Galrahn; Shipmate …. you should have emailed me first. I don’t want to get in a sniping war with you – but you called me out and I have to defend my good name. I don’t know who you are responding to, but it isn’t me.

I also think CDR Salamander couldn’t be more off the mark with his analysis that this represents the US Navy going it alone in theater.

Huh? Re-read both my post here and at my home blog – I don’t know where you are reading this.

What you will read is this,

This is a classic “opt-in” set up. Only a few will play varsity football – send the non-swimmers to the JV squad.
…
We must always work with allies – but you need to be ready to go on your own.

That is not a statement of exclusivity – but reality. “Few” means more than one – “must” means must – and if no one shows up to help, you need to be prepared to….

If the National Command Authority says, “We need to do X.” The answer at sea should not be, “We can’t because we need the Duchy of Grand Fenwick’s replenishment ship and they just left because the Grand Duke wants to take the problem to the United Nations again. One of our replenishment ships can get underway from Norfolk in 48 hours – they should be there in a few weeks – we need to be patient. Anyway, maybe the Grand Duke’s Ambassador will have some success by then. Hope right now is COA-1.”

What both of my posts are about is that individual nations have their own individual interests. When you work with allied forces, some ships in your operation will do some things, some will not – if you can get them to join your operation to begin with. As a result, a commander may have 8 units of which he can only effectively utilize 2 or 3 in a highly kinetic environment due to national ROE and caveats. As a result, a commander cannot do his job. The only other option to maintain some sort of unity of command and unity of effort is to create a “Coalition of the Willing” at sea that will do what needs to be done – and give you units and commanders you can rely on. Hence the Varsity Team (CTF-151) and the Junior Varsity Team (CTF-150).

We don’t need to dip deep into the well of history to see where these lessons are. Right now there are Americans, Canadians, Dutch, British, Danes, Poles, Romanians, and probably even an Estonian or two that are dead or wounded because of the national caveats placed on the German, Italian, Spanish and other nations forces that will not fully commit to the fight outside their ‘lil neighborhood in Afghanistan. That is without even starting down the road with what Spain did after the Madrid bombing.

The fact that CTF-151 had to be created to have a “CTF of the Willing” demonstrates this reality YEARS after HOA piracy became an issue – and proves the epic failure of the construct of CTF-150 to address the festering problems of HOA piracy. We cannot go alone in the world – but we cannot depend on the spine of others to support our national security or national will when we have the ability – or should have the ability – to do it ourselves or with just a few nations’ support. Some of the piracy SME Eagle1’s comments are worth a review (Eagle1 BTW has been banging the drum about Somali pirates since early-2005 – the time from then to now that it took to fight WWII, BTW).

Ask the Brits how many ships, aircrew, and ground forces her allies put in harm’s way during the Falkland Islands War. Then ask them if they could do it again, and are they comfortable with that.

One last bit of snarky covering fire. In your otherwise excellent post, you took another swipe at me (…world view and all…)

Depending upon your point of view, or world view, the reasons regarding why the US Navy is developing CTF-151 may very.

No variance here – my reading on the creation of CTF-151 is perfectly aligned with VADM Gortney.

“Some navies in our coalition did not have the authority to conduct counter-piracy missions,” said Vice Adm, Bill Gortney, CMF Commander. “The establishment of CTF-151 will allow those nations to operate under the auspices of CTF-150, while allowing other nations to join CTF-151 to support our goal of deterring, disrupting and eventually bringing to justice the maritime criminals involved in piracy events.”

Hey, CDR Salamander is on the side of a 3-star staring back at Galrahn! I knew this USNIBlog would be fun!

XOXO and all Gal – you know I love you like a brother from another mother. Fun thing is, when you strip away the misunderstanding, we are mostly in violent agreement. For a Mercantile Republic, free trade along the SLOC is an international concern regardless of whose ships are threatened. Partnership with other nations to facilitate that security has been a mission since our nation’s birth and remains so now. This is nothing new. However, in a broader sense, to make the fickle nature of international partnerships a foundation stone to your nation’s security without a clear-headed understanding and acceptance of the Strategic Risk that brings is foolhardy.