 So here's another depressing topic, but again, I don't have time to get into it. So this will have to be a longer show at some point, but there was a good article today in the Atlantic, much of which I don't agree with, but it was a, in terms of the solutions, but it was a good article, nevertheless, a really interesting article. And this is the context I want you to hold. The world post-World War II, and this is something that, what's his name? The demographic, symbiography guy always talks about, you guys will remind me of his name in a minute, the demographic, geography guy. Post-World War II, basically what happened was that the United States military, but primarily the United States Navy, basically guaranteed Zihang, thank you, Zihang, basically guaranteed the world shipping lanes and made globalization possible. It made trade possible. It made massive improvements in human life, massive improvements in wealth and in wealth creation, possible massive declines in poverty around the world, massive increases in the standard of living of Americans and America is the great beneficiary of globalization as much as anybody in the world. And all of that was made possible by the ability of the cost of shipping to be driven down to almost zero at some point because of the invention of the container, because of the glut, the number of ships that were built and because primarily the shipping lanes were basically protected, pirates were gone, state actors stopping the shipping were gone, even though there was a Soviet block, the Soviets did not want to challenge the United States in the high seas. They had no ability or willingness to stop global trade from happening. I mean they might have wanted to, but they had no ability and they certainly did not want to confront the United States in doing it. And as a consequence of, you know, this kind of protection of the sea lanes, which is what Ayn Rand complimented the British in the 19th century on. She called it gunboat diplomacy, but more importantly, she talked about the point of foreign policy, the primary purpose of foreign policy and of the military beyond protection from invasion and protection from terrorists was to secure free trade, secure the movement of goods from place to place. And the United States did that and did that very effectively in the post-World War II era, but the United States became complacent. It became complacent after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union invested a lot less in its Navy, shut down a lot of its old Navy capabilities. It then became complacent because there were significant voices within the United States really starting with the Trump administration against trade. The globalization was somehow bad. Picking up really on a point the left had been making for a long time, you know, we were losing jobs, we were losing competitive edge, trade deficits were bad, and we needed to stop all this trade. And as a consequence, the United States is being retreating from its position of protecting the sea lanes of the world, fewer ships, fewer submarines. And at the same time, what we've seen is that China not only is now aggressively taking hold of areas in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, that whole area, including international waters, building artificial islands, but clearly laying a claim to the busiest shipping lane in the world and trying to take it out of American influence. And whatever you think about China, that is not good. That is not good. It is not good for American security. It is not good for trade. And part of this is a consequence of the fact that the United States is investing less and less in its Navy. It's investing less and less in, you know, busy in wars in Iraq and wars in Afghanistan and having troops all over Europe when Europe can defend itself and having troops, really ground troops in 120 different countries. And at the same time, neglecting its Navy, the United States is unique in that it has both, you know, Atlantic and Pacific coast, and it has the ability, it has a, it had an amazing Navy that could project power all across the globe. It is slowly losing its dominance. The United States has no ability anymore. For example, to compete with the Russians in the Arctic region, we have no ability to take ships into the Arctic region. They're just not built for it anymore. The Chinese now have more ships than the United States. That was good. But more importantly, the Chinese now have these very sophisticated supersonic missiles that can take out ships a thousand miles from the shore of China, which basically gives them control over the west of the Pacific. The United States is building nuclear submarines and next generation nuclear submarines, but as everything that Pentagon does, it's slow, it's inefficient, it's super expensive, and it takes forever. You know, in the US is deployed some aircraft carriers, a new class of aircraft carriers, again, over budget, too slow, too slow in terms of production. It's going to take a while for them to get into the field and they're not yet equipped with the latest technology of lasers and again, hypersonic missiles. Hopefully, they will be equipped with those very quickly here or very shortly. But we need more. I think all of our quality of life and standard of living depends on a strong US Navy that protects the shipping lanes, that protects trade. We need a domestic policy that protects trade as well, but we need a foreign policy. We need to reorient our foreign policy from being the policeman of the world, from being the protector of Europe. Europe doesn't need our protection. Russia is a source of trouble, but Europe can take care of Russia. But Europe needs to understand that the United States is not going to protect it forever. Nuclear umbrella, but no conventional forces in Europe. Ultimately, I mean, you can't do that all at once, but long-term. America needs to focus on where I think it can add the most value to America. And that is protecting the shipping lanes and making sure that terrorists do not strike us. And that can be done in a variety of ways, which I've talked about in other lectures. Anyway, it's an Atlantic piece, the age of American naval dominance. I mean, he has all kinds of recommendations that are anti-trade. He wants a lot of subsidies. He wants a lot of industrial policy. But I think his diagnosis of the problem, I just posted the link to the chat, his diagnosis of the problem was interesting and worth reading, even if I completely thoroughly disagree with his conclusions. But it is something to really be wary of and to be alert to, particularly China's seeking dominance in the Western Pacific. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to youronbookshow.com slash support by going to Patreon, subscribe star locals, and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content. And of course, subscribe, press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who are already subscribers and those of you who are already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.