interview with trevor potter on the relationship between super pac's and political candidates tonight at 8:30 eastern. c-span's history series, landmark cases, season two, starts monday at 9:00 p.m. eastern with a look at the supreme courtf decision mccullough versus maryland in 1819. joining us as an associates law professor at the university of virginia and a law professor at the university of arkansas. watch landmark cases live monday at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span.org, or listen to the free c-span radio app. for background on each case, order the landmark cases look at c-span.org/landmarkcases. there is a link on a website to

the national constitution center's interactive constitution. >> this week on q and a, investigative journalist michael , he discusses his book. >> michael fabey, your book "crash back", had to go to the middle of the book to find out what it meant. what does it mean? >> a crash back as when a ship doesn't emergency. --doesn't emergency full does an emergency full stop. it happened when the uss cal pence did a full stop to keep

from crashing into a chinese ship. it was meant to represent that but also, this term, crash back is about our full stop in our policy and operations in the western pacific, too. ou did the research on this book, where did you physically go to catch up on what was going on? >> physically? chinesent aboard a warship, chinese aircraft, i was american and australian warship, i was on australian shores, i was in the west pacific in china, taiwan, singapore -- throughout the whole region. >> what your conclusion after you do this research? >> my conclusion is that we are engaged in a war with china. , and thata cold war

is certainly not a hot war, but this is a joslin pushing and shoving for the right to operate in what we consider international waters in places like the south china sea. >> when did you finish it? >> i finished the book -- writing it right after the election last year. >> election 2016? >> yes. >> who is the most interesting character you met? harris.al harry he is the commander of the pacific command. he is half japanese by birth, has tremendous insight into the whole culture out there. he is a perfect person for that job at this time. more than that, he has a real feel on the pulse out there of how far you need to go to stop

the chinese without escalating into something that creates a war type environment. i remember once i asked admiral harris how he best describes himself and all the things he lose." said, "i hate to with that kind of mentality -- he has that look about him, that asl about tim -- him someone who knows what he is doing. >> let's take a look at a little bit of video print [video clip] >> no one including me once conflict. i prefer cooperation to we can collectively address our shared security challenges but i also have been loud and clear that we will not allow the shared domains to be disclosed unilaterally. bases arehow many built on features in the south china sea. >> what kind of an admiral was

he? hadt the time i met him, he just made admiral. he was in charge of pacific fleet. .his would be about 2013 he had just taken charge out there as i met him in honolulu. he had just come aboard and the press out there -- in the west and process it full of stories especially in the chinese press about concerns about his heritage. everyone knew how admiral harris thought about the pacific. the chinese were worried. they were worried that they would have someone that would take a much tougher stance. his predecessor before said, our biggest concern on the western pacific is climate change. admiral harris was doubling out about to say that. >> where is he today? >> he's in charge of pacific command. in the spring, he winds down. -- they're been

reports of navigation operations where our ships can fail and internet -- can sail in international waters. he is running those kind of operations right now. >> admiral harris is half chinese, half american. >> half japanese. >> i am sorry. a big difference. he was born where? >> he was born in japan. >> what were the circumstances? >>'s father had been a chief and the navy, his mother had gone to work on a naval base there. met split the deal and they and after that, his early, early was spent in the west pacific. he came back and grew up in kentucky. >> where did he go to school? >> and kentucky. >> -- in kentucky.

ofwhat is the significance him being cap japanese and we are talking about the relationship of the united states to china? >> from his point of view of he had a sense of the asian philosophy of life which is very different than ours. .t is very patient i group of people who are willing to wait through generations. in his current position, the gut-levelve a very reaction to the japanese going back centuries but 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 that have not been forgotten. there is a sense over there that he is half japanese, therefore, he has something against china. he is going to take actions that

are going to be seen as anti-chinese. your drawing of the map of that area over there. i want to put on the screen and have you explain as much as you can about what that is all about. whatst to get an idea of -- china considers to be a territory because that is the biggest issue of what is going on here. this area right here represents some of the largest area for international shipping, international trade, and an area that represents some of our staunchest allies -- japan, south korea. we have had some trouble but the anon, we are starting to reestablish relations to vietnam. we just announced recently that we are going to have aircraft carrier calls in vietnam. all this areag out here, east china sea, south

