Cleo Pascal

To get to the first, second, and third vertical island chains, you need to get across the center of the Pacific from Hawaii all the way to Guam, which again is the United States of America.

So this idea that you can leave Americans hanging out there like

like happened during World War II, where there were terrible predations by the Japanese on Americans in Guam because they were just left there, means you need to be able to get across the center of the Pacific.

And that takes a lot of gear, and it also takes now a lot of digging out of the Chinese who have already embedded with political warfare across the whole center of the Pacific.

So, yes, first, second and third island chain, but those are the luxuries

First, you have to get control over the center of the Pacific, and that takes both the equipment and the political will to dig out the Chinese political warfare that's already undermining U.S.

power projection in the region.

Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the Chief of Protocol of the United States, Ambassador Monica Crowley.

Oh, it's been great.

And I think that the message that's being sent, not only to the American people, but to the Chinese planners, that this is an administration that is serious about the Navy.

They're showing off the capabilities, but they're also just showing off the pride, which means that you may start to see some new investment, which would be sorely needed.

is hopefully going to resonate.

And as you see the resonance within the public across the United States, especially after the speech to the flag officers by the Secretary of War and the president, and the fact that recruitment numbers are up, you're dealing with a completely different military and a different political approach to the military than the U.S.

has seen in a very long time.

So this is...

On many levels, not just in terms of capabilities, but also in terms of what we have talked about before, political warfare, narrative warfare, this has been a very important day.

Well, the Peloponnesian War, as Captain Fennell said, is quite important.

But the Thucydides trap stuff, I put it in the Mackinder bucket of something that needs to be thought of properly and again.

I don't really buy it because India is in the same position.

And India isn't about to try to attack the United States in the same way that the Chinese Communist Party is.