Volume 77, Number 1 () Winter 2024

Chasseur American Privateer with British Brig Drake, 1815, a 1960 oil painting by Arthur N. Disney Sr., depicts the U.S. privateer Chasseur in action against a British warship during the War of 1812. Chasseur was built as a merchant vessel and began the War of 1812 as a blockade-runner between Baltimore and the West Indies before its owners concluded privateering would be a more lucrative use of the vessel. It went on to be one of the most successful and profitable privateers of the war before returning to merchant service at the conclusion of the conflict. In “Outsourcing Security at Sea: The Return of Private Maritime- Security Companies and Their Role in Twenty-First-Century Maritime Security,” Pieter W. G. Zhao explores the political and economic factors behind the early emergence of private and mercenary naval forces and behind privateering’s eventual extinction and uses this history to illuminate the return of privatized maritime security to address modern-day piracy in Southeast Asia and off Africa.