This is John Batchel, a conversation with Elbridge Colby in 2021.

Very helpful to review.

This is Elbridge's work on the Strategy of Denial, a book he published in 2021 to great fanfare.

These years later, he's a sizable voice in the defense of the United States and our allies in East Asia.

Strategy of denial is about building a coalition and building the pieces you need to make

China pay a very big price if it moves against any one of the coalition.

Three years later, we have August.

We have certainly a relationship between Japan, South Korea, and the United States.

We have the Philippines in the United States.

Australia weighing in not only in August, but in the quad.

More relationships will follow.

All identified by Elbridge Colby in 2021 as a coalition.

However, must concern ourselves, as Elbridge here warns, of breaking up a coalition.

It can be done. He's very careful here to say, don't go after Japan. And then he identifies

the Philippines as a possible target. That's what China is aiming for now. And Taiwan, that is the big

question. Is Elbridge Colby, his book on the strategy of denial, more of this later?

So Egypt begins right away.

They are trying to bring an end to this.

Look, there's still somewhat ambivalent about Israel, but they are allied with Israel in very clear ways against the Muslim Brotherhood and against Iran and against other extremists that have tried to exploit the Sinai Peninsula.

But Egypt's number one goal is to bring Hamas to heal.

And so they begin working the phones.

They begin talking to everyone that they can, whether it's the UN or Pakistan or Saudi Arabia, the Europeans.

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