Quote:
Originally Posted by JohnR
The US would have trouble watching that with out entire Coast Guard.
|
This is the principle source that many people are ignorant on - people have an attitude of "how tough can it be". John, you are dead on that the amount of sea that needs to be secured is vast. Locally, people can't grasp what "a million square miles of open ocean" is. They think that just because we are the most powerful nation in the world, we should be able to stop these actions completely because we're the USofA.
What people don't get is that this isn't a time of war with Somalia so there is only a very small risk to US interests. The percentage of ships being attacked is statistically minuscule compared to the number of vessels that pass through the oceans.
"But Americans are being attacked." Behind the scenes, I'd be willing to bet the administration's response is "So what?" The only reason any country has involved their Navy patrolling the waters is because of the potential economic impact to their own interests.