Cleo Pascal

Yes, I think it's starting.

So as mentioned, the only head of state that they have speaking here is the president of Palau, which is right.

That's the Battle of Peleliu.

A lot of Americans died for Palau to become independent.

But the challenge is that you have to travel from here in Honolulu eight hours west to get to more of the United States in Guam and the CNMI area.

And that's when Admiral Paparo was speaking at the opening session, and he was asked how important the Indo-Pacific is in the context of hemispheric defense.

He didn't mention that the U.S.

is in Asia.

The U.S.

is on...

the front line of Asia.

And if you can't secure the center of the Pacific, you can't secure those Americans sitting way out on the front line.

And they're not there accidentally.

This goes back to McKinley, who said, President McKinley, who said during the Spanish-American War, unless that perimeter is secure, then Oregon and California aren't safe.

And then we learned during World War II, if the center of the Pacific isn't secured,

then the U.S.

isn't safe because that's where the Japanese staged from for over 30 years.

So we're starting to see some recognition, and we're also starting to see exactly what the rest of this hour has been about, which is the confluence of political warfare and economic warfare.

So you're seeing new levers coming into play.

And again, in Palau, I think we're starting to see the first roots of a new form of strategic foreign policy.