4 months ago They’re all linked. Arctic sea routes are open and Greenland is highly vulnerable to exploitation from China and Russia. The strategic necessity for America to control all of Greenland and its surrounding seas is vital to our national interests more than ever before. This effort for America to acquire Greenland is nothing new so President Trump is not just dreaming up a weird idea, he’s acting on an existing idea to meet our defense needs in the modern world. But we won’t be successful if we can’t defend ourselves and our allies in the maritime domain. The maritime strategy underpinning the new National Security Strategy is chokepoint-focused and the effort to increase our domestic shipbuilding must be successful in order for us to achieve peace through strength and deter our main adversary, communist China. The new Trump class battleship will give America a renewed capability to control chokepoints that we really don’t have today but the key to long-term success is increasing our sealift capabilities. We cannot successfully defend the Pacific without it. No jets fly without fuel delivered by sealift and no sexy missiles like the Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile fly without those jets. Time is short as China has declared it will be ready for war in 2027. Pentagon press corps member Captain John Konrad is my guest today. He is the founder and CEO of gCaptain Maritime News and author of the book Fire On The Horizon. He is licensed to captain the world's largest ships and has sailed from ports around the world. John has built some of the world's most advanced ships and managed billion-dollar offshore construction projects in some of the world's harshest marine environments.