Unfortunately we often see kneejerk reactions from our politicians, both US and EU, who must be seen to do something by powerful news companies. Any important decision requires discussion and councelling BEFORE you blow the mofos away and glass their grass (irony warning - that means the last bit is not intended to be taken seriously!)
I'm not yet convinced that aircrew armed guards (please lets stop calling them skymarshals) are the answer. I'm no security expert yet I can think of one or two ways of circumventing them. I am however open to reasoned argument and if it is decided that we need them then that's the plan.
If the US requires armed guards on aircraft operating in US sovereign airspace then compliance will be a prerequisite of obtaining a clearance. I just hope that all countries required to comply will carefully select and train their guards. I regret that this will almost certainly not be the case.
Never forget that this is all due to a political situation in which we've become embroiled but discussion of that aspect is not permitted on this website.
As I've said before, I hope that there's a lot going on in the background that we don't know about and that those of us who know about commercial aircraft procedures are careful about what we post in public. Don't forget that a lot of PPRuNers are not commercial flightcrew despite efforts by some to appear so.
Finally, as Danny has said in so many words already, some of the trans-Atlantic rhetoric (in both directions) sounds like cowboys talking in the old films and we aren't cowboys, are we?
Seat 32F,
You'd probably be as surprised as I at some of the places we can operate to without an insurance surcharge.