TADJ64

==Chapter 64 - The Adjudicator==
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===Overview of 3161 for the Lyran Commonwealth Navy (LCN)===
In less than 20 years, the Lyran Commonwealth's naval presence has gone from a remnant to the largest space-naval force in the Inner Sphere, having displacing the Republic of the Sphere's 91 ship 'mothball' fleet by an order or two of magnitude.  What is more significant, is the radical change in how the Lyrans use their naval assets as compared to the historical usage of space-naval forces.
While the majority of Navies exist to support ground units, acting as transport, C3 Surveillance & Control, and supplemental fire for surface invasions, the LCN model deviates severely from this tried-and-true paradigm. Instead bringing the focus onto a commerce control model that almost entirely ignores planetary invasion in favor of blockade.
This model was demonstrated twice: once, while acting in the more common and established role of supporting planetary invasions against Clan Jade Falcon, and again against the Rasalhague Dominion. Where the purely naval blockade model was put into action and with the exception of one incident at Lyons, ground forces were left with no-one to fight as the LCN's forces simply cut off. By isolated Dominion worlds and their forces, and then kept them isolated until the Dominion negotiated a separate peace with the Commonwealth.
===The Basics===
"Ignore conquest theory."
A navy exists to defend the interests of the nation it belongs to.  If the enemy can not move his forces from their base into your territory, he can not invade-or even raid.  It doesn't matter how many Battlemechs an enemy has, if they are trapped on a planet.  Thus, an invasion is not necessary to neutralize a hostile power, what is necessary is to isolate their forces inside their own territory.
"No industrialized society can survive indefinitely without trade."
This is a critical point in the LCN's doctrine.  Not only the cutting off of trade, but also the encouragement of trade.  LCN vessels in peacetime render aid and assistance to Merchant vessels.  any merchant vessel, under any flag, including field repair and maintenance.  This is done without charge, and provides crews with extensive training in boarding operations, damage control, logistics planning and additional side-tasks.  This doctrine began as an indirect means of suppressing piracy and contraband trades, as the guilty will run, the innocent won't, and those on the tipping point can be pulled back.  As a military role, this provides the LCN with easy access to intelligence sources via rumor collection and simple interaction, particularly with small, independent traders who may have traveled in areas the LCN does not.  side benefits include improvements in economic activity and enhanced income generation as trade in areas with Naval presence will be more active and vigorous, producing more income for taxation and with more tax money, more money for the service.
"We are not beasts."
After the Falcon War, the LCN has put in force a policy of rescuing the crew of stricken vessels-even enemy vessels, and in the case of wartime, placing those captured personnel into safe, monitored environments where they can recover from their injuries and await repatriation to their nation of origin.  The official policy is, in fact titled "We are not Beasts", and severe punishments await any officer that orders weapons fire to be directed at escape pods, lifeboats, and the like.  Nearly 60% of the Ghost Bear personnel from their fleet at Lyons were returned to the Dominion in good health after nearly ten years internment.  Most of those were rescued after the battle, with a significant portion being rescued from stricken vessels that in prior eras would have drifted until salvaged, resulting in personnel deaths.
The Logic behind the policy of "We are Not Beasts" comes from lessons learned in the succession wars, when merchant shipping, civilian vessels and lifepod / lifeboats were used as easy target practice by all sides.  Skilled space-crew are necessary for interstellar trade, therefore, crewmen should be preserved and returned in anticipation of an ending of hostilities.  But it goes beyond that.  when the choice of 'surrender or be destroyed' is presented, it underscores that surrender is an option. that is, that a surrender will be honored, that your personnel will not be mistreated, and that you can (eventually) return home.
This model has also been adopted by the AFFS/N branch in the Federated Suns, and the FWLN, because it works. The rebuilding Ghost Bear Naval Arm has begun looking at this doctrinal change as well, mostly influenced by the humane treatment of Ghost Bear crew by LCN captors during the conflict.  (the recovery of the Alshain survivors further underscored this-even with Elemental marines firing on boarding teams, the LCN personnel went to extreme lengths to recover them from their ruined, shattered vessels and bring them safely to POW holding, where they were treated with humanity, dignity, and respect-a treatment completely at odds with what they believed they would face after the treatment of the Jade Falcons.)
"Don't hesitate to be unconventional"
During the Falcon War, the LCN pioneered a number of unconventional strategies to tilt the odds-even against visibly inferior opponents in their field of operations.  in combat, a commonwealth vessel won't hesitate in opening the exchange of fire with nuclear tipped weapons first, though they consistently refuse to use such weapons on surface targets or civilian occupied stations.  In other services, nuclear-tipped ordnance is termed 'special ordnance'.  In LCN service, it is termed "antishipping ordnance", and is among the first, as opposed to last, resorts used in ship-to-ship combat.  This has already caused great consternation among military planners in neighboring nations, as the usage is viewed as 'ungentlemanly' by most surrounding powers. 
