In a series of speeches over the past few days - at Notre Dame, at the American Enterprise Institute and at the NavalAcademy - the outgoing Secretary of Defense has sounded a series of warnings that the ship of state, or at least the carrier battle group that protects it, is headed for the rocks.
Robert Kaplan, who teaches at the US NavalAcademy, tells the programme that China's focussed military spending is aimed at constraining American warships off China's coastal waters.