Build a Fleet!

Weird Harold wrote:
And where would they get the money, resources, manpower and willpower to maintain tens of thousands of ships and hundreds of bases?

What part of "Multi-national" do you have trouble with?

They will get the ships and personnel from participating treaty partners. Perhaps even you will be asked to provide a "Galactic Police" detachment for a nodal force.[/quote]

In the time frame of the OP, I just do not see this as a realistic possibility. If for no other reason than the time required to send messages will stretch out the period of unrest, civil, and multinational wars determining the new power structure and balance. Now 100 years from now... Sounds more likely.

Would your scenario work for a "good" neighborhood close to an established nation? Yea maybe. Elsewhere far from the GA? I highly doubt it.

Relax wrote:In the time frame of the OP, I just do not see this as a realistic possibility. If for no other reason than the time required to send messages will stretch out the period of unrest, civil, and multinational wars determining the new power structure and balance. Now 100 years from now... Sounds more likely.

Would your scenario work for a "good" neighborhood close to an established nation? Yea maybe. Elsewhere far from the GA? I highly doubt it.

If the "Galactic Police" tried to work from a central command & control, it probably wouldn't work. With decentralized control and a policy of rotating detachments to new sectors with some regularity, it could work.

Mostly, it will have to be enabled as part of setting up the bilateral mutual defense treaties when implementing the Harrington Doctrine.

Weird Harold wrote:If the "Galactic Police" tried to work from a central command & control, it probably wouldn't work.(ME.... SAY WHAT? Are ya nutz?) With decentralized control and a policy of rotating detachments to new sectors with some regularity, it could work.

Pull out a history book and give even ONE instance where this has worked... Guess why people become politicians by and large? They crave power. No nations are going to go "policing" without obtaining benefits in return. No centralized power turns into the UN "peace keepers" who only are there to keep their pocket books fat via corruption while not policing a Damned thing letting rapists and murders have free reign.

Why do you think USA/UK left Iraq? Sorta lost the moral high ground leading to: They did not demand concessions in its political structure or monetary concessions regarding its oil. In short, they let the corruption flourish unabated till it was untenable to stay.

Yea, Germany/Japan after WWII recovered quickly. That is because we enabled our own businesses to move in under favorable conditions. Give and Take and the allies implemented a top down political structure and economic policy which the people who had been repressed by their OWN governments for a VERY long time rejoiced at. In Iraq, well, we were the economic suppressors in their short term memory even if they had forgotten that the original economic suppressor was their own government.

Weird Harold wrote:

Relax wrote:In the time frame of the OP, I just do not see this as a realistic possibility. If for no other reason than the time required to send messages will stretch out the period of unrest, civil, and multinational wars determining the new power structure and balance. Now 100 years from now... Sounds more likely.

Would your scenario work for a "good" neighborhood close to an established nation? Yea maybe. Elsewhere far from the GA? I highly doubt it.

If the "Galactic Police" tried to work from a central command & control, it probably wouldn't work. With decentralized control and a policy of rotating detachments to new sectors with some regularity, it could work.

Mostly, it will have to be enabled as part of setting up the bilateral mutual defense treaties when implementing the Harrington Doctrine.

So now the Galactic Police has sector commissioners/governors with enormous amounts of local autonomy. That's not going to play well with the people who used to live under OFS.

Manticore has definitely experimented with different solutions to problematic neighbours over the years. Standing out is direct military confrontation with Haven, but there were also the long-term patrolling of Silesia followed by annexation when its government failed to get itself under control, the brief war with San Martino which ended without an occupation and the current suppression of Masadan sovereignty. The Republic of Monica is also being left alone, aside from a few port visits.

The future is probably continuation of existing interstellar agreements(e.g. Cherwell Convention, Eridani Edict, Deneb Accords) with a high expectation of competent self-policing and mutual assistance as required. Outside intervention only as a final resort, when a star nation has become an interstellar hazard(such as the Farley's Crossing system).

munroburton wrote:So now the Galactic Police has sector commissioners/governors with enormous amounts of local autonomy. That's not going to play well with the people who used to live under OFS.

That depends on whether those who used to live under OFS get to be the Galactic Police and have (shared) oversight/control of the local detachments.

munroburton wrote:The future is probably continuation of existing interstellar agreements(e.g. Cherwell Convention, Eridani Edict, Deneb Accords) with a high expectation of competent self-policing and mutual assistance as required. Outside intervention only as a final resort, when a star nation has become an interstellar hazard(such as the Farley's Crossing system).

Those would certainly be the core of Interstellar Law and a Galactic Police Charter.

There seems to be an assumption that I'm proposing a force with jurisdiction over planetary affairs; I am NOT proposing a force with any jurisdiction over planetary affairs. I'm proposing a Space Patrol with jurisdiction limited to anti-piracy, anti-slavery, and interstellar mutual defense. A force to patrol the spaces between systems.

Weird Harold wrote:
Those would certainly be the core of Interstellar Law and a Galactic Police Charter.

