A reasonable post. I expected you to get slammed by our many isolationist types (who mistakenly think that isolationism is “MAGA”), but it appears they’ve departed for greener pastures (threads).
The USA has always been a seafaring nation (too much coastline for it not to be!) and has thrived when commerce by sea was safe and fair. The “fair” part is already out of kilter, if the safe part goes down too, the world economy, which we can’t escape being a big chunk of, is in deep doo-doo.
That said, it is not unreasonable to expect other nations very dependent on sea trade to step up further. It’s good to see Japan helping out, and South Korea is working on blue water capability. China should realize combatting piracy is in their long term interest too, but, they seem to be increasingly slf-destructive (just in generally different ways than the West has been recently...)
The Houthis firing a couple of “ballistic missiles” at our ship raises the ante considerably. Will Biden wimp out?
Your post has some excellent thoughts and I neglected to point out the sea trade/economic impact is enormous.
Yes, China is self-destructing, with the only question is how much damage they can do before that occurs.
You make great points.