Why Should We Care if China is Building its Biggest Island Yet in the South China Sea? | with Greg Poling

Why Should We Care About the World’s Blocked Oil Artery? | with Sal Mercogliano

Eighty to ninety percent of global commerce moves by sea - including 75% of the world’s oil and almost all liquefied natural gas (LNG). So when the Strait of Hormuz shuts down, the shockwaves reach every corner of the Indo-Pacific and beyond. In this episode, Ray Powell and Jim Carouso welcome back maritime historian Dr. Sal Mercogliano - Campbell University professor, former merchant mariner, and host of the popular YouTube channel What's Going on with Shipping? [https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping] - to unpack the two-month-old crisis that has bottled up 800 ships inside the Persian Gulf and pushed the U.S. Navy to seize tankers thousands of miles away in the Indian Ocean. Sal lays out what he calls a “tale of two blockades”: Iran rerouting traffic into its own territorial waters, shaking down shipping companies for multimillion-dollar transit payments on an international waterway and seizing Mediterranean Shipping Company vessels, while the United States mounts a blockade from the Northern Arabian Sea, firing inert shells at the Iranian container ship Tuska and boarding stateless tankers in the Indian Ocean under U.S. Department of Justice warrants. We dig into the Venezuela vessel seizure precedent, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the return of mine warfare, and why ship owners aren’t budging even with insurance on offer. Sal explains how ship-to-ship transfers off East Johor, Malaysia launder sanctioned Iranian crude, and why that anchorage could be the next target of U.S. enforcement. He also walks through the pressure building inside Iran: storage tanks filling, old supertankers towed out of retirement at Kharg Island, and the looming prospect of permanently damaging Iran’s aging low-pressure oil wells. We close on the ripple effects reaching Pakistan, India, Africa, and Southeast Asia - refineries shutting down, fertilizer supplies choked, and bunker fuel prices doubling - plus the quiet winner: Russia. Join us for a masterclass on why a regional war has become a global economic crisis and what the breakdown of freedom of the seas means for the Indo-Pacific. 👉 Follow Sal on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping] and X, @mercoglianos [https://x.com/mercoglianos] 👉 Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/], or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] 👉 Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] 👉 Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] 👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Why Should We Care About Kim Jong Un’s Dangerous Liaisons with Putin and Xi? | with Oriana Skylar Mastro

North Korean troops are fighting and dying in Ukraine, and the survivors are returning home to teach their comrades what they've learned. In return, Moscow is transferring military technology to Pyongyang. Beijing, worried about losing its grip, is competing for influence by easing up on decades of pressure that kept the Hermit Kingdom in check. And Washington? It's pulling forces out of the Indo-Pacific and sending them to other theaters. In this episode, hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso sit down with Stanford's Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro [https://www.orianaskylarmastro.com/], Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute and leading expert on Chinese military strategy, to unpack her new Foreign Affairs article, "Kim's Dangerous Liaisons: Russia, China, and the Growing North Korea Threat [https://www.foreignaffairs.com/north-korea/kims-dangerous-liaisons-oriana-skylar-mastro]." Oriana makes the case that the Korean Peninsula is more dangerous today than it has been in years. North Korea is more capable and emboldened and less restrained by its two great-power patrons, who are playing against each other for influence. A conflict on the peninsula today would inevitably pull in Russia and China, nuclear powers with combined military and industrial weight that rivals the United States. In this conversation: * Why North Korea's Ukraine experience is reshaping its military doctrine * What a "limited attack" on South Korea could look like, and how it could spiral * Why China's restraining role over Pyongyang is breaking down * How U.S. force movements to Iran are read in Beijing, Moscow, and Seoul * The 1950 Dean Acheson parallel and what Washington risks repeating * Why South Korea could one day hedge toward China if U.S. guarantees weaken * What real deterrence in Northeast Asia would actually require A sharp, accessible podcast on great-power competition, alliance politics, Korean Peninsula security, U.S.-South Korea relations, and the growing China-Russia-North Korea axis. 👉 Follow Oriana Skylar Mastro on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/oriana-skylar-mastro-0442779/] or X, @osmastro [https://x.com/osmastro], or check out her new Indo-Pacific Policy Lab [https://www.indopacpolicy.com/] at Stanford University 👉 Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/], or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] 👉 Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] 👉 Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] 👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Why Should We Care if China is Poisoning the Water Around a Philippine Outpost in the South China Sea? | with Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad

