this is a little bit of a glimpse. >> watch the communicators >> coming up next, q&a with author and journalist michael fabey. that is followed by your phone calls and a look at headlines on "washington journal. bob dole is honored with the congressional gold medal at a ceremony on capitol hill. ♪ >> this week on q&a, investigative journalist michael fabey. he discusses his book --"crashback: the power clash between the u.s. and china in the pacific."

book: michael fabey, your #, i had to go to the middle of the book to figure out what it means. what does it mean? michael: a crashback is when a navy warship does an emergency . stop. it is one of the last things you want to do with any kind of ship like that. it happened when the uss cal ful stopped. also in this term it is about stop in our policy in the western pacific. this book amou did

witty to physically go to catch up on what was going on? michael: i went aboard a chinese worship. i was on heaps of american and australian warships. i was on australian shores. i was in the west pacific. i went into singapore. throughout the whole region. what was your conclusion after you did the research? michael: it is that we are engaged in a war of words with china, it is not a cold war, the fashioned cold war without the soviet union. this is a jostling that is pushing and shoving for the right to operate in what we consider to be international waters in the south china sea. brian: all of this research -- when did you finish it? michael: i finished writing the book right after the election

last year. brian: the election in 2016? michael: yes. but who was the most interesting character you met? michael: admiral harry harris. he is the commander of the pacific command. he is japanese by birth. he is the perfect person for that job at this time. more than that, he has a real feel of the pulse of how far you need to go to stop the chinese without escalating to something that creates war. i remember one time i asked how would you best describe himself? he said of all the things i hate to lose. that was one way he described himself. he was an aviator for the navy and he has that look and feel about him as someone who is in charge, knows what he is doing

, and is not going to stop until he gets it done. brian: let's look at video to see who andrew harris as. >> nobody including me once -- wants conflict. i have been loud and clear that i prefer cooperation so that we can share our security challenges. but i want to be loud and clear that we will not allow this to be closed down unilaterally. no matter how many bases are taste on artificial features in the south china sea. brian: when did you first meet him? michael: at the time i met him he had just made admiral. he was in charge of the specific fleet. this would have been 2013, he had just taken charge out there. i met him in honolulu. he had just come aboard and the press was full of stories, especially in the chinese press about concerns over his heritage.

everyone knew how admiral harris felt about the pacific, and the chinese were certainly worried. worried someone would take a much tougher stance. before said the biggest concern in the pacific is i'm in change. brian: where is he today? -- he is in charge us sit pacific command. in the spring, he ones that down. there have been reports of the freedom navigation at that and our ships sail in the natural waters to prevent we can. to what the- close chinese consider it their territory. he has run this operation and things like that right now. brian: admiral harris is have chinese, half american. michael japanese. :big difference. brian: he was born where then?

michael he was born in japan. : so his father by then and she's in the navy, his mother had calmed from one of the bombed out cities and going to -- gone to work on a naval base there. met and thenem his early childhood years were in the west pacific. then he came back and go up in kentucky. he was raised trueblue american. be debt where did he go to school? michael: in kentucky. -- brian: where did he go to school? michael: in kentucky. brian: what is the significance of him being have japanese and we are talking about the relationship to the united states with china. michael from his point of view, : especially from growing up, his mother, he got a sense of asian philosophy, very patient. a group of people willing to a

generations. comparison the chinese have a very gut level reaction to the japanese , going back centuries. especially pre-world war ii. there is a sense among the chinese people of some of the things that were done when japan invaded china at that time that had not been forgotten. there is a sense over there that although he is have japanese, he has something against china and the chinese. he is going to take action that is going to be seen as anti-chinese. that is the way they felt. brian: you have a drawing of the map of that area over there. i want to put it on the screen and have you explain as much as you can what that is all about. this is an idea of what china considers to be this its territory. this is the big issue going on right there. this area represents the most

largest area for international shipping and possible international trade, as well as area represented by our allies like japan and south korea. it goes on and off, we are having trouble with vietnam are now. you try to reestablish vietnam. we are going to have aircraft carrier calls in vietnam. right now, you get an idea -- kind is saying basically the east china sea, south china sea, that is their territory. it is theirs. thererything along basically they said, we controlled the skies and the waters here. therefore, if you want to sail here you have to have permission. no, this ison is international waters and skies and we will do what we want. now, the top of the east china sea, those were surveillance

