Cruise ships, like their foreign-based crew members, are treated as fungible goods.

CNN: What cruise lines don't want you to know

These events are capable of bearing a different interpretation: that of a series of reactions, in which a skeleton foreign-policy crew responds to happenstance events in a way that reveals preferences, but stops short of laying out a clear new agenda.

ECONOMIST: Working out the world

Sea Shepherd argues that the US court has no jurisdiction over foreign-flagged vessels sailing in Australian waters with an international crew.

BBC: US court brands whale activists Sea Shepherd 'pirates'

Gripping the ice with his sharp claws, the polar bear leaned over the edge of the ice, sniffing the air and taking in the foreign scent of the 50 sweaty, sunburnt tourists, expedition leaders and crew.

BBC: Life in the fragile, frozen Arctic