True, its hard to imagine a situation where privateers would add any measurable capacity to the US Navy.
> The US got a better thing called “sanctions”, which apparently allow US Navy to forcefully detain ships on the high seas and sell their stuff on the grounds of them being engaged in “illegal trade”, despite the ship having nothing to do with the US.
That kind of sanctions, don’t replace letters of marque (letters of marque are a way of getting private ships to perform functions for which you would otherwise need to use a Navy, which can include commerce raiding or, I suppose, enforcing sanctions – though the era of privateering and the kind of sanctions at issue don’t really overlap), enforcing sanctions is something you do with ships you have. If anything, the “new thing” of sanctions would increase, not decrease, the appeal of letters of marque.
What decreases them is having a professional Navy that overmatches the rest of the world combined, making adding private combatant ships, for any purpose, not really attractive.
Tax revenue on another countries brand of cigarettes, sure, hands-off.. agree
Actual piracy with weapons? how about losing a gun battle with US Navy and going to jail, yes.
In other words "it depends" .. a lot
Congress generally doesn’t seek to separately and redundantly authorize specific attacks once it has generally authorized the President to use military force, whether it was the bill passed in 1941 stating “the President is hereby authorized and directed to employ the entire naval and military forces of the United States and the resources of the Government to carry on war against the Imperial Government of Japan”, or the bill passed in 2001 stating “the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.”