ships and for the most part that was chinese maritime forces. this would be more or less commercial forces that worked with some of the government forces and things like that. that was paint scraping and stuff like that. down in the south china sea and and in the south where there were some of the most important places where chinese militaries buildup. ,ou had the ep three incident which is one of our surveillance aircraft and it was flying and taking some pictures and things like that and getting intelligence in the region. right as it was doing that, it had the chinese aircraft that went up that basically started doing some kind of aggressive

actions toward an aircraft. they had had this happen before. in this particular case, it was a collision and the chinese aircraft was lost. dep 3 -- the ep 3 tried force ours to stay there and admit they were spies. after that, they said the aircraft. brian: what is an ep? michael: it is a very large aircraft, some on to the size of a 737. it is filled with this incredible amount of intelligence gathering information, sensors that can take pictures, sensors that can take all kinds of signals. basically, one big vacuum cleaner. brian: how many american sailors would be on that ship? michael: with an aircraft like that, you'll have a dozen or more equity given time. brian: what is international law when that plane was flying over

that area of the map? michael that area of the map. basically, there going to keep on going straight. brian: go to the pilot of the chinese jet. who was the end tells about what he did. michael: he was known as being a very aggressive island. he was someone who would come up against american aircraft and bump against it and the airstream would bump the plane. he was trying to force it off of its course and think twice about going a certain direction. he was known for doing that. in this case he was coming up and coming down and basically flying circles around our aircraft, a very close and dangerous in an effort to force it off the path. brian: how did that accident happened? michael: this particular aircraft had a issue with

stalling with speed. a jet fighter is going to have to go very slow to go side with the ep 3. it lost control and flipped up iso the plane and the prop going to cut the other aircraft in half almost. brian: what happened to him? michael: he was never found. they don't know if he checked it, but he and his aircraft were lost. brian: what do we do in relationship to china what the day do in relation to us when the plan landed on their territory? michael what happened after that -- and this was in the second bush administration. china, first they were trying to treat us like spies. it put them into a couple of different holding areas and did all kinds of interior -- interrogation tactics.

they were first as spies and ly charged him with being on the area without permission. he said they tried to send out made a's to contact the chinese. there is nothing to verify -- no way of knowing if he did, although someone with the expense would do something like that. that is something they are trained to do. that is what they were trying to charge him with. you had this kind of -- china wanted an apology from the u.s. and the u.s. was loath to apologize for doing something that it was allowed to do -- you are allowed to fly international space. you are allowed to fly there and spy. very recently we had some information to come out that a russian ship that was off the east coast was a spy ship.

they are allowed to do that. the u.s. was not about to apologize for something you're going to do anyway. that would be acknowledging that we weren't allowed to do it. they came out with an idea of apologizing for the death of a pilot. basically, we are sorry one of your pilots died. in china, and apologies, thing -- and apology is the kind of not ok.hey said this is at that point in time, this was a lot of back and forth with the state department and a lot of things that went into it. was taken apart in pieces and finally sent home to the u.s. intelligence,e not so much capability, but

information, they now knew what our capabilities were with that aircraft. that was premier spy stuff. brian: i want to jump to 2013. thank abc 10 is an san diego for this because you started talking about the uss cruisers. let's watch what they were reporting back then. >> we told you how they had to make a dangerous turn in the soft china sea to avoid the chinese ship that pulled in front of it. but this morning, a chinese government run newspaper is accusing the u.s. of harassing chinese ships. it got too close to a navy drill. the u.s. navy said it was in international waters, but china has declared the south china sea as its own and for navy activity there. brian: you were smiling? michael: yes, i was. though idea that they would be caressing them is interesting.

the other thing i was smiling about is the one thing that was not reported in that segment was that when china sent out the -- one carrier, now they two. t they had a operate zone around the carrier. they said this is our territory now. no one had ever heard of such a thing and there was no precedent for that. they weren't going to acknowledge that. this whole idea that the u.s. was violating any kind of chinese sovereign territory or that was harassing chinese ships with a lot about the chinese ships if they were harassed by a single cruiser out there. brian: who was the skipper at the time? captain was a rising star in the u.s. navy at

the time. he had commanded a story or before this. he was immediately working out of the pentagon. he was someone who was really destined for bigger things. he was given the job, which before this incident, was that thethat would be ship was old at the time. it was ancient compared to some of the newer stuff coming out. they were basically putting it next to a dock and let it hang out. instead, they basically said, we have an idea now -- we're going back into the western pacific as part of eight rebalance in the latter part of the obama and a rebalance of our forces in the west pacific. the pivot, rebalance, whatever you want to call it, exactly.

