise...) in the first place. I really hoped the Ukraine war showed how respecting international law and treaties goes a long way in forming coalitions and stabilizing politics.

Agreed -- and I should point out I don't personally support this piracy idea at all. Just 1) entertaining, 2) intellectually interesting to see how old school, Blackbeard-style piracy with letters of marque is actually still a possibility.

Yeah, intellectually it is interesting. I just fear that this will, ultimately, backfire. Privateering works better against an abundance of targets. Russian oligarchs and Russian Naval assets are lower in number than, say, Western shipping. So nothing would block Russia from issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal against, e.g., shipping going to the EU and the US. Which would tie down a load of naval assets, and could hurt the West more than Letters of Marque would hurt Russia, once their assets are seized there's nothing else to be seized.

But hey, Pirates, harr!

EDIT: Now that I think of it, any prospective privateer is facing a couple of challenges (privateering is business after all): If you operate under an US Letter of Marque you have a limited number of prizes. Those prizes are comparatively easy to capture, legitimacy isn't your immediate concern and selling the prizes is a solved problem.

If you operate for the Russians, potential prizes are plenty. Legitimacy is a major concern, so. As is selling those prizes for money. Capturing a container ship is easy (just ask the Somalis), piloting it to a friendly port as well, crews are really small nowadays. Selling 10k TEU is a different story so, especially if the party issuing your Letter of Marque is short on hard currency. And has a limited number of deep sea ports. Those ports are, lucky for any potential privateer, close to the largest ports of origin in the Pacific. One just has to be careful to not piss of the Chinese. resorting to Letters of marque could turn the Pacific into a, almost, hot war zone resembling the Caribbean during the golden age of piracy.

Unlikely scenario, but stranger things have happened. It would make a great military fiction novel so!

It may be able to reverse global warming, if the Pastafarians are right.

> So nothing would block Russia from issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal against e.g., shipping going to the EU and the US

Nothing except the US Navy patrolling shipping lanes, as they already do.

If Russian had a global navy they might have a stronger position. But as it is now, pirates will never encounter a Russian ship. They will likely encounter a US ship, especially if they try to disrupt that tanker full of Cheetos (or whatever).

Ah, despite all the patrolling Somali pirates had a quite successful run. Now scale that up at least ten fold. And the US Navy would then be the privateers' problem, not the problem of the Russian Navy, which could stick to the Russian coast where it can operate under aerial protection.

If anything, the Russians could benefit most from a full-blown privateering program.

I think you may be confusing the existence of Somali pirates to mean the US Navy doesn’t depress pirates. There would be many more than that without the Navy.

Privacy still exists [0] with more in the Straits of Malacca than off Somalia.

This piracy is much less due to the actions of the US Navy. I’m not sure why you think it would increase 10x if Russia endorsed privateering.

I think Russia’s position is moot since their fleet would never stop this in the first place. So their privateering position doesn’t seem to matter. While there’s lots more US (and US-bound) ships, I don’t think Russia’s navy is preventing any piracy.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_21st_century

Will backfire? I think that there remain enough grownups in the Congress that this guy's idea will never get a vote on the floor of the House.

Sovereign states can always 'unilaterally' decide to do whatever they want. It all boils down to strength, really: the US can get away with much more than anyone else (Ukraine 2022 is not so different from Iraq 2003, and yet...) because they are much stronger than anyone else.

In this case, the main limitation is that the US and Russia don't want a direct war so will refrain from direct attacks. Even this guy is not suggesting the Navy should do it. But if Russia was much smaller (and without nukes) I think the US could actually be OK with sending the Navy to seize any Russian vessel they could find.

Privateers, under a proper Letter of Marque, are considered to be legitimate mercenaries. No much difference if it is Privateer Babossa of Commodore Norrington who's doing the seizing at sea, as long as the former is operating a letter of marque. Both parties are, basically, part of the same Navy. The other option would be outright piracy.

EDIT: Sure, sovereign states can unilaterally decide whatever they want. in case they are not North Korea they risk to break multiple treaties so. As Russia showed us, one miscalculation in such a sovereign decision bears the risk of turning said country into an isolated country, just like North Korea.

