Steve Yates
speaker
1,090 appearances
8 recordings
3 series
first heard Feb 2026
last heard 12 Sep
Steve Yates’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 8 in all, peaking in Sep 2026 with 1.
Appearances
They're probably keeping the best for themselves.
But there's the demonstration effect of being able to operate with impunity, sort of normalizing people to the idea of their persistent presence and not just a persistent presence near their shores, but going to the Pacific Ocean side.
That, I think, is the more alarming part of the trend, the sort of balance back.
is that while they have invested heavily in this power projection capability, their ability to invade and control and occupy has not really improved.
While Taiwan's ability, along with a lot of allies in the world, to deter and to hold and resist
with advanced technology, whether it's drones or other high-tech platforms, has increased.
So I think the proposition of sort of, quote unquote, winning by taking and controlling Taiwan, that is more elusive for China than people might think.
But its ability to hit and destroy has definitely gone up.
Yeah, well, I mean, not every normal person tries to pay attention to the geography of the bottom of the ocean.
But if you look at that, in the Strait of Taiwan, it is a more shallow waterway.
It's much choppier waters as a result.
And so that's one of the things that hinders invasion-type scenarios.
But once you get past Taiwan, there's a steep shelf that drops off into the Pacific.
And that's why we have a lot of blue water capability that is across that first island chain.
That's why we have a lot of bases that are over along that first island chain.
And that's why, you know, basically the Pacific has been America's domain, especially since the Japanese awakened us to our vulnerability of hop, skipping and jumping across the Pacific to be able to challenge the United States in World War II.
So post-World War II, it's been incredibly important to us.
And thus, because it was important to us,
it became important to China to be able to operate in those areas.
But also the topography of Taiwan on the Eastern shore is more mountainous cliff-like.
Showing 421–440 of 1,090 · page 22 of 55
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