kzt wrote:There is also what someone is doing. Offensive military actions is typically the issue. Running a bodyguard operation, even in a high threat environment, isn't offensive military action.
Manticore has no specific policy against mercenaries. It doesn't employ them itself, and it disapproves of the excesses which some mercenaries are capable of committing. It does not recognize them as lawful combatants unless they are in the service of a recognized nation state, and will regard (and treat) them as criminals under the applicable civil law codes for any actions they commit while operating on their own or in the pay of a private entity. (If they are operating in the pay of a recognized star nation, they will hold the star nation which hired them responsible for their actions and most definitely seek compensation and/or inflict punishment accordingly.) Aside from that, they don't really have any problem with somebody's hiring mercenaries, and Manticore takes a pretty broad view of "private contractors" hired by corporations or individuals for legitimate self-defense/protective reasons. That is, if a Manticoran cartel operating in Silesia decided to retain an armed military force, privately paid for out of the cartel's coffers, to protect its operation and its personnel in Silesia, the SKM would have no problem with that so long as the private contractor's troops limited themselves to that protective function and didn't start committing crimes against the locals. In the case of any such allegation of criminality from the local government, the mercenaries/contractors would not be able to call upon Manticore for protection against the local government's legal processes. In some (very) rare instances, the SKM has gone a step or two beyond that, however, negotiating an agreement with the local government on behalf of the Manticoran investors under which the mercenaries/contractors do enjoy protection as Manticoran subjects and at least quasilegal specifically Manticoran organizations with significant legal protection. In those cases, however, Manticore undertakes to punish actual criminal behavior, and the Manticoran courts have been very diligent in doing just that.
On some occasions, Manticoran military personnel have actually worked in concert with mercenaries, since the mercenaries in question have been hired by a Manticoran ally and/or are being employed for a purpose of which Manticore approves and which is in accordance with Manticoran foreign policy. For example, mercenaries hired to suppress the slave trade in a particular star system or region, or mercenaries hired by an ally like Zanzibar to help train and/or bolster Zanzibar's own armed forces. By and large, however, Manticore prefers to avoid mercenaries even in that context, because of the vast difference in their standards of training, competence, attitude, equipment, etc.. Hiring mercenaries as an "army (or navy) in a box" has the disadvantage that until you've actually seen the mercenaries in question in action you don't really know what you're getting, and sometimes what you get can be very, very bad news, not only for yourself but for innocent bystanders in the vicinity. Manticoran policy when mercenaries have clearly "going rogue" in areas of strategic interest to Manticore has usually been quick, severe, and — above all — effective. That's why so few mercenaries operate in areas of strategic interest to Manticore.
As far as privateers are concerned, Manticore has tried to get privateering abolished as a legal means of waging war primarily because as the possessor of the galaxy's biggest merchant marine and a major naval power, it really, really disapproves of a way in which minor naval powers — or even a star nation which has no naval power of its own — can inflict painful, even severe damage on merchant shipping. This is a pragmatic position, not a moral one per se. In the case of privateers operating in pre-partition Silesia, the problem was especially acute because (1) there was so much Manticoran shipping in the vicinity and (2) so few of the "revolutionary" governments practiced any actual control/oversight of "their" privateers. Even under existing interstellar law that recognizes the legitimacy of privateering, privateers are required to adhere to the same basic "prize regulations" as any legitimate navy, and the star nation issuing the privateer's letter of marque is legally responsible for seeing to it that its privateers do just that. And it is legally accountable for any actions its privateers commit. This is, in fact, one of the major problems in Silesia. The "revolutionary governments" issuing the majority of the letters of marque in Silesia had no formal existence, were not recognized by any other star nation, had no ability (or inclination) to hold their privateers to the recognized prize regulations, and offered no target for criminal proceedings when their privateers violated the prize regulations.
Actually, Manticoran would be within its rights to unilaterally outlaw privateering within Manticoran territorial space. The SEM could, in fact, declare that any "privateers" caught operating in Manticoran space would be considered pirates and treated (including possible execution) as such. The only recourse anyone would have against Manticore, in that case, would be a reprisal: to treat Manticoran privateers in the same fashion. In theory, the star nation which originally licensed the privateers could argue that if Manticore refuses to recognize its privateers as legitimate combatants, then it will regard regular RMN ships engaged on commerce raiding (or even simply cruising in its territorial space) as pirates and treat them accordingly. This would, however, be one of those "You Really Don't Want to Go There" moments for the other star nation. For that matter, Manticore could declare its intention to regard any privateers operating against Manticoran commerce anywhere in the entire galaxy as pirates, no matter who issued their letters of marque, and to treat them accordingly, and there wouldn't be a whole lot that anyone without a major navy of its own could do about it in military terms. There might be other options available, including embargoing Manticoran merchant shipping within their territorial space (which would be rather a case of cutting off your nose to spite your own face, but could be done). There are, however, other more subtle and (in the long term) weightier reasons Manticore hasn't done this, which I discuss in the next paragraph.
The main reason Manticore hasn't gone ahead and simply declared that it does not recognize letters of marque nor any difference between "privateers" and "pirates" is that the Star Kingdom's traditional foreign policy posture has been one of attempting to support a framework of interstellar law, and interstellar law has traditionally legalized privateering. At the moment, Manticoran and Solarian interpretations of interstellar law are at variance on many issues (this was true even before the shooting started), and Manticore has been working to build support for its own, rather more evenhanded concepts of interstellar law. If the Star Kingdom (now Star Empire) goes around telling people who are inclined to support its positions generally that Manticore refuses to be bound by interstellar law in this particular regard for what will pretty obviously be reasons of pure self-interest (at least in the eyes of lesser powers), it will be significantly more difficult to leverage support towards its interpretation of interstellar law and away from the Solarian League's. What Manticore has made abundantly clear, however, is that a privateer who oversteps by egregiously violating the prize regulations forfeits any legal protection of his letter of marque. And, in addition, that any entity which issues letters of marque and fails to police the actions of the holders of those letters of marque will be held equally responsible and treated as a criminal enterprise rather than afforded the status of a legitimate star nation.
Hope this helps.
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