There seems to be an assumption that I'm proposing a force with jurisdiction over planetary affairs; I am NOT proposing a force with any jurisdiction over planetary affairs. I'm proposing a Space Patrol with jurisdiction limited to anti-piracy, anti-slavery, and interstellar mutual defense. A force to patrol the spaces between systems.

Don't make me laugh.

Space is now independent from the planet.....

So, if China decides to start paroling the "air" around your home, you would be fine under their laws eh? After all, your home is "safe". Then when they start taxing you to use this "air" they patrol, you will be really happy then. Right? Right?

Weird Harold wrote:

munroburton wrote:So now the Galactic Police has sector commissioners/governors with enormous amounts of local autonomy. That's not going to play well with the people who used to live under OFS.

That depends on whether those who used to live under OFS get to be the Galactic Police and have (shared) oversight/control of the local detachments.

munroburton wrote:The future is probably continuation of existing interstellar agreements(e.g. Cherwell Convention, Eridani Edict, Deneb Accords) with a high expectation of competent self-policing and mutual assistance as required. Outside intervention only as a final resort, when a star nation has become an interstellar hazard(such as the Farley's Crossing system).

Those would certainly be the core of Interstellar Law and a Galactic Police Charter.

There seems to be an assumption that I'm proposing a force with jurisdiction over planetary affairs; I am NOT proposing a force with any jurisdiction over planetary affairs. I'm proposing a Space Patrol with jurisdiction limited to anti-piracy, anti-slavery, and interstellar mutual defense. A force to patrol the spaces between systems.

Yeah I think I am with you, Harold; However, instead of Galactic Police, I think "Galactic Patrol" may be a more suitable name...*

But like you say, it could only occur if all the nations making it up had an equal voice, and it may take some time (I don't know if I agree with Relax's 100 years, but it will take time) before it becomes a common thing.

I'd say my only point of contention with the OP and the fleet discussions is that I don't think it is quite as easy as they think. Yes, these are heavily industrialized planets with a high level of technology, but with little or no previous warship-building capability (except for those who are building SLN ships, and I think those are going to go away relativelety quickly). As is said above (apologies, I can't remember who said it), you have to design, engineer, build the parts and tools to build the parts and tools that makeup a warship, put in all the infrastructure, train your personnel to build the things, run tests and if necessary rebuild (Murphy lives in shipbuilding, too), before you even get the first DD off the rails.

It's going to take time and money. The GA mission is going to be to try to keep systems from feeling the need to do this by providing treaties and trade and negotiated settlements; hey, we negotiated nuclear treaties with the Soviets when we didn't particulary like them, and have negotiated a deal (and no, not interested in discussing it here) with the Iranians, who have no particular love for us.

Can the GA accomplish it? Going to be very tricky. They need to come up with a method of cloning about 2,000 copies of Baroness Medusa. Or Relax's future will last a very long time.

We shall see, eventually.

IMHO as always. YMMV

* In honor of the first SF book I ever read, The Star Watch would also be a good name.

Relax wrote:Don't make me laugh.

Space is now independent from the planet.....

So, if China decides to start paroling the "air" around your home, you would be fine under their laws eh? After all, your home is "safe". Then when they start taxing you to use this "air" they patrol, you will be really happy then. Right? Right?

You're talking a unilateral assumption of jurisdiction.

I'm talking something like this:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3e/CTF-150.jpg/880px-CTF-150.jpg

(panoramic thumbnail; too wide for the forum)

Full size:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/CTF-150.jpg

Ships of the multinational fleet Combined Task Force 150, March 2004.
From the left: DM F-213 Augsburg, JMSDF DD-106 Samidare, RNZN F-111 Te Mana, JMSDF DDG-175 Myōkō, MMI F-573 Scirocco, Spanish Navy Victoria (F82), US Navy USS Leyte Gulf, JMSDF AOE-422 Towada, USS Cushing

There is one reason to believe transition to local autonomy may be much much easier.

The SL core planets already had de facto local autonomy.

Historically, the major problem with empires when they fell was that governance, how, what, why, when, and wherefore, did not exist. Might makes right was the rule of the day.

Go through history in reverse of all of the wars when empires fell.

British Empire: India/Pakistan, Rwanda, Uganda, Rhodesia,etc. Canada/Aus/NZ somehow dodged the bullet.
Spanish Empire: Every single post fall country went through civil war at least once and as many as 3 or more times in several cases lasting decades. Some are still ongoing a couple hundred years later.
Qing Dynasty and others previous: Massive civil wars. No natural geographic delineation distinction leading to continuous cross "border" raids, expeditions, etc.
Holy Roman Empire essentially led to eternal European strife for several HUNDRED years straight. As successor states saw to throw off the Vatican taxes and power.
Ottoman empire: Never really fell, but it did shrink and where it shrunk...

Etc etc etc.

Relax wrote:There is one reason to believe transition to local autonomy may be much much easier.

The SL core planets already had de facto local autonomy.

Heck, League members have de jure local autonomy. And some degree of freedom to conduct independent foreign policies (Beowulf definitely had bilateral agreements with Manticore, frex; the Maya corner of Maya/Erewhon/Torch may be more legally dubious, but is also precedent there).