they said, listen, we have this cruiser and let's put it out for a lone wolf patrol. we will show them we have some theynce out there, and so told him to get out and get a crew ready that was on another cruiser. they worked basically with one of the best new combat systems around and they were going back to a ship that was being let go from an iphone x to one of the thing.lip phone kind of he established to get that ship and crew together in a short. of time and then he went out to see with it. brian: what happened to the captain? michael: the captain, after this incident do not have a very fruitful career. he got sick and there is a question of how sick he was, i talked with him quite a few times, and it served -- seemed

certainly he was pretty sick. he spent a lot of time in his cabin after this. you talk about there are two different cabins on the cruiser. michael this is closer to the bridge and another one close to the port. when dignitaries come aboard -- he was at this other cabin for most of the time. part of it was because of the sickness. brian: what kind of sickness? michael: a bell's palsy kind of sickness. brian: bell's palsy doesn't prevent you from communicating. michael: no, it doesn't appear he was running the ship the best he could from the cabin. brian: when did people start raising concerns? michael: the incident with the chinese ramada happened in early december. by the end of december, in

january, it wasn't so much about him being in the cabin because there are a lot of captains with idiosyncrasies. it was because he spent a lot more time with his xo. brian: what is and is oh? michael? : the second in command. his chief engineer move over and started doing the job. there was some banter around the crew that the captain and the xo were having relations. brian: banter, is that all it was? michael: when they came back a whole bunch of things happened. we took the ship out, it was in horrible shape. by all accounts, he got it from

horrible sake to just good enough -- horrible shape to just good enough. when he came back with it, it was in bad shape, not as bad as when he took it out but it wasn't in bad shape. you can only take a broken car so far, whatever, it is hard to say, but when it came back, it was in bad shape. he asked the navy review team to report tod and get a him on what kind of shape it was. started coming aboard and talked about the banter and extracurricular activity, eventually, basically he lost his command. they said it was because of the way the shape of the ship. when you talk to people in and out of the pentagon who were there at the time and who were

associated with the command on the pacific side, it was more -- they felt it was unfair. it has never been called that, by the leadership. brian: what happened to the lieutenant commander? michael: they want kicked out, but they were able to leave the service. he got you mentioned the chinese aircraft carrier brian: you mentioned the chinese aircraft. michael: it was a hand-me-down. there is a very interesting story about that. china first bought it saying they were going to make a floating casino, which would have been perfect. there were all kinds of casinos to portuguese buildings. that is what the cover story was. then he took it and fixed it up. they made an operational

carrier. in the meantime, what they've done is designed and built their own aircraft carrier. just recently could they launched that. brian: let's look at some video of the awning. there is a big difference in our aircraft carriers. tell us the difference. michael? the biggest is how they launch recovery aircraft. it is a sweet looking ship. the jets thrust to use it to take off. for the most part, it is the jet taking off. our u.s. aircraft carriers, we use the catapult systems. we are throwing that jet off their. result, we can put up the aircraft carrying more weaponry and operate in different kinds of weather.

brian: what are they doing with this carrier? using it as aare training ship for the most part. they are learning how not only to operate the carrier, but the carrier and the strike root is a major logistical nightmare. brian: how many do we have? michael: right now we have 10. we just recently said we are going to have 12. that is the idea, to have a dozen going forward. brian: out of the pacific? michael: we have the only forward based carrier in the world. brian: what does that mean? michael: it means its base is in japan right now. on the eastng else, coast side, the carrier is based out of san diego.

base is whereit's its home port is in japan right now. brian: what does it do? michael: it controls the region from a task force of destroyers and the ships will peel off and do solo missions here and there. it is going to operate drills and make calls. basically, it is a beat cop doing drills constantly. likeything were to happen a natural disaster or something like that, you have the aircraft going in and dealing with supplies and aid. brian: you talk about some of the chinese captains and admirals. is the captain still there? michael: no, he is not. i don't know where he has gone.

