Grant Newsham, U.S. Marine Corps retired, author of When China Attacks, is also my guide on East Asia and North Asia

and the battlefield of the potential conflict between the People's Republic of China and pretty much everybody else in Oceania.

There are a couple of exceptions. However, we're going to start with one particular

island chain. Granted and I have spoken of the Okinawa Island chain before. Okinawa is famous,

infamous for the Battle of Okinawa between April and June of 1945. The casualties were enormous on the American side, on the

Japanese side, and on the civilian side of the Japanese as well. This was considered a last-ditch

fight. The Japanese army meant to fight to the death and they nearly did. They also drove many,

many civilians, men, women and children,

especially women and children, to commit suicide or attempt to destroy themselves because of

lies they told about the American Marines and Army. This was a major operation, and it was very, very, very haunting, and the years after the war.

Okinawa today in the 21st century, however, is very critical because of the geography of Okinawa and the Okinawa chain.

Grant, a very good evening to you.

Okinawa chain runs from the home

islands of Japan all the way to Taiwan. What are the major strategic value parts of Okinawa? Where are the

Marines? Where are the, where are the harbors? Where is the fleet? Good evening to you.

Well, good evening, John. Well, Okinawa, which is part of what's often called the Ryukyu Island chain, in Japanese, the Nansai Shoto, the southern islands.

It occupies a part of the so-called first island chain, which stretches from Japan down to Taiwan to the Philippines and

onto Malaysia. So the Okinawa is right in the middle of this first island chain, and

particularly the Japanese part of it. If you look out from China towards the Pacific,

what you see is this chain of islands with Okinawa in the middle and then

other Japanese islands going up to the north and then down to the south. And Okinawa is the main

island, but if you go farther to the south, you will find Miyakoujima, Ishigaki, and then Yonaguni.

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