It is far from the only use of non-conventional means.  LCN forces have made a standard practice in preparing a target system with kinetic impactors ranging in size from ten kilogram 'grapeshot' to 150 ton 'penetrator' structures released weeks in advance.  The Jade Falcon held fortresses in their occupied zones-remnants and copies of Star League era Brian Fortresses immune to conventional orbital bombardments, were eliminated using "seventy meter penetrators" equipped with fusion engine/fuel-tank and guidance modules, released from nearly an astral unit away and timed to strike those fixed fortifications at relativistic velocities at angles nearly perpendicular to the planetary surface.  The results being  a series of new shield-type volcanoes where there had been deeply fortified, nuke-proof fortresses prior.  the resulting ground shocks and aftershocks, as well as the new volcanoes as mantle magma bubbled up through the holes drilled in the crust, have had limited, and relatively easily mitigated, environmental impacts.  The strategic impacts were significant and severe, as surface fortifications were shown to be enormous targets instead of impenetrable fortresses.
Several Dominion worlds experienced massive blackouts and disruptions in the later conflict, as 'gravel' was hurled through planetary upper atmospheres, stripping away satellites, disrupting or destroying radio communication, and damaging vulnerable sensor arrays, comm arrays, and networks. These kinetic strikes using 'limited' sized projectiles shattered airbases and landing fields, major factories, and travel networks on key base-worlds. By forcing military resources to be put to getting things in order on those planets while simultaneously crippling or eliminating the ability of defense units to respond to hostile forces.  The major focus was on space-lift and fighter resources.  During the Lyran/Dominion conflict, not one single LCAF ground forces unit entered Dominion territory, but the LCN was able to neutralize the entire local transportation network, shutting down spacelift even into orbit in some cases.  THIS was very unconventional, as the crippling strikes were not accompanied by a surface invasion fleet, leaving Clan Ghost Bear's enormous, well-trained and well-equipped surface armies with no enemies to fight, and no way to get to the fight.
This is termed "Neutralization warfare" and specifies that it is not necessary to destroy an enemy, so much as to destroy his ability to act.
Economic Warfare and Humanitarian Missions
During the Dominion/Commonwealth 'war', the LCN violated a number of accepted strategies that are not spoken about as being a violation.  They let "Non governmental relief agencies" land and take off from dominion worlds under siege, providing food, medicine and relief supplies to civilian and at times military populations on those worlds-while maintaining the blockade and freezing/destroying Ghost Bear shipping.
This may be seen as an extension of the "We are Not Beasts" order, and it has been roundly criticized by military professionals throughout the Inner Sphere, as it violates basic siege doctrines going back to pre-spaceflight.  the psychological impact, however, can not be underestimated as an expression of dominance-the Lyrans could and did control what goods flowed into the Dominion, and prevented them from gaining economic benefits from exports-even internal exports, crippling the industrial economy to a far more serious degree than the loss of a few factories could have, while simultaneously lowering the prestige of the Warrior Caste in Rasalhague politics.  there are times when letting an opponent live in dependence can be more devastating than simply killing that opponent outright, and the Ghost Bear blockade demonstrated this in detail.
This was further demonstrated by LCN forces effectively ending piracy along the periphery border of the Dominion entirely-effectively taking over the 'providing safety' justifications used for warrior ascendancy in that nation's political environment-the Warriors could not force the blockade off, could not control the skies, could not even protect their own bases, and were not capable of protecting their civilians...but someone else was capable of, and doing, that exact thing for nearly half a decade.
This restraint was noticed.  It was noticed at the civil level and it was noticed at the military level. Resulting in a string of Khans during the Ghost Bear/Commonwealth conflict as successive Khans failed to break or lift the Lyran blockade. The economy of the Dominion shuddered to a halt and began falling in on itself.
By 3160, after half a decade of blockade, siege, and economic warfare, the Dominion was ready to accede to the Lyran Commonwealth's demands, severing their martial relationship with the Republic of The Sphere, negotiating an end to hostilities with the Draconis Combine, and entering into talks with the Lyran Commonwealth to lift the blockade.
At that point, the Ghost Bears had no navy. The Dominion had no merchant fleet-they were entirely dependent on the Lyran Commonwealth for both.
