Firstly the US has no jurisdiction whatsoever over international waters.
Secondly most of the countries involved in this are US allies, and in fact US scientific institutions play an essential role in it. Why wouldn't they? This sort of thing is what us marine scientific research organisations exist for.
Thirdly US mining companies could stand to make billions off the back of this sort of data. Why pass that up, or drive such benefits abroad?
Finally, imposing such a ban would be tantamount to the US declaring unilateral sovereignty over all of the Earth's oceans and their contents. I know the current administration doesn't seem too bothered about snubbing it's closes allies, but even if the US wanted to do this, they couldn't. They don't have anywhere close to the assets to monitor and interdict all the Earth's oceans. They certainly don't have the capacity to do that and also carry out the security and defence missions their naval and air assets are already assigned to.
So what part of their current security commitments do you think the US would be willing to give up to try and enforce such a ban? Do you think alienating all their allies would make it easier or harder to carry out those existing commitments?
Why would they be more concerned about this than with several countries with the capability to do this same thing on their own? Who probably already have mapped or are in the process of mapping the seabed in high-resolution detail via satellites and surface and submersible devices and vehicles?
And while that's a very long sentence, this is just a "public" version of the same.
well, given the number of thermonuclear warheads that have been misplaced, it does seem reasonable that we should at least try to prevent those kind of missions.
Secondly most of the countries involved in this are US allies, and in fact US scientific institutions play an essential role in it. Why wouldn't they? This sort of thing is what us marine scientific research organisations exist for.
Thirdly US mining companies could stand to make billions off the back of this sort of data. Why pass that up, or drive such benefits abroad?
Finally, imposing such a ban would be tantamount to the US declaring unilateral sovereignty over all of the Earth's oceans and their contents. I know the current administration doesn't seem too bothered about snubbing it's closes allies, but even if the US wanted to do this, they couldn't. They don't have anywhere close to the assets to monitor and interdict all the Earth's oceans. They certainly don't have the capacity to do that and also carry out the security and defence missions their naval and air assets are already assigned to.
So what part of their current security commitments do you think the US would be willing to give up to try and enforce such a ban? Do you think alienating all their allies would make it easier or harder to carry out those existing commitments?
If wishes were fishes....