did you think of him? michael: i did not meet him, but i have talked to people who have. he is someone who is very engaging, very intelligent. he is very pleasant. brian: does he speak english? michael: he speaks english. spoke to the carrier captain and settle things out that day before it escalated to far. he is regarded as someone -- i can tell you on our side that people were very impressed with him. he was the head guide in chief naval operations. brian: what is he like and he is no longer the head? michael: animal greener is a former submariner. he said he didn't know much, but

quite honestly he knew a lot. brian: what role did he play between the united states and the chinese? he felt that his job was to keep michael things from escalated : -- escalating to far, and the best way to do that was to develop as strong a relationship as you could out there. he would always be looking for ways to get us engaged with core exercises. we invited the chinese to come. we did this off the coast of hawaii for the first time. much a lean forward and shake your hand. he has that kind of let's get to know each other thing. he gave his personal number to u.miral l

brian: did he ever use it? michael the admiral said that i : can't give you mine. the pentagon people were not happy with that interaction. brian: what was admiral lu's job? how did you meet him? michael: he grew up in a communist regime. two things, he is considered to be very party minded and two, very chinese minded. the chinese are a very patriotic people. they call china the motherland. he is also considered a top-notch mariner, someone who is very much into it with -- in tune with growing the navy, modernizing the navy and making sure they act appropriately. he did special drilling with the his officersbut

were english so they could do the drills properly. brian: you say in your book on page 73 that there are 12 chinese nuclear subs and 30 other subs and 75 missile destroyers and 70 amphibious 60 carrierips, and aircraft that would be on the aircraft carrier -- how does that compare with the united states? michael: overall, it is a very small portion. brian: give me a better idea we have 11 aircraft carriers and they have two. forael: four destroyers -- destroyers, at any point in time, we have 40 or 50 out

there. we have a half a dozen cruisers, more actually, i am thinking of operational. brian: what is the difference in size between a destroyer and a cruiser? michael: a cruiser is slightly bigger. what a cruise includes is that you have a whole separate area that you can do more to set -- defense operations and also for command and control. the cruiser is your big air command, air defense type of ship. brian: when did the chinese into build a significant navy? michael: it started happening and seeds were sown in 1995 and 1990 six after president clinton sent over two carriers to stop the chinese from shooting missiles. after that, there was a public , and the chinese lost a

lot of face. it is hard for westerners to get an idea of what that means to the asian culture. special someone that is as big as proud as china. they lost a lot of face with that and came away with a never again mentality. they start with this mindset that we will build up our navy and our missile defense forces in such a way that we knew we'd lose face like this again. brian: did we ever put a ship in port in china? michael: yes, we did. we go to hong kong, sometimes we can do that annually. there have been times when there has been trouble with the u.s. and china. otherare a couple of ports that we call into. brian: do the chinese ships visit the united states? michael: yes, out in san diego. was innese ramada honolulu.

brian: i wrote this down from your book. the chinese attitude is we can do it to you but you can to do -- can't do it to us. what does that mean? michael: as far as china is concerned, in the very specific incident -- when the chinese ships were to beipating, i happened on the uss ronald reagan aircraft carrier at the time and was chineseying, it agi. why would they send a spy ship over in an exercise they were participating in? brian:, the ships were participating? michael: four. they had sent the spy ship to every other impact before. but the idea was that you are coming, you are participating.

what they make there was that we are going to do some of our operations now, especially from the aircraft. we don't want them to catch the signals that we put out. we do not publicly complain and the idea in the pentagon was look -- your national waters and you have every right to be there. so go ahead, that is fine. so that's time when when we are in international waters are collecting intelligence, he will leave us alone, but that didn't happen. shortly after that, there were a couple of incidents, especially some aircraft incidents over the other south china sea where the chinese started complaining. they started sending aircraft up and everything like that. brian: let me show you video of something that we have seen a lot, a man-made islands off the coast of china. how many of these are there?

michael: there are dozens. brian: they are all man-made? michael: here is the thing, you have these areas that have a little bit of area popped up. but they have done is gone over at low tide and build them up. built them up. you have these areas and things like that that they have created into these as part of and. -- part of that. you go back about a decade and a decade and a half and they're putting on the asphalt and some like that. filipinos did it for a while, vietnamese did it for a while. china kind of came late to the game. but they did it in their own way and they do so much better. they took regular islands and they just expanded it.