china sea, that is their territory. it is theirs. everything along there are basically, they have said that we controlled the skies, the waters here. if you want to sale here, you e,ve to get our -- sail her you have to get our permission. the u.s. contention is, no, this is international waters and skies and we will do what we want. the top of the east china sea, those were kind of surveillance ships. that was a chinese maritime forces. this would be more or less commercial forces which actually rnmentith some of the gove forces. that was a lot of screaming. sea, of the south china one of the most important places for chinese militaries for ,ecret subbase is -- subbases

m -- thatup starts fro is.here ep3 got some other intelligence along the region there. right as it was doing that, they had a chinese aircraft that went up that basically started doing some kind of aggressive actions toward an aircraft. it was particular case, a collision. as a result, the chinese aircraft was lost, the ep3 was forced to land, they kept our crew there, interrogated them, finally the crew was sent back, but after that they sent the aircraft back in pieces. >> what is an ep? >> a very large aircraft.

a 737. in size to it is filled with his incredible amount of intelligence counter information. sensors that can take pictures, take all kinds of signals, it is one big kind of vacuum cleaner. >> how many american sailors would be on that ship? >> you are going to have like dozen or more at any given time. >> what is international law when that plane was flying over that area of the map? >> an aircraft that is going international has right of way, keep on going straight. >> go back to the pilots of the chinese jet. tell more about what he did around? before that as being a very aggressive pilot. againstwould basically, isrican aircraft and bump it

trying to force their craft off its course. he is been known for doing that. up,his case, he was coming flying circles around our aircraft. >> how did the accident happened? >> -- how did that accident happen? >> i jet fighters going to have to go very slow to go side with something like an ep3. it was trying to maneuver and lost control and flipped up into the plane. it cut that aircraft in half almost. >> what happened to him? >> he was never found. they do not know the checked it. both he and his aircraft are lost. >> what did we do and relations

china and what the china do in relation to us once he was killed in our plane landed on their territory? that --happened after this is the bush administration, first they are trying to treat our folks like spies. they put them in a couple different holding areas and doing all kinds of interrogation tactics. then chargees and them with landing on chinese soil without permission. there's a book that describes this -- they sent out to may days, tried to contact the chinese, there is no way to verify if he did. -- someoneld change with experience probably would do that. that is what they were trying to charge them with.

of -- china kind wanted an apology from the u.s.. loathe toas apologize for doing something .hey were allowed to to do you are allowed to fly an international space. we had information come out that a russian ship that was off the east coast of the u.s., it was a spy ship. in international waters, they are allowed to do that. the u.s. was not about to apologize for something they were allowed to do. they came out was an idea about apologizing for the death of the pilot. they were sorry that the pilot died. that kind of apology. in china, apology is this thing everything --ross for the chinese to say, you apologized, they said this is

okay. this was a lot of back-and-forth the state department's. the crew was finally allowed to leave after a couple of weeks. the plane was basically taken apart in pieces and finally sent home to the u.s. but after that the amount of intelligence information, they now knew what our capabilities were with that aircraft. to 2013. to jump back news and san10 diego for this, but he started off talking about the uss cal pence incidents but let's watch what they are reporting. [video clip] tohow the uss cal pence had make a dangerous turn in the south chinese sea to avoid the it pulled in front

of it. they are accusing the u.s. navy of harassing chinese ships. the u.s. navy says the cal pence was an international waters but the china has the cleared the south china sea as its own. >> you are smiling? >> yes i was. the whole idea that the cal pence of the harassing the chinese is kind of interesting. the one thing that was not reported in that segment was that when china sent out the have two but now at that time it was their only carrier, it declared the 27 square foot mile around the carrier. no one had ever heard of such a

thing and there was no precedent for that and u.s. the u.s. was certainly not going to a knowledge that. this idea that a u.s. was violating any kind of chinese territory or razzing the ships, that would say a lot about the chinese ships if they were harassed by a single cruiser. >> who was the skipper at the time? obart.tain gregory gb >> who is he? a rising star in the military at the time. someone who is definitely destined for bigger things. he was given the job of taken the cal pence which before this incident, was about to be almost mothballed. the system was ancient compared

