celticlord
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Strange as it may seem to you, that is how the military operates.If? Are you seriously saying that US military can do military actions without the approval of the Commander in Chief?
The Commander in Chief might have authorized the rescue. Perhaps the rescue effort was included in the orders given the Captain of the USS Bainbridge when she was ordered to the scene...and such a redeployment of Navy assets would have originated with the CinC; if that was the case, kudos to the CinC for issuing such orders.
It is also possible that the Captain of the Bainbridge seized on an opportunity of the moment, and acted on his own authority. The Captain of a Navy ship has considerable latitude in such matters, and authorizing a rescue effort would easily have fallen within his standing authority.
Since 2007, US Navy deployments and operations have been largely guided and informed by the strategy document "A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower", which specifically endorses the use of Naval assets to secure and protect the sea lanes. One of the six strategic imperatives articulated by that document is directly relevant to the Somali situation:
Prevent or contain local disruptions before they impact the global system.
Maritime forces will work with others to ensure an adequate level of
security and awareness in the maritime domain. In doing so, transnational
threats—terrorists and extremists; proliferators of weapons of mass
destruction; pirates; traffickers in persons, drugs, and conventional
weapons; and other criminals—will be constrained.
With such standing strategic doctrines and imperatives already in place, I doubt the Captain of the Bainbridge needed much additional authority from the CinC to act in this circumstance.
The Commander-in-Chief could have communicated to the military that he wanted Captain Phillips rescued and the pirates captured or killed; I most certainly hope that the Commander-in-Chief did communicate that, for it is the right communication to make. I also know that he need not have made that communication in order for the crew of the Bainbridge to take appropriate action when presented with an opportunity to rescue Captain Phillips.