so that it can hold a military aircraft runway. so it could hold surface to air missile sites and things like that. the. how many have runways on brian: how many have runways? michael: right now, believe there is about three or four that can actually handle that kind of aircraft. brian: as far as they are concerned, it is their territory? michael: as far as they are concerned, the south china sea is their territory. brian: what are the international rules about the 12 mile limit? michael: the three-mile limit is our territory and everything like that. you have the 12 mile limit and that is consider their water territory. the200 mile limit is economic zones. own the basically we rights to whatever is in that. oil, whatever it might be. brian: do the chinese recognized the limit? michael: they do when it suits their needs.

brian: do we recognize it? michael: we do. some international agreements we have not signed into. brian: why not? because wesically are selling some of our domestic oil companies with interest abroad that don't necessarily want the u.s. signing our names on the dotted line to something that could hurt them later. there is some stipulations that we've had issues with, we recognize it anyway. brian: how close do we allow chinese aircraft to come to this country? michael: we will recognize every ship. any ship can come up. brian: what about air? michael: same thing. if it is international, you can do it. the navigation operations i mentioned before, we do that in

the south china sea. most of ours are in canadian waters. it shows that we are allowed to go here, so we are going to go here. so we just as a matter of course, that is what we do. that has been our mantra. we are here to make sure that these waters are open to everyone. brian: the relationship between the us and chinese, this is old footage. you write in your book and before we look at it, what are these islands? michael: this island group, the south china sea has spread across a pretty large area and both sides claim it is in their territories. brian: this is a 1988 and it shows some firing going on here. who is firing? michael: the chinese are opening up. brian: chinese firing on? what happened after this incident? michael: after this incident,

china took it over. brian: you write about the different relationships between china and other asian countries over there. give me a quick synopsis on these. go down the list. what is the relationship between china and japan? michael: very contentious still. brian: south korea? michael cohen contentious, but not nearly as much as japan. china would like to see a unified korea. they think that was it them pretty well. therefore, i think they are willing to back off south korea a little bit. brian: china and vietnam? michael: always contentious. --y have been in pages invasion's back centuries with china and vietnam. the border down there is extremely coarse. there's a lot of back and forth

between because there's been a lot of intermixing of the people down there. there's always been the sense especially on the be it means -- the vietnamese side that china will could come in whenever they wanted. brian: china and the philippines? michael: that has gone back and forth. it all depends on the filipino relationship with the u.s., for example. when the u.s. was very close to the philippines, china backed up -- off the philippines for a little bit, at least publicly. for example, when we were no longer there, china would come into some of the islands that the two sides were claiming territory for and make a power play. it ebbs and flows. brian: china and taiwan?

michael: that is the million-dollar question. as far as china is concerned, there is only one china and that inclusive of taiwan. time one would say the same, but they think the government of china is in taiwan. -- taiwan would say the same, but they think the government of china is in taiwan. right now, there was a major status quo will be there that has existed for a long time. it will probably exist for the foreseeable future. if you remember back when chairman mauer and kissinger were talking and taiwan came up and he said, we don't have to worry about it now. 100 years from now will be fine. brian: you write about china's ship-killing missiles. michael: df21's. brian: why do you call them ship-killing? michael: there has been this desire to create a ballistic

missile that can hit a moving ship or a moving ship group. it is externally difficult to do. ballistic missiles by their arc is you set them on a trajectory and they come down with a set course in mind and there is not much thought after that. with the ship group, you have to maneuver it, you have to communications back and forth. very difficult to do and no one has really been able to do it until about 6-7 years ago, china claimed to have this capability. that they had ballistic missiles that were very hard to defend against. cruise missiles and those type of anti-ship missiles we are pretty good about those but ballistic missiles are different animal. they operate differently. they operate up in the areas of space where they are hard to

detect sometimes. very hard to defend when they are coming down and coming closer. it is very tough. china says, we have a missile that can do this. this puts our aircraft carriers at much greater risk if that really proves to be true. brian: what chinese ship were you on? michael: a guided missile destroyer. brian: when were you on it? michael: 2014. is on there it screen. you have been on a lot of american ships. what is the quality like compared to american ships? michael: a very, very capable ship. this is very capable ship. their systems, provided they work as they are supposed to work, provided that crew operates in the way they are supposed to operate them, they would be a very lethal adversary.

