Also, because I do want to address this, but not clutter up a thread about SoERR:
Alizabeth is a GSF Skirmish Commander. She is perfectly capable and empowered to take out a fleet whenever she wants, to go shoot at pretty much whoever she wants. To that extent, she does have some measure of actual control over the means of power regarding capsuleer activities in Anath.
Given the nature of our military command structure, and the fact that I am not an FC, Alizabeth has more direct authority to conjure a horde of murderous cretins with a snap of her fingers than I do. Indirectly, I can, of course, prevail upon many of our senior-level FCs to do me a favor pretty much whenever I like, as well as being able to place timers and other combat operations on the calendar well in advance. It’s worth remembering, however, that our most senior FCs—the people who will drop a full battleship fleet on each gate to control a system—predate Alizabeth’s departure, and hearken back to a time when Alizabeth Vea was a director in Goonswarm.
Where matters of ‘break the rules in Anath and get shot’ are concerned, Alizabeth is just as likely to have capital ships dropped on your head as I am. Maybe moreso. She’s got a demonstrated history of being… forceful.
More critical to my mind, though, is that you also call into question the Imperium’s attitude toward the Empire, and my authority (with the implication of questioning my intention and attitude toward the Empire), so let me be clear on this:
The Imperium, including Goonswarm, has no intention of going to war with any of the empires. There’s nothing to be gained by such an action, for us. There is something to be gained in maintaining a peaceful, cooperative environment in the area just outside our borders. This is especially true during humanitarian Search & Rescue / Recovery efforts. War is a means to an end. It is the pursuit of politics by other means, as has been often quoted.
Terrorism[1], however, is a tool for the desperate. And it is not one with a history of successful application. That lack of success tends to lead to greater acts of intended destabilization, which in turn lead to greater crackdowns. Eventually the terrorists are rooted out, or their tactics begin to change toward dialog, and politics.
Allowing terrorism on our doorstep doesn’t benefit us at all. Keeping things peaceful does. Providing an environment where civilians have a better hope of survival and rescue does. And my personal priorities here are to try to make sure as many people have a chance of being rescued as possible. So really, if that’s your idea of an ‘untamed bear’… maybe you should consider actually learning what bears are?
- When looking at situations like this, it’s important to be clear about what you mean and what you’re dealing with. A lot of what gets called ‘terrorism’… isn’t.
-
- Terrorism is attacks that often include civilian targets where the primary goal is to sow fear and a lack of confidence in the institutions of governance. This is done to push a political agenda, but the target audience is specifically the populations being attacked.
-
- Asymmetric warfare uses many of the same types of strikes, but the targets are limited to valid military targets. They’re hit for legitimate military purposes. And all reasonable precautions are made to minimize civilian casualties and damages.
-
- ‘Freedom Fighters’ can often cross the line between asymmetric warfare and terrorism, but there are significant, if subtle, differences. For one thing, the agenda being advanced is not being pushed on the basis of fear and a lack of trust in the civilian populace. The target is not the target audience. Instead, the target audience is a population being oppressed/held back/constrained by the target. The intention is inspiration, not terror. Of course, this is a far more difficult thing to quantify and categorize in most cases, as the targets prefer to see the attacks about them, and not about any oppression they might be committing.
These deathglow attacks are terrorism. And we know, now, what their agenda is: it is expansion of Khanid power. The attacks in High-sec have demonstrated ‘no-where is safe’, and the first attacks in Khanid space provided King Khanid and his lap-mutt with cover and deniability. But the agenda is still clear:
They seek to establish a claim that they have been able to protect people, secure the space, and begin recovery in Anath where the current landlord House has not. They are using this claim to assert that this constitutes a service rendered. The constellation is being sought as payment for that service.
Civilian targets, with the aim being to convince civilian populations that the Kingdom, not the Empire, can protect them, so that the Court will be more inclined to placate both Khanid and the other civilian populations in the constellation.