מדוע תעלת פנמה היא נקודת החנק הקריטית ביותר לשליטה עבור ארה"ב? | ריאיון עם הקולונל בדימוס רוב מאנס

And from a focus on the western hemisphere, to the conflict in Iran, to the Philippines and Japan boosting their ties, how has the U.S. been countering China? Joining us now to unpack the geopolitical puzzle pieces falling into place is Rob Maness, retired U.S. Air Force colonel and former wing and squadron commander. He's also the author of What You Can Do About It. It seems there's been a lot of different moves. I know the Philippines and Japan were just bolstering their ties, which also impacts the U.S. We're all allies in that region. And then on the flip side, you have China over the years getting quite close to Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, Russia, of course, North Korea. It does seem right now the Trump administration has lessened some of that, at least with Venezuela, Cuba, perhaps Iran's ongoing. Do you see kind of global shifts happening right now? Yes, I do. And it's in a positive direction towards the vital national interests of the United States and our Western allies. Any weakening of China's Belt and Road Initiative, as one example, is a step in the right direction because when we put the number one priority under the new national defense strategy of strengthening the defense of the Western Hemisphere, it wasn't just about the Western Hemisphere. A lot of that is about China and deterring China and reducing their strength amongst countries that are supposed to be allies of ours under organizations like the Organization of American States, where we look to each other to help defend ourselves. Well, if China is coming in and giving free stuff to countries that are supposed to be part of that defensive nature of the organization, that's a problem for us. But that's not the worst problem. The worst problem is that China was about to get control over the most critically important choke point for the United States if, God forbid, we ever had to go to war in the Indo-Pacific area again with a major peer or near peer adversary like the People's Republic of China. They were going to get control of both ends of the Panama Canal. That's why the very first steps that this administration took was to disrupt that and stop it so that the United States of America has control over that because we built it, number one. But number two, and more importantly, it is the most important critical choke point for us to control if we ever had to, God forbid, go to war with the PRC. With the emphasis on the Western Hemisphere, I know part of that was to root out the drug cartels, a lot of drugs coming into the U.S., but also Chinese influence. There's a lot of, of course, economic interests in that region. When it comes to looking for partners, though, because the story coming out of a lot of these countries is they're not really getting what they were promised from the Chinese side. So some of them are looking to alternative markets, perhaps the United States. Of course, we're coming up on our 250th. How do you see perhaps the two systems playing out, especially on the global scale, where people are looking at these two different systems? Sure, the United States perhaps is still working towards that more perfect union, but compared to those totalitarian systems, what can the United States offer that communist China can't? Well, what communist China offers is, hey, we'll give you a loan and come in and build all this great infrastructure for you. But if you default on the loan, we take ownership of that infrastructure, which is designed to support large scale military operations, by the way. But what the United States can offer is we can help you restore your infrastructure, but you get the income and your people and your society gets the majority of the prosperity out of that as long as you are in a friendly relationship of doing business with the United States, which is what one of the things that we've always been about since our inception from George Washington on every president has emphasized that we want to do business with other countries because it helps our society become more prosperous, and it helps them become more prosperous, and it establishes a friendship as opposed to an adversarial relationship, which is what the Chinese concept is. Colonel Rob Maness, thank you so much for your time. Thank you very much.