For a discussion
of the law regarding letters of marque, see: U.S. Privateering Is Legal
Naval strategists are struggling to find ways to counter a rising Chinese
Navy. The easiest and most comfortable course
is to ask for more ships and aircraft, but with a defense budget that may have reached
its peak, that may not be a viable strategy.
Privateering, authorized by letters of
marque, could offer a low-cost tool to
enhance deterrence in peacetime and gain advantage in wartime. It would attack
an asymmetric vulnerability of China, which has a much larger merchant fleet
than the United States. Indeed, an
attack on Chinese global trade would undermine China’s entire economy and threaten
the regime’s stability. Finally, despite
pervasive myths to the contrary, U.S. privateering
is not prohibited by U.S. or international law.
What are Letters
of Marque?
Privateering is not piracy—there are rules
and commissions, called letters of marque, that governments issue to civilians,
allowing them to capture or destroy enemy ships.1 The U.S. Constitution expressly grants Congress the power
to issue them (Article I, section 8, clause 11). Captured vessels and goods are called prizes,
and prize law is set out in the U.S. Code. In the United States, prize claims are adjudicated
by U.S. district courts, with proceeds traditionally
paid to the privateers.2 (“Privateer”
can refer to the crew of a privateering ship or to the ship itself, which also can
be referred to as a letter of marque).
Congress would likely set policy—for example, specifying
privateer targets, procedures, and qualifications—then authorize the President to
oversee the privateering regime.3
Congress also could indemnify privateers from certain liabilities and curb
the potential for abuse and violations of international law through surety bonds
and updated regulations on conduct.
Letters of marque could be issued quickly, with privateers
on the hunt within weeks of the start of a conflict. By contrast, it would take four years to build
a single new combatant for the Navy. During the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812,
privateers vastly outnumbered Navy ships, with one U.S. official calling privateers
“our cheapest and best navy.”4 Though many were lost, thousands sailed and disrupted
British trade.5 British officials complained they could not guarantee the
safety of civilian trade.
Privateering constitutes a once universally accepted
but now thoroughly unconventional way of harnessing the private sector in
war.
A Rising Chinese
Navy
The rise of the Chinese military has been well documented, but a few points
highlight why privateering would be a useful element of U.S. naval strategy.
China has built a powerful defensive network around its homeland, sometimes
called an anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) envelope. As one element of this strategy, China has expanded
its navy from a modest coastal force in the 1980s to an oceangoing force of at least
200 ships, with sophisticated air defenses, anti-ship missiles, and even aircraft
carriers. Backing up the navy are land-based
missiles and bombers.
Cracking open such a defense would require a naval
campaign more demanding than anything the U.S. Navy has done in the past 70 years,
leaving little capability for other tasks, such as hunting down China’s global merchant
fleet. Whatever limited naval forces might
be left over from a campaign in the Pacific would be needed to keep an eye on other
potential adversaries, such as Russia, Iran, or North Korea.
Asymmetric Vulnerabilities
China has aggressively expanded its global economic and diplomatic influence
through its Belt and Road Initiative, but this expansion
creates a vulnerability, as these investments must be protected. Chinese vulnerability
goes deeper. China’s economy has doubled
in the past 15 years, driven by exports carried in Chinese hulls. Thirty-eight percent
of its gross domestic product (GDP) comes from trade, against only 9 percent of
U.S. GDP.6 Chinese social
stability is built on a trade-off: The Chinese Communist Party has told the people
they will not have democratic institutions, but they will receive economic prosperity.
China’s merchant fleet is large, because the cost to China of building and
operating merchant ships is low, and its export-driven economy creates a huge demand. In 2018, China had 2,112 ships in its global merchant
fleet and Hong Kong had another 2,185.7 In addition, China has a massive long-distance
fishing fleet, estimated at 2,500 vessels.8
By contrast, the United States has only 246 ships in its merchant fleet. That fleet—expensive to build and operate—is sustained
mainly by the Jones Act, which mandates that
ships conveying cargo between U.S. ports must be U.S.-flagged.
This asymmetric vulnerability gives the United States a major strategic advantage. The threat privateering poses to the Chinese economy—and
hence the Communist Party—could provide the United States with a major wartime advantage
and enhance peacetime deterrence, thus making war less likely. Even if China threatens
to dispatch its own privateers, U.S. vulnerability is comparatively small.
Size of the
Dog in the Fight
The ordinary course of action would be to have U.S. Navy warships drive China’s
merchant fleet from the seas. However, the
U.S. Navy would have its hands full taking on the People’s Liberation Army Navy
(PLAN). The U.S. fleet is down to about 295
ships, and though it may reach and surpass 340 in the early 2040s before declining
again, the goal of 355 ships is probably out of reach.9 A conflict with China would likely require this
entire fleet; indeed, against a capable PLAN adversary
defending its home waters, even 355 ships might be too few.
