Its really simple, the Navy doesn't want Gunboat Diplomacy.
Why? We gots da boats...
I don’t know what to make of this. As someone who has spent a good portion of my life around the US Navy, I am puzzled why the Navy supports this.
This does not sound like anything they would support...it would tie our hands.
I cannot believe the simple explanation is that the Navy doesn’t want to be in tenuous political situations. From all I know, both personally and historically, that runs against the grain.
Ship captains have always been expected to take into account political considerations and international relations. That is one of the reasons it can be a pretty lonely job.
Treaties provide illusions of protection from unreasonable maritime challenges; illusions quickly dispelled by lack of forthright action. Concerning the showdown between U.S. (UNCLOS signed) and PRC (UNCLOS ratified) over the Navy EP-3E, China saw no problem in provoking the incident, notwithstanding UNCLOS and prior treaties defining freedom of the seas. Further antidotal evidence emerges from taking of British (UNCLOS ratified) hostages by Iran (UNCLOS signed). In this day of instantaneous communication, the fact the British captain did not fight his command means senior commanders and politicians, including some masquerading in military uniforms, failed miserably when exerting the authority they had confiscated to protect freedom of the seas. Since Iran is a terrorist state, the first evolutions practiced by Coalition task force units should have been the continuum of actions (a treaty advocate definion of Gunboat Diplomacy) opposing Iranian provocations in the Persian Gulf and Straits of Hormuz. The Iranian boats did not materialize alongside the British like some Klingon Birds of Prey, but had to employ a variety of intrigues to which there should have been timely, consistent, practiced responses not requiring phone calls to politicians half a world away.