[Phlyer]

What are we doing in the Black Sea, and when did it start?

This is a freedom of the high seas exercise. In international law, a 'right' that is not exercised for a long time is 'legally' lost. In order to preserve the definition of the Black Sea as 'high seas' and not territorial waters, the US Navy periodically (about once a year) sails a ship up into the Black Sea. The Black Sea demonstration been going on since prior to WWI, not always or only by the USN. This is also not limited to the Black Sea.

Another example was the Gulf of Sidra fight with Libya. Ghadaffi had declared the entire Gulf of Sidra to be Libyan territorial waters. We disagreed, saying that they were part of the 'high seas' and belonged to no single nation. To prove our point, we sailed a task group past his "Line of Death" and he sent out some fighters to harass our ships. F-14s shot them down.

International maritime law prior to the self-proclaimed declarations of the UN is *all* derived from common law - which is to say, common practice of the nations of the world. To that end, something that becomes common practice - or ceases to be - is a 'legal' basis for declaring that international law has changed. The USN engages in freedom of the seas demonstrations all over the maritime world.

In addition to maintaining that certain areas are 'high seas', there is an 'innocent transit' clause in international law for warships which says that they can transit waterways en route from one high seas area to another as long as they do it without engaging in combat activities. To that end, we (USN) notify nations that control the transit areas (in this case, the Bosporus and Dardanelles Straits) of our intent and our ships do not engage in military activities such as using anti-submarine sonars or fire control radars while transiting. In fact, since operating submerged is a combat activity for submarines, USN submarines transit straits such as the Strait of Malacca on the surface. And since it's hard to see a surfaced submarine, they get a USN surface ship escort while they are transiting the strait.

So it's not quite right to say that we had to get 'permission' from Turkey. In fact, that was part of the point - we have the right to make the transit between high seas areas through a historically recognized transit routes (straits). But as a courtesy, we inform them of our transit. And if the country claiming territoriality over the strait has some good reason to delay the transit, we usually work out a mutually agreeable time.

[aumrl]

we have had one there since Souchi having its prop repaired.

[OldNavyVet]

our ships do not engage in military activities such as using anti-submarine sonars or fire control radars while transiting.

That's news to me. I was in the Navy a long time ago and we occasionally used Fire Control radars in navigating into US Ports.