Please use Chicago style with endnotes not footnotes. Assignment details below, please call or email if you have questions.

You are commanding a Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) in the South China Sea. On patrol, you receive a VHF call for help from a petroleum engineer aboard a Vietnamese owned natural gas rig operating along the Chinese-Vietnamese maritime boundary. You know that the engineer is American and that there are six other Americans on the rig. The engineer tells you that “the resupply ship was attacked by several PLA Navy vessels and sunk alongside the rig” and he thinks “there are survivors in the water.” Now the rig is also coming under fire and the engineer is pleading you to help evacuate him and his friends. One of the PLA Navy ships contacts your bridge and tells you that this is a “police action dealing with illegal activity” and for your vessel to “remain outside a 10 mile radius from the illegal oil rig.” Nothing in your current operating procedures or rules of engagement specifically addresses this situation. Your satellite communications system is down and you are unable to call 7th Fleet or request other assistance.
Frame the problem(s). Identify that this situation is a moral dilemma and explain why. Make a decision about this problem as the commanding officer and justify your
intended course of action using a moral reasoning approach like consequentialism,
deontology, or some combination thereof. Discuss how a moral dilemma should be
resolved and how leadership can influence their organization’s resolution of a moral
dilemma. [Disclaimer: The College recognizes most students will not command a naval
surface combatant nor have the technical expertise to fight such a vessel. The crux of this assignment is to grapple with the dilemma rather than explain how to employ the LCS.

Category: Essays