United States "Freedom of Navigation" Program
The United States' Freedom of Navigation program challenges territorial claims on the world's oceans and airspace that are considered excessive by the United States, using diplomatic protests and/or by interference. The United States position is an insistence that all nations must obey the international law of the sea as stated by the UN Law of the Sea Convention, though the United States ironically enough has yet to ratify the treaty. Some coastal states make claims that the United States see as inconsistent with international law, which, if unchallenged, would limit navigational freedoms of the vessels and aircraft of the U.S. and other countries.
On several occasions, U.S. armed forces have conducted operations in areas claimed by other countries, such as naval operations in the Gulf of Sidra in the 1980s. Throughout the years U.S. forces have been performing "Freedom of Navigation" operations in the Straits of Gibraltar, Strait of Hormuz, Straits of Malacca, the Indonesian Archipelago, the Black Sea, and occasionally the Canadian Arctic.
One of the notable operations conducted as part of Freedom of Navigation program was performed by USS Yorktown, during which, on February 12, 1988 she was "nudged" by Soviet frigate Bezzavetny in an attempt to divert the vessel out of Soviet-claimed territorial waters; some observers have called the event "the last incident of the Cold War."
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