Today is Flag Day and an appropriate occasion to reflect on the diminished presence of warships and other vessels proudly displaying ours on the world’s oceans – and an ominous consequence: Freedom of the seas is being increasingly threatened by the presence instead of hostile powers’ navies and what amount to pirates in strategic choke points and waters. 

 

Today, from the Panama Canal to the one in Suez to the straits of Taiwan, Hormuz, Malacca and the Bab el Mandeb, our own and others’ commercial and national security interests are at risk.

 

An important webinar this afternoon will examine the role and implications of the Chinese Communist Party’s burgeoning fleet, dual-use shipping companies, controlled ports and proxies in enabling free maritime movement for “friends of China,” but not so much for the rest of us.   

 

Join us at PresentDangerChina.org.

 

This is Frank Gaffney.