This is CBSI on the World. I'm John Batsur with Gordon Chang at Gordon G. Chang. We turn

to defense of the Pacific from the theoretical enemy of the future in the 21st century,

PRC or Russia or some combination of hostile actors. I call upon Professor James Holmes of the

US Naval War College, who blogs at Naval Diplomat, to help me understand some technical terms here,

because in the 20th century, the Pacific War turned on fleets, especially carrier-balanced

fleets, and the air war won the decisive battles all across the Central Pacific to the shores of

the Japanese homeland. Now we're dealing with the same geography, the Pacific, especially

the Western Pacific, but the adversary is China, building very quickly a large navy, because

I've been led to understand over the years the Chinese PLA navy reads very carefully a famous

professor of the US Naval War College more than a hundred years ago, Mahan, who practiced thinking

about large battles between sovereign states. And the concept was a main battle force and a main

battle force meet to settle the dispute, something like what happened, say, almost in the first war,

but certainly happened at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century with Japan and Russia.

However, here we are in the 21st century, and there are whole new weapons systems and new

language. So I welcome the professor first to introduce us to a concept that the US Marine Corps

is now said to be practicing in the Indo-Pacific region, which is aerial denial or access denial.

Professor James, a very good evening to you. Thank you very much. What is the Marine Corps

preparing for, and how are they doing it? Good evening. Well, you actually gave us a good

preview of what I'm going to say, because when you were talking about the big battles in the Central

Pacific during World War II, that's certainly true. Those were much more that much more naval

fleet-centric engagements. But what we're really looking at, the Marine Corps is looking at,

it's almost a throwback to the South Pacific campaigns in the Solomon Islands in Guadalcanal.

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