America’s Pivot to the Pacific

Angry Planet

Matthew Gault

War, Politics, Conflict, Government, History, News

4.3 • 882 Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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The Pentagon has been trying to pivot to the Pacific for years now. Under President Donald Trump 2.0, who is focused on China, it just might happen. It’s a complicated body of water with dozens of players and a bloody history. One where Beijing is increasingly asserting itself.

Here to walk us through some of it is Angry Planet producer and Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Kevin Knodell. He’s just back from the Philippines where he spent two weeks reporting on a joint exercise between the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific.

Balikatan
Training exercises as signalling
How 40 years of Balikatan tells the story of U.S.-Philippines relations
“There are definitely some places where it is about the fish.”
The Chinese Maritime Militia
Duterte vs Marcos in 2025
Why America doesn’t understand China
Russia’s imperial history in the Pacific (Kevin misspoke here, it’s Fort Elizabeth not Fort Alexandria)
Why people like Pete Hegseth
The Nine-Dash line
The century of humiliation
Checking up on Red Hill

Hawaii troops forge alliances in Philippines

Army, allies ponder Pacific role

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Love this podcast.
0:02.0	Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature.
0:05.2	It's up to you how much you give and there's no regular commitment.
0:09.1	Just click the link in the show description to support now.
0:12.6	Hey there, Angry Planet listeners.
0:14.3	Did you know that Angry Planet is almost entirely listeners supported?
0:17.8	If you go to Angry Planet pod.com and ship in $9 a month, you get early access to all of our episodes and they are commercial free.
0:24.8	There's one up right now that won't be on the ad-supported feed until next week.
0:28.4	It is all about people that are trying to make AI generals, AIs that make command decisions, and why that is such a terrible idea.
0:38.5	Without further ado,
0:47.6	here is the episode. Hello and welcome to another conversation about conflict on an angry planet. Kevin, how are you doing? Doing all right. So the mysterious producer,
0:53.1	Kevin Nodale, is here.
0:55.2	Kevin, will you introduce yourself to the fine audience,
0:57.7	who's heard your name at the end of the show for 10 years,
1:01.0	but may not know who you are?
1:02.6	I mean, I've been on the show a few times.
1:05.0	We've got a lot of new listeners, though.
1:07.1	We've picked up quite a few in the last lake.
1:10.0	Fair.
1:10.8	Fair, Fair.
1:11.0	Fair.
1:11.3	Yeah, my name is Kevin Nodell.
	...

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