“In peacetime you don’t normally shoot cruise missiles at other country ships in international waters.”
The reason we were (actually 25 or less) miles off the coast of Crimea was intimidation. Is that intimidation still valid if the ship has missiles trained on it that are mere seconds away? Take into account that Russia considers Crimea its coast, not Ukraine’s like we do.
Plus China already considers much of the South China sea their territorial waters. They don’t recognize our international waters or right of navigation. We played chicken when we sailed 12 miles off the coast of their artificial island. They backed down. Someday they may not.
Just saying, the world aint that peaceful, doesn’t share “our” territorial views and is gonna become less so.
Point taken. Yet anything that moves in bulk commerce moves on the oceans. The major day-to-day purpose for the USN is to act as a guarantor, a beat-cop. Any major nation taking such a shot is upsetting a lot of apple carts.
Iraq basically got away (for a time) with shooting at the "Stark". But Iran provoked a major response when it floated mines in the Persian Gulf.
China considers the Philippines to be in its territorial waters.