to some of the newer cruisers. they were ready to put it next to a dock and let it hang out. instead, they said, we have an idea. we are going back into the western pacific. this is all a part of the rebalance. the pivot, rebalance, whatever you want to call it. the cruiser is a highly armed , let's put it out for a solo patrol. we will show that we have some presence out there. they told the captain the go out there and get a crew ready that and theyother ship, had worked basically with one of the best new combat systems around. they were going back to the ship that was being let go from an iphone x to one of the first

flip phones. that is what it was like. his job was to get that ship and a crew together and then glad to see with it. >> what happened to captain gombert? >> after he did not have a very fruitful career. he personally got sick. there was a question of how sick he was. i've talked to him a quite a few times and it seems he was pretty sick but he spent a lot of his time in the cabin after this. >> he talked about there were two different cabins on the cruiser. >> there are two different ones. one is cabin at sea which is closer to the bridge and is another cabin that is near a port. theas with other cabin for -- the nicer cabin for most of the time and part of it was the sickness.s bec >> what kind of sickness?

>> paul c kind of sickness. >> dels palsy does not stop you from communicating. >> no. he was running the ship as much as he could from the cabin. it was up to decide how well that was. >> when did people start raising concerns? >> the incident to what the chinese are motto happened in early december, by the end of december and january is when .hey started to be concerned it wasn't so much about him being in the cabin because there are a lot of captains who get it wasr seas, but because he decided to spend a lot more time with his xo. -- xo? is next >> executive officer. the second-in-command. xo is sent his second packing.

there is some banter around the crew that the captain and the xo were having relations. >> banter, is that all that it was? >> around the crew. theyrew came back, after came back, whole bunch of things happened because when they came back, the ship -- when he took the ship out, it was in horrible shape. by all accounts, he got it from horrible shape into just good enough to go to sea shape. when it came back, it was in bad shape. it was not as in bad shape when he took it out, but it was in bad shape and how much of that had to do with he was on the lot, it is hard to say. when he came back, it was in bad shape. toasked the navy review team come aboard and basically give a

shape to him what kind of it was. when the review team came aboard, they started finding out that the banter about this possible extra physical activity. command,y, he lost his but it was really because the ship.of the we thought people in and around the pentagon and who were associated with the command on the pacific side, was more because he did not use a lot of smarts in this, what they felt was an affair. it is never been called that by the leadership, but that is what they felt it was. >> a lieutenant commander, what happened to her? >> they both were able to leave the service. >> you mentioned the aircraft carrier. -- it was anal

hand-me-down soviet one that belongs to a ukraine. very interesting story about that that it was first bought saying, we are going to make a floating casino in the cal. the cal is an amazing place where there are all kinds of uesenos next to portug buildings. they took it and fixed it up and made an operational carrier. built the meantime, they their own aircraft carrier. pretty recently, they just launched that. >> is an operational? >> it is tested. >> let's look at some video. there is a big difference in the ships in our aircraft carriers. tells of the differences. >> is how they launch and recover aircraft. it is a very sweet looking ship. it has that ski slope there.

and the jets thrust. it is for the most part, the jet taking off. at our u.s. aircraft carriers, we use the catapult systems. we are throwing that off there. as a result, we can put up aircraft, carry more we aponry. >> when did they get in with this carrier? >> they are using it as a training ship the most part and they are finally -- they are learning how not only to operate off the carrier, but the carrier and a strike group, it is a nightmare. the u.s. has honed its the last 70 years. >> how many do we have? 10 and we just

recently said we are going to have 12. the ideas have a dozen going forward. have onee pacific, we ford-based carrier. >>? what does that mean? -- what does that mean? >> it means its base is japan right now. for everything else on the east coast side, the carriers are based out of norfolk. , it iswest coast side san diego. its bases in japan. >> what does it do over there? >> it patrols the region. you're going to have a task force that going to go around the region. the ships will peel off and do solo missions here and there. it is going to operate drills. it is going to make poor calls. -- port calls.

