Several thoughts occur to me as I read this thread:
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What of a view that nations have a kind of limited jurisdiction on the sea - that the sea, rather than being the domain of no nation, is instead the domain of all nations. In this view defending a very basic level of physical peace on the trade routes might be justified in the same way that preserving the peace in the town square is justified: if it is not our jurisdiction, whose is it? Who do we expect to bring peace there? Extending a limited jurisdiction to the sea seems, on the face of it, a reasonable proposition to my libertarian mind. Though an optional one, certainly, for a young nation.
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Our nation at the time had a much more nationalistic way of looking at things than most of the people on this board, and also a defensiveness of their sea trade that we are probably ill-equipped to understand. We were not very far removed from England, where the health and pride of the nation depended upon defense of sea trade. It would have been much more natural for us to adopt a view of limited jurisdiction - we were primed for it.
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Merchants always have choices: stay in port, trade somewhere else, buy mercenary protection, convoy with mercenary protection, convoy with protected foreign trade, ship goods on protected foriegn ships, sell ships to businessmen in protected nations and co-own the companies, use protected ships for only some portions of the route, utilize some overland routes, pay individual tributes, etc. etc. The motivators for changing the situation completely really come down to rising trade costs and the pervading sense of national jurisdiction/responsibility. I would not be surprised to find the former used as an excuse for what was largely the latter.
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Did we have a national security interest? Hardly. Did we have a national economic interest? Here is the ideological divide: most of us say no - we’re utterly content with trade finding its own path of least resistance. We may not think that markets are perfectly efficient or that their results are always universally desirable, but a say 30% cost spike in certain goods due to piracy (either via decreased supply or increased protection expenses) holds no fear for us. For another kind of person - the kind that looks at the nation as a big company, with growth to be carefully pursued - it is an abnormality to be “fixed”. There is a devotion to the status quo - quick to spring up - that libertarians generally don’t share, either personally or ideologically.
I think the U.S. interest in the sea as a territory of limited legal jurisdiction is defensible, though optional. Since it is optional for any one nation to take up, I would much prefer to see the funding be largley voluntary. This part is hugely important for reigning in the “service” that is being provided. What else would control its decisions and expenditures - it’s ongoing scope - if not some forme of voluntary, market-based control of its purse-strings? Otherwise the very differences in operation and perspective that allowed government to plan and execute this approach, when the market could not, can just as easily cause the solution to be inefficient or mis-applied, or to overstay its welcome and its need. To suggest that the possibility of legislative action is sufficient here is to grossly underestimate the power of the status quo, and the preservation instincts of any institution, whatever its nature.