Captain Jim Fennell

We're standing up for small nations, whereas China says we will do whatever we want because you're a small nation.

They take the view of might makes right.

I don't think that's what we're standing up for right now.

I think we can.

We have the ability to interdict like we're doing right now, whether it's a quarantine or a blockade of what's going on in and out of Venezuela, the Chinese are turning around.

We have the ability to provide influence into the Middle East.

My great concern is that we've seen the power and the influence of maritime assets in this operation off of Venezuela in a relatively benign area or benign environment.

I'm concerned about what happens if the Chinese decide to take Taiwan right now, or what happens if China

decides to do something against the Philippines or as they've been pressing recently against Japan and the entire Ryukyu Island chain.

Are we able to operate and do the same kind of operations 9,000 miles away from CONUS?

And I'm not sure that we are.

And so I don't want us to learn just lessons for benign environments.

We need to learn lessons for highly contested environments against an adversary who's playing in their backyard as opposed to us playing in our backyard.

I think President Trump is well aware of that comparison.

And that's why he said in his press conference on Sunday, and I think he reiterated on Air Force One, that he's not going to stop oil flowing to China.

But what he now has is a chip in the game, so to speak, which is to say, we need rare earth elements, China, and you need oil.

So if you're going to play with us and try to withhold rare earth elements from us, guess what we can do?

So we just gained another chip in the great game, and President Trump seems to be very adept at playing this.

And so I think he's going to be sensitive to that.

And there's a way that we can do this to where we can buy time to regain our resources, regain our military strength, and to demonstrate to China that they don't want to go there.