Countries can withdraw from treaties first so as not to formally break them, or just indeed break them.

The point is that the consequences depend on who you are. Russia is up against the US/West so consequences are severe and, again, we can contrast this against the consequences for the US of invading Iraq, which were none.

The real restriction is probably not really legitimacy but that that Russia would retaliate in kind.

Ukraine is not a state sponsor of terrorism like Hussein's Iraq was. I'd call this a very significant difference.

From the Russian point of view Ukraine provides weapons to militant groups whose objective is to kill the separatists. This is not far from terrorism.

Not far? It's about as far as it gets, really. Wouldn't you fully expect ANY nation to defend itself in this way?

I absolutely would! But hen I'm one of the few people that never really considered Afghan or Iraqi resistance against US and / or NATO forces to be "evil".

Understanding, e.g., Putin's motivation doesn't mean defending him.

Of course not, I'm not some authoritarian totalist. It was a small piece of land not critical to Ukraine as a whole. I don't think it was the right move for Ukraine to make.

Was it right for Putin to flood the disputed territories with Russian nationals then lay claim to said areas to "protect Russians"?

That would be weird if it happened but from what I understand what you're saying isn't accurate. A lot of people were leaving the area rather than entering.

Hawaii is small so it's fine to giveaway, isn't it?

There's more than one reason to see another country as a potential target for invasion.

> like Hussein's Iraq was

Bull.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijackers_in_the_September_11_...

“The hijackers in the September 11 attacks were 19 men affiliated with the militant Islamist group al-Qaeda. They hailed from four countries; fifteen of them were citizens of Saudi Arabia, two were from the United Arab Emirates, one was from Lebanon, and one from Egypt.”

Iraq is not mentioned even once in the article.

Do not attempt to shift the goal posts. The 2003 invasion of Iraq was specifically tied to Saddam's possession of WMDs (demonstrably false) and his willingness to use them (therefore also false), and the constant linking of Iraq to 9/11 (fake news).

transcript of US General Wesley Clark on the Iraq Invasion | American War Generals (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcWs4TFSjrY

   00:04 I got called in by an officer on the
   00:07 Joint Staff who told me that he said you
   00:09 know we're gonna invade Iraq. I said but
   00:11 why? And he said I don't know he said I
   00:15 guess because we don't know what else to
   00:17 do. But in fact the why of it went back a
   00:21 decade to the spring of 1991, it went
   00:26 back to the argument inside the
   00:28 Republican Party about whether or not
   00:31 the Gulf War should have ended with the
   00:35 capture of Baghdad and the overthrow of
   00:37 Saddam Hussein. And in 1991 when I talked
   00:40 to secretary Wolfowitz you know he said
   00:42 we didn't get rid of Saddam Hussein and
   00:44 and we should have, he said we've only
   00:47 got five or 10 years to clean up the
   00:51 Middle East these old Soviet surrogate
   00:54 regimes like Syria and Iraq get rid of
   00:56 them before the next superpower comes
   00:59 along the challenges

This is the undisputed historical reality. These are not hidden truths, this is public knowledge. Anybody intimating otherwise is either deliberately misconstruing past events to suit their own version of how they want things to be or is a useful idiot[2] oblivious to the nonsense they are spouting.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2008/de...

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

It's irrelevant in the scope of the discussion. Iraq '03 was wrong, and the current Russian invasion of a democratic country is wrong.

> It's irrelevant in the scope of the discussion.

1. It was relevant to the point being made further up :- that is to say, on the world stage, might unfortunately makes right

2. You don't get to police the boundaries of what I choose to respond to.

> Iraq '03 was wrong, and the current Russian invasion of a democratic country is wrong.

Which was my point. Whether the US does it in Iraq, or Russia does it in Ukraine, or Saudi Arabia does it in Yemen[1][2], or Israel does it in Syria[3]

Which is why I expect we'll see sanctions levied on Saudi Arabia and Israel any day now.

