This is a conversation with my good colleague Jerry Hendricks.

Captain Jerry Hendrix, United States Navy retired on the basis of his observation

over these last years that the US Navy is unready and needs everything.

Docks, shipyards, smaller ships, frigates, lots of submarines.

To provide and maintain a Navy why Naval Promise is America's first best strategy is

the book.

And here Jerry comments on the Cannonball rule.

Cannonball rule at first seems quaint, but when you consider the claims that the People's

Republic of China makes on the South China Sea, you begin to understand the Cannonibal Rule has given rise to a whole new

series of decisions by major powers and weapon systems by the People's Republic of China and the

U.S. and Russia answering. Here's Jerry of China and the US and Russia answering.

Here's Jerry Hendrix on the Canenball rule and what it means for the potential of a conflict

in the Western Pacific, very strong conflict, possibility.

More of this later.

Well, that's a great question, and it's one of the most interesting historical questions,

but it has dramatic implications for us in the world today.

So at the time that Hugo Grodius was making his claim of the Free Sea, there were a number of entities,

including the British and even some voices within the Dutch body politic that said

no no we don't want a free sea in fact we want to extend territorial claims over

large portions of the oceans so that we can control them almost as if they were territory.

But the pushback was that you cannot really control, you cannot claim what you cannot control.

So there was an argument that said that unless you can exercise

...