Sooo... when and how exactly did the USN crush Somali piracy without CNN learning about it?


Sorry, the structure of the USN is suitable for land attack and bullying foreign countries, not for securing maritime trade. The latter would demand modern cruisers - high seas patrol ships / sea control ships. I see a lot of offensive aircraft carriers, nuclear subs and amphibious aircraft carriers instead.


Plus: It's impossible to prove that there would have been any major disruption of maritime trade if there was no USN.
The only case that comes close is the Persian Gulf during the 80's, and I don't recall the USN protecting tankers leaving Iranian harbours against Iraqi Mirage F.1 and their Exocets (keep in mind Iran was the victim of an obvious war of aggression then!). The USS Stark was fine with the Mirage F.1 on such an attack mission until it got misunderstood for a tanker itself.
Meanwhile during the same conflict, USS Ticonderoga displayed USN standards of excellence by grasping an opportunity to claim "self defence" and shoot down an Iranian aircraft. Damn the journalists who knew enough to point out that the supposed F-14 was not a threat to a missile cruiser and damn the bad luck that the F-14 was an airliner on an announced, scheduled flight!



Sorry, if viewed from a neutral stance, the USN is more of a threat, a lingering aggressor, than any valiant protector of maritime trade.
The U.S. has mis-used the 'free maritime trade' idea so often as excuse for entering hostilities and violated it at will so often as well by restricting maritime trade itself that I don't see why a foreigner should buy into the U.S. chest-beating about supposedly providing a great service to mankind by securing maritime trade against threats.



Now from another point of view:
Pretty much every military is first and foremost a bureaucracy. Bureaucracies strive for maximising their size up to the limit of sustainability.
The USN heartily embraces every opportunity to justify its budget (size), and it's obvious that claiming to be the protector of global maritime trade is one such opportunity. One should not buy into such bureaucratic propaganda, though.

The same goes for the forward deploying /patrolling in distant waters. This requires a rotation scheme, and rotation schemes multiply the need for forces. The forward deployment thing was the great bureaucratic moment of creativity in pursuing the biggest possible budget. All this patrolling does not serve the purpose of being able to react quickly or the purpose of suppressing conflicts - it serves the bureaucratic self-interest in an almost ingenious way. It's almost ingenious because with no other scheme on earth the USN could have convinced anyone that it truly needs so many ships, more than half of the world's modern combatant tonnage! The idea is ridiculous, especially since the DoD has a 2nd "D" for "Defense", not a "N" for "Navy" nowadays.