[1] Saudi-led coalition strikes target Yemen capital after drone attack: https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20220214-saudi-led-c...

[2] The Saudi blockade on Yemen is a war crime, and only civilians suffer from it: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2021/05/24/the-saudi-block...

[2] Syria: Two civilians killed in Israeli attack near Damascus: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/3/7/syria-two-civilians-... “Since war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air attacks inside the country, targeting government positions as well as allied Iran-backed forces and fighters of the Shia group Hezbollah.”

This is a bit of a hilarious take. I mean we have international laws and treaties already. Nazi Germany was found guilty of “Starting a war of aggression” (but the USSR wasn’t, funny that).

The truth is international laws and treaties are worthless for the most part. The only thing enforcing them are states - states that have complete sovereignty over whether or not to enforce them.

For the most part international laws and treaties are just cover for powerful nations doing what they want.

Well, the USSR was called out for the various wars with Finland and Poland, up to the point the Western Allies promised help before retreating to "my enemies enemy..." with Stalin. SO when exactly did the USSR start an invasion without being called out? And don't count invasions during WW2 against the Axis, those don't count once a war started.

I mean Germany was found guilty during the Nuremberg trials in part for its invasion of Poland - the one where the USSR secretly agreed to it and murder thousands of Polish Officers.

Yet the USSR was not one of the defendants at the trial but rather one of the judges.

At the time so, USSR was called out for it, the Allies were not that hot on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, were they? Lucky for them they ended up on the right side (and winning side) of history.

It is constitutional to enter into treaties that to undermine other parts of the constitution. So the US avoids that. 1856 was a gamble but now it absolutely has the leverage to avoid that.

I doubt anyone in congress has any idea what international laws are, and they're too petulant and grandstanding to care anyway. That's why we have a commander in chief, I guess.

> I really hoped the Ukraine war showed how respecting international law and treaties goes a long way in forming coalitions and stabilizing politics.

Isn't it? The world is united. There is one country flagrantly violating international law, and that's russia. They are paying for it. All other countries are in agreement that this must end.

The coalition is forming. And it will eventually succeed in taming Russian aggression.

I just hope that this time we demilitarize russia like we did with Germany and Japan. The world has had enough with russia swinging a broken bottle around and adding very little value to anything.

It is a rather peculiar suggestion, as it is important to note that letters of marque is basically only a thing in international waters. Inside harbors and territorial water the coast guard and military has a lot of freedom, and its a fairly recurring event that boats are sometimes denied permission to leave. Boats can also be denied to use specific water ways, in similar ways that roads can be disabled for general use. Naturally, boats that are stuck because they are not given permission to leave territorial water is still property of their owners, in a similar way that frozen assets of sanctioned individuals are only frozen.

Law of the Sea Treaty, which was signed fairly recent, have United States claiming control of 200 nautical miles from the coastline. In theory they should be able to force any ship to go into harbor and stay there.

Yes. For the matter, many EU countries used extensively this right to deny boats leaving their harbour 2 years ago (because Covid). Specifically Portugal, Spain and France (among others) have been infamous.

> Law of the Sea Treaty, which was signed fairly recent, have United States claiming control of 200 nautical miles from the coastline.

The US did not ratify UNCLOS:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_United_N...

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Convention_on_t...

They may generally follow it out of good manners, but it is not binding on them.

My point is that they can choose to exercise territorial control for ships that extends fairly far away from the coastline If the government of the United states want to freeze those assets, and they are located anyway near the US, they can just send out coast guards/military escorts and force them into harbor. No need to arm private citizens with letters of marque.

There's really no reason to do this because it's essentially a declaration of war against Russia. If you're willing to go to war with Russia, just send the Coast Guard to seize vessels.

Italy has already seized Russian ships. I don't see them being invaded by Russia.

https://www.reuters.com/world/italy-seizes-yacht-owned-by-ru...

It feels like the Italians are trying to make up for / save face regarding the luxury goods sanctions carveout after experiencing widespread criticism.

That's not a "Russian ship", that's a personal yacht owned by a Russian who has been explicitly sanctioned. The boat was sailing under flag of the Virgin Islands (tax haven, who would have thought!).

