This is John Bachelor, conversation with Captain James Finel, US Navy retired intelligence officer for the Pacific Fleet,

commenting on what is to be done about the threat the People's Liberation Army, Navy,

and Air Force make routinely against our allies in the Western Pacific. That

would be Japan, the Philippines, certainly would include Australia, but the threat is routine

now.

First Island Chain, second Island Chain, in the ambition of the People's Republic of China to capture and subdue Taiwan.

What we're looking at here is a battlefield, a vast battlefield of Oceania, and the first and second island chain.

James Finel comments here about what needs to be done to weaponize that island chain and more.

James Finel, Captain U.S. Navy retired Intelligence Officer on the threat China represents to

peace in the Western Pacific and how to mitigate that threat and make

hard targets out of islands.

More of this later. I think that's part of what the Marine Corps

Force Design 2030 was about was some movement towards that and the Army is now embracing some of that but when you look there was just a recent financial times article in the last 24 hours that showed the missile ranges of the Chinese from the mainland out into the Pacific and it goes past Guam with, like I said,

the DF26 and other weapon systems. But our missile systems that we have so far that are the ones that are in place in the

the Rieuco Island chain in in Japan those are shorter-range anti-ship

cruise missiles that that's good we're starting to move there but my recommendation is that we need to have

longer-range land-attack missiles that put the mainland of China at risk.