brian: who are the emperors? michael: you go back a generation, there was a one child kind of designation in china. little boys were brought up as little emperors. everything was provided for. they were told to believe that they were the best. they were to inherit everything and in any sense the world, if you will. now, the chinese navy, becoming officers, they have a sense of entitlement that their time is now. they have the capability, training, and resources. their time is now. brian: i kept thinking reading your book that china owns one trillion dollars of our debt. they also send us seven hundred billion dollars a year in trade.

we don't send them anything close to that. so why would they want to mess with us? michael: you go back in history, who would've thought world war i would happen. we had extremely tightknit trading partners during the war at that time. depending upon economics to prevent a global escalation of that, i just think his full hearty. there are so many different things that could lead to it. you go back to the cowpens incident. if they don't take them, there is a ramming those ships. a way of going on their own trajectory once things happen a certain way. that is what the book is about. a lot of books that look at these topics are policy books. what i tried to do is put people on the bridges and cockpits of

the aircraft and ships to get an idea of at any given time, whether or not we want to open with china could depend on the action or inaction of a commanding officer. brian: tell us more about your background. do you work full-time? michael: right now i am a writer for "jane's." brian: what is that? michael: it is a company that specializes in providing promotional, mostly defense publications. stuff like that. brian: how long if you been there? michael: i have been working for "jane's" for -- well, i started a little over a year ago. brian: i know you grew up in a family where your father was a marine. did you do any service time yourself? michael: no i did not, but my father brought me up like a little marine.

as far as i'm concerned i did my time. brian: where you from originally? michael: philadelphia. brian: what kind of education did you have? michael: i grew up in philadelphia and i went to catholic schools. i went to college in trenton. then i went abroad to australia for a semester. brian: where have you spent most of your work time over the years? michael: i started off with the usual cutting your teeth on local newspapers. over the last decade or so has been up in d.c. working for various trade publications as they are called. brian: aviation week was one of them. michael: aviation week was one of them. brian: this book is been out since last october. what reaction have you gotten from it? michael: for the most part

[indiscernible] -- one was about the military. one was an alarmist view. they said, i don't think that is true. i think it is a pretty clear portrait. not alarmist, but this is what is going on. for the most part, people and and they find out it is about a cr and a bunch of crs. it is policy stuff. it is like medicine and sugar. they seem to like it. brian: you have a lot of personalities in the book. one is called "nasty." who is nasty? michael: when i worked with him he was the head of operations in the navy. he is a former f-14 pilot. one of the brightest military minds i have met. but also someone who is able to kind of basically put a really good perspective about where america sits in the world.

i find really good officers can do that. it's where america fits in the world. brian: here he is a couple of years ago talking about the four classes carrier. all the carriers that are different class. explain that. here is nasty. >> when we look at the future and the way the world is going, we devised this with greater generation capability. with enhanced technology and electric capacity. with an ability to increase getting planes on-and-off the ship. and other technologies around the ship. the cap pain -- the campaign models looking at threats around the world is what delivered the requirements that resulted and the design you see today. brian: the average person not in the navy wouldn't understand that.

what was he saying? michael: with this war class, you can carry a lot more aircraft on and off the carrier at any given time and with different types of aircraft at any given time. basically, you can get up there with a lot of speed if you want. that is one of the things he was getting at. because they put in these new technologies, they have a whole new way of launching aircraft off. in the new way it's the guts of it. it looks exactly the same, but underneath they use magnetic pulses instead of the old-fashioned hydraulic ones and it sends the shuttle and shoots it off the carrier. brian: i just read today that the ship might cost as much as $17 billion. i know 13 billion is the one you see all the time.

michael: it is the thing that you have to remember is the idea was to take these brand-new technologies as one was a way of shooting off the aircraft. the other is how you catch them on. the other way was a brand-new radar system. they were going to electrify the ship. they were going to take out all of the old cables and hydraulics and put in a power system and put in a brand-new electric power system that would not only make it more efficient but increase power so that you could put in lasers if you wanted and other kinds of weapons, energy weapons later on. the idea was to have a three-ship original class. not total class but a three-ship plan that you would have different technology on each of the ships and you could basically take that price and spread it out against three different ships. instead, transformational, we

put all technology on one ship. i mean, that just clearly blue -- totally blew the price of the carrier through the ceiling. do i think it was a smart decision? i think when the ship gets out there and is going through its paces, you will see people saying wow, this thing can really -- brian: under your scenario, can the chinese knock that out? michael: if it works like it is supposed to. here is the thing, china has never tested that weapon. -- weapon at sea. we do not know. they have done land testing, but it was not even a moving target. at sea, the environment is so different. brian: how is our f-35? the new plane that cost so much money.