Sequestering all generic ships sailing under Russian flag would be a different, and much more serious, action.

As Sid Meier’s Civilization game taught me, privateering is explicitly not a declaration of war. It’s been used many times as a Cold War style tactic.

Now, Russia might declare ware and cite this as a reason, but it’s not. It’s more like state sponsored terrorism. Like how Iran isn’t actually declaring war on Israel with its Hezbollah sponsorship.

Similarly, the US wasn’t declaring war on the USSR when it armed Afghan rebels in the 80s.

Privateering stopped being a thing in the late 19th century. Being state-sanctioned, it is kind of a declaration of war, especially nowadays it would be. Confiscating assets due to sanctions is very different from privateering.

The mechanism for war would be Russians killing American privateers

If there is one thing this war has taught me, it's that any action, at any time, and for any reason, can be interpreted by anyone, as an act of war. Putin has a black belt in this kind of rhetoric. Russian assets, including boats, are being seized all over the world right now. The potential difference here is that the order will apply to international waters. The US never signed UNCLOS, so it wouldn't be breaking any treaties with Russia.

However it would put at risk merchant fleets all over the world through reprisal, and I think the rest of the world has a lot more to lose in this game than Russia. For this reason, I do not think this will be ratified.

I am deeply disturbed at all of the "rule of law for thee, not for me" that the Russian sanctions have brought to the surface. It was bad enough when the UK, which has very strict laws on fighting for foreign nations and paramilitaries, said they'd ignore their own citizens going over to fight. This is a different league all together.

Ignoring a country’s sovereignty and attacking them is also “rules for thee and not for me.”

Ironically, that's the sort of thing the USSR used to say to the US. Problem with the USSR? Just point out something equally bad about the US. Through that logic, until the rest of the world was perfect, the USSR could get away with anything.

Well, why exactly would it be fair for only the United States to get away with genocide, war crimes, human rights violations?

Seems weird that only one side is allowed to be guilty.

Yeah but we don't take the approach of "well you ignored rules, therefore we can ignore rules as well" when it comes to our justice system. Criminals broke the rules, but they still get due process.

Funny as the idea in modern world is, I think we should focus on more relevant goals. Disable Microsoft products ie via license servers (that renders any state apparatus dysfunctional due to heavy reliance on Office), block porn, google and apple app stores. Block all gaming consoles. Ideally with clear explanation why. Things like that.

Its one thing to be born in North Korea-esque dictatorship and not knowing any better, but having many benefits of modern life removed is percieved much more negatively.

Blocking porn and video games would cause teenage boys to revolt.

Because it is somehow morally acceptable to puppeteer some teenage boys as quasi-child soldiers to reach ones goals?

We should be very careful on our strategy here. Alienating a whole new generation of Russians cannot lead to good results in the future. We should have learned that from 20 years in Afghanistan.

And this comment has been downvoted. This is quite telling ...

I believe it takes a suggestion made in jest way too seriously.

> Because it is somehow morally acceptable to puppeteer some teenage boys as quasi-child soldiers to reach ones goals?

That’s not what the comment you’re replying to said, but the way you phrased it makes it seem like it was. I’d wager the comment was made in jest, but even it wasn’t it expressed a though without commenting on its morality or expressing agreement. You can claim “doing X would lead to Y” and vehemently oppose either or both.

Consider an alternative: “I don’t find it morally acceptable to puppeteer some teenage boys as quasi-child soldiers to reach ones goals”. You’d have shared your opinion just the same without confronting the other person for an argument they didn’t make (which in turn is earning you downvotes and burying your otherwise valid point).

If Reddit and nofap are to be believed, it will have the effect of turning the Russian troops into hypermotivated superheroes.

Actually, if the whole conservative/Orthodox angle is as big as it seems (which would pain me), then we'd sort of be doing them a favor. They'd be happy to rid their society of that.

Maybe they're even right. No Ottoman sultan ever neutralized his nephew by giving him cold showers and clean living. What he'd do is put the nephew in the harem.

…as a eunuch, perhaps.