--anything were to happen for example, any kind of natural are aircraft is going and doing supplies are humanitarian aid to. the chineseabout and navy captain generals. is he still there? >> no he is not. >> what did you think of him? did you meet him? >> i did not meet him but i talked to many people who have. very someone who is engaging, intelligent, pleasant. >> speaking? >> he speaks english. gombert.d with and the carrier captain that subtle things -- settled things.

they were very impressed with him. chief naval operations -- he is the head guy in uniform. g what was admiral reenhart like? >> he is a former summary and are in one of the most intelligent guys i've ever met. healy starts off with, "i do not know much." he knew quite a lot. >> what role did he play? keep felt his job was to things from escalating too far, and the best way to do that was to develop the is relationship that you could out there. he would always be looking for ways to get us engaged. we invited the chinese to come to the pacific to rimpack

exercises off the coast of hawaii for the first time. he was all about that she was a , lean forward and shake your hand. he had that kind of thing of let's get to know each other kind of thing. he one point gave his personal number to his counterpart over the people's liberation army. >> his mobile phone number? >> yes. >> did he ever use it? >> no. the other admirals said i cannot give you mine. and pentagon was not happy over the interaction. job --ral wu, with his what was his job? >> i've not met him. he grew up in the communist regime. he is considered to be very party minded and very chinese minded.

chinese are very patriarch people. he is very china minded but he is also considered a top-notch mariner. who is very much in touch with the navy, modernizing the navy, making sure the navy acts professionally. that agreedl wu knowledge to do a special set of drilling with the u.s. forces, but also his offices were in english so they could do those drills properly. >> you say in your book, "there are 12 chinese nuclear subs. .here are 30 other subs 75 missile destroyers, 70 and mphibs, and 60 ." rier aircrafts

how does that compare with united states? , it is a very small portion. overall. >> give me a better idea. you say we are 11 aircraft carriers. >> right. >> and they have got 2. >> right. 14, so atoyers, ddg1 any one time we have 50 or 60 destroyers. we have a half dozen cruisers -- more than that, actually. >> what is the difference in size between a destroyer and a cruiser? >> a cruiser is slightly bigger but what a cruiser includes is that you have a separate area for what you can do for aerie l defense operations. cruiser is big on air command

type of ship. >> went to the chinese began to build a significant to navy? >> it happened after president -- two sent to ships ships. there was a public shaming. chinese lost a lot of face. it is hard for westerners to get an idea of what that means to the asian culture. especially someone as big and as proud as china. they lost a lot of face with that and they came with a "never again" mentality. , this mindset was we will build up our navy and our defense forces in such a way that we are never losing face like this again. >> did we ever put a ship and poor in china? >> oh, yes.

hong kong. sometimes we do it annually. there are been time when there has been shot all with the china and the u.s. and they say, you cannot call us hong kong now. there are other ports. >> do they visit chinese ships to the united states? >> yes. san diego --d mostly out in san diego. >> are at this from your book, the chinese attitude, you say, as you can -- we can do to you, but you cannot do it to us. >> yes. >> what does that mean? >> a very specific incident, during a ram pack when the chinese ships were partici rimpack, i happen to be on the uss ronald reagan at , and what it was was a

chinese spy ship, agi. why would they said -- send a spy ship to a nexus size they were participating in? why would they send a spy ship to an exercise they were participating in? the idea is you are coming in -- thatticipating night, they made it clear that we are not going to do some of our operations now, especially from the aircraft. that was one thing but we did not publicly complain. the idea was that, look, you are in international waters, you're right to be there. go ahead. that is fine. so next time when we have international orders spying on

you, you are going to leave us alone. that did not happen. shortly after that, there were a couple of incidents over near and against the south china sea when the chinese and started complaining and started sending the aircraft up to arrest some of arc or graphs -- some of our aircraft. >> me show you some video. the man-made -- let me show you some video. >> the man-made islands -- dozens. >> they are all man-made? >> so, here's the thing. you have over there these areas that low tide has a little bit of area popped up. what they have done is gone over at low tide and built them up. they have created into these big

asphalt islands. >> when they start building them? >> it was not china that did this. other countries are calling these islands their own. filipinos did that. china came late to the game. that china does, they did at their own way and they did it so much bigger. they have taken regular islands and expanded it. military hold for a aircraft runway, so it can hold surface air missile sites. missileany of them have sites on them? >> that we know of? three or four. >> with a call these islands their territory? .> yes as far as they concerned, the whole south china sea is their territory.