By contrast, in World War II, the U.S. Navy grew
to 6,700 ships, counting neither Great Britain’s huge fleet nor contributions from
other allies.10 And the
allies, Britain and France particularly, had a global network of colonies that denied
adversaries sanctuary and provided bases for operations against enemy ships. Comparable assets will not be available in a future
conflict. Indeed, some former allies and colonies might even give sanctuary
to Chinese vessels.11
Cruise the Seas
for Chinese Gold
Capitalizing on Chinese vulnerabilities requires large numbers of ships, and
the private sector could provide them. The
ocean is large, and there are thousands of ports to hide in or dash between. While the Navy could not afford to have a multibillion-dollar
destroyer sitting outside Rio de Janeiro for weeks waiting for Chinese vessels to
leave, a privateer could patiently wait nearby as U.S.
diplomats put pressure on (presumably neutral) Brazil.
Neither recruiting crews nor the need to arm ships would constitute a major
obstacle. Privateers
do not need to be heavily armed, because they would be taking on lightly
(or un-) armed merchant vessels, choosing vulnerable targets, or acting cooperatively with other privateers. Since the goal
is to capture the hulls and cargo, privateers
do not want to sink the vessel, just convince the crew to surrender. How many merchant
crews would be inclined to fight rather than surrender and spend the war in comfortable
internment?12
The existing private military industry would doubtless jump at the chance
to privateer. Dozens
of companies currently provide security services, from the equivalent of mall guards
to armed antipiracy contingents on ships. A large pool of potential recruits has shown willingness
to work for private contractors. At the height
of the Iraq War, for example, the United
States employed 20,000 armed contractors in security
jobs.
In fact, private security vessels already have been created, demonstrating
the concept’s viability. The private security
firm Blackwater outfitted an armed patrol craft to defend commercial shipping from
Somali pirates.13 At the height
of Somali piracy, there were some 2,700 armed contractors on ships and 40 private armed patrol boats operating in the Indian
Ocean region.14
Just as the prospect of prize money induced thousands of seamen to sign on
with privateers during the Revolution and the War of 1812, similar inducements—such
as the prospect of earning millions of dollars from a single capture—would attract
the needed personnel in a future conflict.
New Approaches
Required
The notion of privateering makes naval strategists uncomfortable because it is an approach to war that does not conform to the way
the U.S. Navy has fought since 1815.
There is no modern experience of their use,
and there are legitimate concerns about legal foundations
and international opinion. But strategists cannot argue for out-of-the-box thinking to face
the rising challenge of China and then revert to conventional solutions because
out-of-the-box thinking makes them uncomfortable.
As the strategic situation is new, so must our thinking be new. In wartime, privateers could swarm the oceans
and destroy the maritime industry on which China’s economy—and the stability of
its regime—depend. The mere threat of such a campaign might strengthen deterrence
and thereby prevent a war from happening at all. In strategy, as elsewhere, everything old shall
be new again.
****************
1. Department of Defense (DoD), Law
of War Manual (2016), § 13.5.2; Louise Doswald-Beck, ed., San Remo Manual
on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea (International Institute
of Humanitarian Law, 1995), Rules 13(i), 40–41, 59–60, 135, 138–39.
2. 10 USC § 8852. For prize law, see 10 USC §§ 8851–81, and 10 USC
§ 7668 (allowing courts to only pay net proceeds into the Treasury).
3. U.S. Congress, An Act Concerning Letters of Marque,
and Prizes, chapter 102, 26 June 1812.
4. Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict
(Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 96
5. Edgar Stanton Maclay, A History
of American Privateers (London: Sampson, Low, Marston, and Co., 1900), 506;
George F. Emmons, The Navy of the United
States: from the Commencement, 1775, to 1853 (Washington, DC: 1853), 170–203.
6. World Bank Trade Database,
data.worldbank.org.
7. “Merchant Marine” in CIA Factbook
2018 (Washington, DC: 2018).
8. Gary Doyle, “Chinese Trawlers Travel Farthest and Fish the Most: Study,”
Reuters, 22 February 2018.
9. Congressional Budget Office,
An Analysis of the
Navy’s Fiscal Year 2019 Shipbuilding Plan (19 October 2018).
10. Naval History and Heritage Command,
“U.S. Ship Force Levels 1886–Present,”
www.history.navy.mil.
11. MAJ Nicholas R. Nappi, USMC, “But Will They Fight China?” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings 144, no. 5 (May 2018).
12. DoD, Law of War Manual,
note 1 at §13.5.3.
13. Kim Sangupta, “Blackwater Gunboats Will Protect Ships,” The Independent,
19 November 2008.
14. Sean McFate, The Modern Mercenary:
Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2014), 142.
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