Removing or decreasing access to porn would increase societal sexual violence.

Which would make Russia much worse off, but I'm not sure a more violent and dystopian Russia is what we want.

This is different to the voluntary don't watch porn which is quite self disciplined.

But I'm pretty sure Russia has the whole porn/internet thing sorted out and doesn't need the West.

It's exciting to see what else they might do when cut off, could they hack out gaming servers? Now it's a retributionary attack on the West to kill their copyright and possibly make some money. USSR with a pipeline of free (digital) goods coming in might be a different place. Fight Piracy with Piracy. The West has more to lose there.

I assume that Russians know how to film their own porn. Blocking it would just remove any competence and benefit the same mobsters that traffic with women in Russia.

OTOH, someone in Russia could develop their own OnlyFans. And maybe use some government incentives to build that.

> Disable Microsoft products ie via license servers

Wouldn't it be more effective to disable MS product licenses everywhere except Russia?

Letters of marque and reprisal were also proposed as a non-military way of policing terrorist groups, back in the early 2000s. They're an interesting idea, I'm not sure why those proposals failed to gain adoption.

Because all major sea powers, excluding the US, signed the Paris treaty of 1856, making privateering, basically, illegal. Since then harassing your enemies shipping in international waters, or those of your enemy, fell to the respective navies.

These provisions are part of the customary laws of war. As such, they were never intended to apply to unlawful combatants such as terrorist groups.

I have absolutely no experience pirating (or even sailing) boats (or with Russian oligarchs), but trying to pirate a Russian oligarch’s yacht seems like a very bad idea.

I agree, we should leave this to the insiders.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/28/ukrainian-sail...

I feel like it's a job uniquely suited to young Americans with military experience and a love of the open ocean.

I feel like it’s going to be a Netflix movie with Ben Affleck and/or Charlie Hunnam.

For those who don’t know a US House representative can / do introduce bills that are just grandstanding / don’t become law.

This is a fun thought experiment none the less.

The attention this type of thing gets should be at least somewhat proportionate to the likelihood of it getting approved.

Surely if you're a pirate, selling a US ship to the Russians is worth more money than the other way round?

Pick a side

Or trade both

Good luck

Does Russia have any good boats? Can spacecraft be seized? What is the tax burden of seizing a fully-loaded Russian supertanker?

I like the idea of space pirates. Good fiction topic if set in modern days or a few years from now.

The name "Sir Francis Drake" does not yet appear in this discussion. Fixing that.

Yeah ww3 is looking more likely. I guess deagle was right.

This is an unrestricted submarine warfare moment

Can’t someone just GoFundMe a nice vacation in the Maldives for some stressed out Ukrainian special forces? Maybe they want to go snorkeling?

What if the Russian made a similar legislation - enabling Russians to seize assets of select American citizens? What would that be?

Seems fair if they chose to live in Russia.

American oligarchs should have plenty of resources to expand their coffers through this program. I don't recognize this publication or author but you have to admit their honesty when they lead with a horribly photoshopped image and caption it with "Vladimir Putin swimming on a hunting trip superimposed in front of a stock yacht"

> you have to admit their honesty when they lead with a horribly photoshopped image and caption it with

Admitting an obviously fake image is fake doesn’t mean they are honest in the text.

Very true and I realize I wasn't clear enough above - my comment was strictly about the image.

People forget that the US did this in several instances in our past. Some of them were in fact during our Colony days.

Like it or not Russia during Putin's rise in the 1990s and the rise of criminal elements in the Russian government declared a war on the West. This time Putin just is saying loudly out-loud via military actions.

So privateers?

Biden does not even know the difference between Iran and Ukraine. Be careful who you take orders from.

Funny how these "strong men" only come out of the woodwork with their "brilliant ideas" when the other guy turns out to be weak ( in their minds ).

I don't know if these geniuses believe this bandwagon will not have any consequences for everyone.

My guess is they operate like the entire World is their Twitter timeline and just fire-up a tweet or two while on the toilet.. It's easy to be tough when you are ignorant and have 2 oceans as a buffer.

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