Aparently in 2001 and in 2009 Rand Paul tried to get the government to start issueing letters of marque to privateers to fight terrorists. I fully support this only because its awesome
@valleyforge
Relatively recently there was a call for this in some high profile US navy magazine, in the context of some chinese ships doing wierd shit. Although from some discussions around this I gather it's totally impossible in practice, mostly because privateering is against international law, and it requires cooperation from nearby ports to actually be feasible.
@valleyforge Well, I am no expert, so I'll redirect you to the place where I read the discussion: https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-march . Only the first section is relevant.
@timorl the US Navy has a lot of ports in places where this might be useful