how does it compare with their jet? michael: there is no comparison to be perfectly honest. it is because of the holistic nature of the f-35. to get away from the price, as you mentioned, a very expensive aircraft. let's get away from that for a second. what the f-35 brings is first of all it is stealthy. that means, if everything works it will be hard to hit. the most important thing is that it has a sensor suite that this aircraft can collect signals, it can do an electronic attack, it can be used in ways that no aircraft could before. that is what they are really looking at. this aircraft is going to basically change the way they actually do some air operations off of the carriers especially. brian: meanwhile, the navy has had some problems. here is the new chief of naval operations, john richardsons, --

richardson, talking about this last year. >> 2017 was the year of triumph and tragedy for our navy. we consistently full-deployed more than 60,000 sailors around the globe. our navy experienced five serious incidences resulting in the loss of 20 dedicated sailors, american patriots all. our thoughts and prayers remain with our fallen shipmates and their families. as we said, our investigations revealed that these tragedies were due in large part to human error and failures of leadership as we took our eyes off mastering the basics of seamanship and navigation. brian: we talked about it here, in sans a u.s. attorney diego that is putting people in jail from the navy. including admirals. there are a lot of admirals under suspicion. what is going on with the navy? michael: one of the things going

on is that the navy certainly destroyers, cruisers, has gotten away from making sure that the ships are seaworthy. that the crews are properly trained. and that they are operating as they should. there's no doubt that has been happening. they have to get that under control. how are you going to operate a combat system to knock missiles out of the sky if you cannot steer your ship straight? that is the idea. so far, nothing like this has happened during military drills or anything like that. he siena has said when -- cno has said that when it comes down to combat operations or those kinds of things, we are top-notch. it is this daily stuff. at that thing is, this daily stuff is what they do most of the time. most of the time there on

routine patrol when this stuff has happened. brian: let me read at the end of your book two paragraphs. one is short. america 2017 is not the america of 2013. that is only a four-year difference. the next on the chinese navy dangerously confronts a worship on the high seas, it seems unlikely that it will be the american commander who orders the engine room to execute all full.mergency for -- for america and the u.s. navy, the era of crashbacks seems to be over. why? michael: because i think there is a sense out there, it appears to be, that we realized couple of things. headembracing the chinese then the idea during the obama years. this is not working as we thought it would, as folks in partnership and leadership thought it would. two, you have people like admiral harris out there who had artie started this plan and

operational mindset of taking the chinese market seriously. we called attention to it in ways we never have. three, this happened recently. when you look at some of the things that have happened since secretary mattis has just gone out to the region. he went to vietnam. for the secretary of defense to go to vietnam, that is a very big deal. it is going to drive the chinese s.ots --nut it sends out a message. look, this is what we are doing here. and then he is talking about, we are going to act more aggressively about incidents and things in the south china sea. doing operations and stuff like that. i think it appears that what started in that latter part of the obama years, some admirals to power and started moving the navy forward. we are on a path, on a course that we're not going to their

--cveer off of. brian: do you think south korea, japan, the philippines, vietnam, can the chinese deal with it if they are on our side and close the south china sea? michael: china is not in a position to do that. they definitely would not act. china has been too smart. china does not act that way. china takes a little piece at a time. brian: would you trust the chinese? michael: the chinese will do whatever is the best for china. right now, the current administration cannot count on china to help with the north korea situation. it is in china's best interest right now. so keep that in mind, china will always do what is for the best of chinese interest. not the whole region. everything reverts back to china.

brian: the name of the book is "crashback." it is about the united states navy and its relationship to the chinese navy. our guest has been michael fabey. we thank you very much. michael: thank you. ♪ announcer: for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this program, visit us at q&a.org. programs are also available as c-span podcasts. ♪ announcer: if you liked this interview with michael fabey, here are some others you might enjoy.

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" we discuss president trump's influence on the presidency with historian douglas brinkley. later, craig shirley talks about the influence of president ronald reagan. ♪ president's day was established in 1885 to celebrate george washington's birthday. journal."ashington keeping with the spirit of the day, we are asking you to tell us the qualities we should look for in our president. you can use the current holder of the office, past holders of the office, make your thoughts known on our phone lines. 7481.icans, (202)