Actually, now that I think about it - is the US military or coast guard even authorized to operate in the Mediterranean? Looks like we have some operating agreements and exercises with Malta but I’m not seeing a lot of readily available hardware that gets deployed there. You’re certainly not getting any large scale hardware (cutters, subs, deployment platforms) into the Mediterranean in short order.

I can’t imagine that they are, at least, not without first co-ordinating and clearing it with local authorities, and if a country suddenly did that without warning, I can’t imagine that the reception (or the imagery) would be particularly positive.

Imagine being Malta, and suddenly the US is beelining a bunch of military hardware your way with neither announcement nor warning. That would probably set off all sorts of warnings.