Philippine marines living aboard a rusting World War II ship grounded at Second Thomas Shoal in the South China Sea have been eating fish from waters laced with cyanide, and their spokesman says an October 2025 incident may have gone further, with Chinese “fishermen” potentially attempting to introduce the toxin directly into the ship’s desalination system. In this episode, hosts Ray Powell and James Carouso sit down with Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, the Philippine Navy’s spokesperson for the West Philippine Sea, to examine one of the most alarming accusations yet in the South China Sea dispute between the Philippines and China. Trinidad explains how the Armed Forces of the Philippines seized bottles from Chinese fishermen on four separate occasions between February 2025 and March 2026, and how recently concluded forensic testing has confirmed that the contents had contained cyanide. Was it a matter of destructive fishing techniques or something more sinister? He also discusses the July 2024 “provisional arrangement” on resupply missions to BRP Sierra Madre and why its ambiguity may be both a stabilizing asset and a long-term vulnerability for Philippine maritime security. He also walks through China’s massive military buildup at Second Thomas Shoal after the embarrassing Chinese ship-on-ship collision at Scarborough Shoal, and how Manila’s transparency strategy helped force a partial de-escalation. The conversation then turns to information warfare. Trinidad explains why he pointedly refers not to “China” but to the “Chinese Communist Party”, in order to distinguish between the people of the Middle Kingdom and its government in Beijing. He also shares why being personally targeted by the Chinese Embassy in Manila - and being recently caricatured in a state-run Global Times political cartoon - is, in his view, a badge of honor for standing up to Beijing’s narrative campaigns. Admiral Trinidad then talks about espionage, revealing how Chinese intelligence handlers recruited young Filipino defense workers via social media to gather information specifically about troops at Second Thomas Shoal and the resupply missions, and why he is urging Congress to replace the Philippines’ 1941-era anti-espionage law and pass new legislation on foreign malign influence. Trinidad closes with a message to Chinese officials he says he knows will be listening: their reaction to Philippine transparency shows exactly where their vulnerabilities lie. He finally announces that he is now days away from retirement from his active duty service in the Philippine Navy - but intends to keep speaking out about the West Philippine Sea. 👉 Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/], or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] 👉 Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] 👉 Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] 👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Why Should We Care if China is Building its Biggest Island Yet in the South China Sea? | with Greg Poling

At the start of 2025, Antelope Reef was little more than a sandbar in the Paracel Islands. Months later, it's on track to become China's largest artificial island in the South China Sea. In this episode, we sit down with Greg Poling, director of the Southeast Asia Program and the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI) [https://amti.csis.org/] at CSIS and author of On Dangerous Ground: America's Century in the South China Sea [https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Ground-Americas-Century-South/dp/0197633986], to unpack what China is building, why it's building it now, and what it means for the region – and especially Vietnam. Greg walks us through the latest satellite imagery, explains why the scale and speed of construction caught even seasoned analysts off guard, and lays out the military implications of a potential new airstrip in the western Paracels – the first in an area where Vietnamese fishermen have operated for generations. We explore why both China and Vietnam claim the Paracel Islands, how Vietnam’s own massive island-building campaign in the Spratly Islands complicates the narrative, and why Hanoi’s response to Antelope Reef has been surprisingly restrained. The conversation turns to the broader geopolitical landscape: Vietnam’s strategic rebalancing between Washington and Beijing, the Philippines’ recalibration during its ASEAN chairmanship, and whether a South China Sea Code of Conduct can ever be more than symbolic. With the 10th anniversary of the landmark 2016 Hague arbitral ruling approaching in July, we assess whether it has been a net positive or negative for the Philippines and the rules-based order. We also discuss middle-power alignment, the expanding Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership, and what countries like the United States, Japan, and Australia should and shouldn’t do in response. Whether you follow South China Sea tensions closely or are just trying to understand why a reef you’ve never heard of will soon be ready to receive combat aircraft and navy destroyers, this episode connects the dots between island-building, international law, great power competition and the future of the Indo-Pacific. 👉 Follow Greg Poling on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregory-poling-923406245/] 👉 Follow the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative on X (@AsiaMTI [https://x.com/AsiaMTI]) and Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/AsiaMaritimeTransparencyInitiative] 👉 Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/], or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] 👉 Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] 👉 Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] 👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific

Why Should We Care About America’s Extraordinary Rescue Mission in Iran? | with Ioannis Koskinas and Joe Felter

The U.S. military just pulled off one of the most dramatic combat search and rescue missions in history, sending forces deep into Iran to recover the crew of a downed F‑15E Strike Eagle fighter. Aircraft were lost, firefights erupted, and both airmen came home alive. The last time America attempted something this ambitious inside Iran was Operation Eagle Claw in 1980 - and that ended in disaster. In this episode, hosts Ray Powell and Jim Carouso sit down with two retired special operations colonels: Ioannis Koskinas (Air Force Special Operations, CEO of The Hoplite Group, former senior advisor to Generals McChrystal and Schwartz) and Joe Felter (Army Special Forces, Director of Stanford’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense). As Felter puts it: no other country could have pulled this off, and no other country would have tried. The conversation starts with the rescue: how it was planned in under 48 hours, how and why aircraft were lost at a forward staging site deep in Iran, and what separates this outcome from the 1980 failure. It then pivots to the broader war: where the conflict with Iran is headed, the risk of Gulf state escalation, and why both guests, drawing on painful experience from Afghanistan’s collapse, warn against assuming tactical brilliance equals strategic victory. The episode closes with the Indo‑Pacific: what allies are thinking as American attention and resources once again pour into the Middle East, and whether the U.S. can fight in the Gulf without undermining its ability to deter China. 👉 Follow Ioannis Koskinas [https://www.linkedin.com/in/ioannis-koskinas-3706866/] and The Hoplite Group [https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-hoplite-group/posts/?feedView=all] on LinkedIn 👉 Follow Joe Felter [https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefelter/] and the Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation [https://www.linkedin.com/company/stanfordgkc/posts/?feedView=all] on LinkedIn 👉 Follow us on X, @IndoPacPodcast [https://x.com/IndoPacPodcast], LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/company/why-should-we-care-about-the-indo-pacific/], or Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/IndoPacPodcast] 👉 Follow Ray Powell on X, @GordianKnotRay [https://x.com/GordianKnotRay], or LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymondpowell/], or check out his maritime transparency work at SeaLight [https://www.sealight.live/] 👉 Follow Jim Carouso on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-carouso-baa31a9/] 👉 Sponsored by BowerGroupAsia [https://bowergroupasia.com/], a strategic advisory firm that specializes in the Indo-Pacific