===Repair and Resurgence of the Ghost Bears===
The terms of the Dominion Treaty were unusual.  As the Victors, the Commonwealth could have made the Dominion a protectorate; Limited their military, Dictated foreign policy, Demanded unequal, or Abusive trade sanctions.
Trillian Steiner-Davion did not do this and she made sure nobody in the Estates General tried. In a callback to post-world-war-two policies of the allies, a plan to reconstruct the Dominion economy and their military was instead put into play, beginning with the issuance of bonds and low interest development loans to Rasalhague based businesses, reconstruction of several shipyards (including yards that had not been active since the First Succession War),  and a massive military aid package to rebuild and remodel the Ghost Bear fleet.
Naturally, there were limits.  The military aid package was focused on providing the Dominion with an effective defense with limited expeditionary capacity, though the model was drawn from the LCN's own reforms and doctrine.
The reformed Ghost Bear fleet was laid out in a tiered structure, with an emphasis on correcting the core flaws that had led to their naval defeat by the LCN in the first place. Though some issues would remain in force due to the Clan origins of the Rasalhague military, (including the caste system).
Structurally, the Dominion fleet would be arranged with a nice selection of low-tier vessels for local control and patrol. A mid-tier would server as a 'quick reaction' force consisting of Corvettes and Destroyers. While a higher tier of Cruisers would act as leaders for destroyer groups, and a top tier of battleships to handle the command-and-control tasks normally seen with jump-capable warships. The parallel to that was a sustainment fleet of armed merchant vessels tasked with maintenance and sustainment of fleet assets.  What was deliberately frozen out were large scale military transports capable of supporting invasion operations...
Also, participation in a multinational 'exploration initiative' led by the Lyran Commonwealth Navy.  Clan Ghost Bear would not be contributing ships to this mission. Instead, personnel-specifically personnel intended to return home and enter their own. They would take on the task of rebuilding their naval forces, bringing with them knowledge of 'how to navy' collected by serving side-by-side with the men and women whom had effectively frozen their nation into submission.
===Humanitarian Missions and Military Doctrine: An argument===
Pro: Humanitarian Missions provide experience and stress testing to the following functions of a naval force:
1.Coordination and C3 functions:  It takes a lot of resources to conduct humanitarian/disaster relief on a large scale.  this provides experience for unit and formation commanders in a non-combat environment.  Particularly in the fields of observation/reporting, cutting of movement orders, working with other units both inside and outside of the service, Communication protocol refinement, and stress-testing subordinate commanders to see who can think on their feet.
2. Logistics for expeditionary work:  These mission types give a significant workout for the transport, maintenance and repair arms, as well as providing experience in accounting and distribution of consumables, movement of materiel, and delivery/distribution of same.  Often over long distances and in some cases without regard for duration (aka "We don't know how long this will last").  this can reveal holes and gaps in logistical theories and structures that would otherwise have been ignored right into a major crisis when those gaps and holes create failures.
3. Civil Relations/occupation methodology and Provost work:  Disaster relief can provide practice for units intended to garrison conquered areas or to maintain civil order in domestic emergencies.  Liaison personnel can be exposed as incapable in a low-threat environment for reassignment to less stressful duties (or removal from service).  Troops preparing for occupation duties can learn to deal with refugees and displaced civil populations, troops intended for riot control can develop the necessary skills for defusing stressful situations without bloodshed (or without excessive bloodshed).
4. Sharpening the training of medical and service branch personnel: Base on a real-life experience model leads to better medical and service treatment of front line combat personnel in combat conditions.  Relief work provides real-time experience for trauma medicine, psychological symptom identification and treatment, and advance training on damage control, damage mitigation, and infrastructural identification and maintenance under stress.
5. Intelligence/diplomatic benefits: Foreign disaster relief aid provides multiple and numerous opportunities to recruit foreign persons as spies and advocates. As well as softening a nation's image and reputation with neighbors. Which can lead to advantages in civil diplomacy and international trade.   The ability to conduct humanitarian relief is also a blatant and bold statement of a nation's power and confidence in that power, this can be of use when negotiating with third parties, especially third parties who lack the economic clout or political will to provide humanitarian aid outside of their own borders.  Particularly as Trillian Steiner-Davion put it, "We can send the army to distribute bullets just as easily as we send them to distribute food."
As a statement of power, then, military assets used in humanitarian missions are in some ways a more potent statement than military assets sent to conduct a raid, or even an invasion.  The logic works thus: the sponsoring nation has sufficient 'slack' resources to aid a stranger in a disaster, while remaining secure in their own borders.  In this sense, then, Kindness is a weapon in your psyops arsenal.
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