the 300 mile limit, that is our territory. we are the 1200 mile limit. the 200 mile limit is what they call the economic zones. >> the chinese recognized the 200 mile limit? >> it does when it fits their needs >>. do we recognize it? >> we do. but we have not signed into agreements. >> why not? >> mostly because some of our domestic oil companies with interests abroad the do not want to u.s. to sign their names abide to something that could hurt them later -- that is mostly. there is some stipulations in

there that we have had issues with. -- it.gnize and >> how close do we allow chinese aircraft to come to this country? >> will recognize any ship that can come of to international -- air?at bout in >> if it is international. you can do it. the freedom of navigation, we not only do that and south china sea, most of ours are in canadian waters. we show that we are allowed to go here so we are going to go here. 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 everybody. >> the relationship between the chinese and the vietnamese, this is old footage, but is goes back to the spratly islands. what are the spratly islands? group in the south

china sea that sprint across a large area, and both sides claim it was in their territory. chinese?tnamese and >> yes. >> this video is from the 1980's. it shows firing. what happened after this incident? >> china way over and took it over. -- went over and took it over. >> you write up of the different relationships between china and the other asian nations. what we said the relationship is between china and japan? >> very pretentious. contentious. >> china and south korea?

contentious but not as much as japan. china would like to see a unified korea. they are willing to back off of south korea. >> china and vietnam? >> always contentious. there are been invasions going back centuries from china into vietnam. at the border down there is extremely coarse. there is a lot of back-and-forth and forth. there is been a lot of spying and a lot of intermix of the folks down there. there's always been the sense of china coming in whenever they want. >> china and the philippines? >> that is going back and forth. what thepends on filipino relationship to the u.s. for example.

when the u.s. was very close to to the philippines, china backed off the philippines for a little bit. t, publicly. china would come in with some of the islands of the two sides were claiming territories and make a power play, that ebbs and flows. >> china and taiwan? >> that is the million-dollar question, isn't it? as far as china is concerned, there is only one china and that includes taiwan. taiwan, for what it is, would say the same. they would say the government of china is in taiwan. human amazing status quo there that has existed for a long time. exist for thell perceivable future. eeablefor the fores

future. 1 kissinger was talking about taiwan came up, and said we do not worry about that, hundred years from now it will be fine. missinese ship killing iles. why do you call them "ship -killing? " tothere is been a desire create a ballistic missile that could hit a moving ship. it is extremely difficult to do. ballistic missiles by their very arc, you set them off on a trajectory and they come down with a set course in mind and there is not much thought and beginning given to maneuvering after. shift, you have to maneuver it.

it is been very difficult to do and no one has really been able to do it until about six or seven years ago and which china claimed to have this capability that they had these missiles which are very hard to defend against. missiles, we are pretty good about for our aging combat system but ballistic missiles are different animal. -- are a different animal. they operate up in space, very hard to detect, very hard to defend, but it is very tough. china now says, we have this can do this and this puts our aircraft carriers at a greater risk. what chinese ship or you on? >> -- which any ship were you on? >> on a missile destroyer.

>> when were you on it? >> in 2014. what is the quality like compared to american ships? goes of theer destroyer store, depending on the price of this, very capable ship. this is a very capable ship. the systems, provided they work as they are supposed to work, would be a very lethal adversary. >> who are little emperors? >> there was an idea of this one child designation in china. little boys. they are brought up as little kings. everything was provided for them, they were told that they were the best. sesnses -- they

come in officer's name a sense of entitlement that right now, their time is now. they have the capability, the training, their time is now. >> i kept thinking as i was reading your book is that china owns $1 trillion of our debt. >> yes. >> they also center $700 billion -- send us $7 billion in trade. billion in trade. why do they want to mess with us? extremely tightknit's partners going into war at that time. depending on economics to prevent a global escalation of that, i think it is full hardy.

there are some in the different things that could lead to do it. you go back to the cal pence, if gombert does not take action that he takes and then you have the time were admiral harris -- things have a way of going off and on trajectory wants things happen certain ways. that is when the things that the book goes about. put peopleit do is in the bridge of the ships to ,ive an idea of any given time it could depend on the action or inaction of a commanding officer or pilot somewhere. >> tell us more about your own background, you work full-time? >> right now, i am that the james. >> what is james? ships.uts out fighting it is a company that specializes in providing for defense

publications, things like that. we have james weekly, james international. >> how long have you been there? jamese been working for -- i started as a correspondent over a year ago. >> i know you grew up in a family that your father was a marine. the you do any service time yourself? >> i did not. my father brought me up is a little more rain. -- little marine. >> where you from? philadelphia. >> i went to catholic schools thewent on from there to college in new jersey, trenton state college. to university and now straley up for a semester. >> -- university in australia for a semester. >> where did you begin?

>> i started off her local newspaper but i've been up in for -- d c working publications. >> this book is been out since last october, what has been the reaction? , one was anost part alarmist view. they said -- i do not 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, when they that it includes policy stuff, they seem to like it. >> you have got a lot of personalities in the book in one

of them is called "nasty" -- you is that? -- who is that? manazzer. he is a former pilot. one of the brightest military minds i have met, but also someone who was able to put a perspective on fits in therica world. here heple years ago, is talking about the ford class carrier. when i ask you about that, all 10 arecarriers now, the different kind. [video clip] >> when we look at the future in the way the threats around the world were going, we devised a class with capability and

enhanced technology and electric capacity, and the ability to increase getting airplanes on and off the ship. that campaign models served looking at threats around the world is what delivered the requirements that resulted in the for design easy today. >> the language, the average person not in the navy would not understand. what do you say? >> basically he is saying, with can flycraft, you more carriers at any given time. you can get up there, a lab speed -- a lot of speed. that is one of the things he was getting at. it is because they put on these new technologies, they have a new way of launching an aircraft off, and it is the guts of it.

instead of the old-fashioned hydraulic ones, -- i just read today that the ford ship may cost as much as $17 billion. i know $13 billion is the one you see all the time. michael: here is the thing to remember about the ford class, and you have to go back to when rumsfeld was the head, originally, 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 across three different ships. instead, transformational, we put all technology on one ship. i mean, that just totally blew the price of the carrier through the ceiling. brian: do you agree with that? michael: 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't the chinese knock that out? michael: if it works like it is supposed to.

here is the thing, china has never tested that 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 be used 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 richardson, talking about this last year. [video clip] >> 2017 was the year of both 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 eye off mastering the basics of seamanship and navigation. brian: we talked about it here, there is a u.s. attorney in san diego that is putting navy 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. the 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. but the 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 time 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 back emergency full." 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 me, that we realized couple of things. one, embracing the chinese had been 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 already started this plan and operational mindset of taking the chinese of more seriously. we called attention to it in ways we never had. three, this happened recently after i wrote this. 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. carriers going to vietnam. that is going to drive the chinese nuts. 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 took power and started moving the navy forward. we are on a path, on a course veer we are not going to off of. brian: do you think south korea, japan, the philippines, vietnam, and they end up being on our side, 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, island building and free navigations and stuff.

the current administration come then't have china help with -- michael: right now anyway, china is not in a position to do that and 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: trust but verify. 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. ♪ [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2017] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org]

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: tonight on c-span, we will show some of the first unranked the system summit. looking at campaign finance, the electoral college, and redistricting. actress jennifer lawrence took part. she interviewed a former chair of the federal elections commission, trevor potter. ok. if there is a lull between candidates and super candidates, if i throw money at a super pac, my personal politician does not get to decide how it is spent. right? >> well, that is technically

correct. except, the people who do decide how to spend it are usually, in this scenario, the former campaign manager of the candidate, or a close friend of the candidate. one of my favorite examples, it was the parents of the candidate who are running the super pac. they also can share what are called, and vendors. they can use the same consultants p basically, i think it is useful to see it as the other pocket on the candidates coat. >> ok. but if the candidate tells the super pac what to do with the money, is that legal? >> that would be illegal. [laughter] >> ok. >> however, first they have to get caught. then the fcc has to have a majority vote on whether to investigate it. as he may have heard, the fcc

has basically deadlocked on all of this in the last couple of years. announcer: more of jennifer trevore's interview with potter on the relationship between super pac's and political candidates. tonight at 8:30 eastern. c-span2 street series, landmark cases, tart -- starts monday with a look at the significance of supreme court decision mcculloch v maryland. explore in this case are sarah peterson, associate law professor at the university of virginia, and mark gillan that, law professor at the university of arkansas, and author of mcculloch v maryland, securing a nation. watch landmark cases live on monday on c-span. c-span.org or listen with this clash with a free c-span app. case,ckground on each order a copy of the book. it is available for $8.95 at c-sp