In late August, a U.S. destroyer collided with an oil tanker—the fourth such accident for the U.S. Navy in Asia since January. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump has increased troop commitments in Afghanistan, threatened to strike North Korea with “fire and fury,” and faced unprecedented turnover and dissentwithin his administration. The United States has become a “distracted power,” a Singaporean intellectual wrote recently, as turmoil in Washington has “disrupted the administration’s ability to think strategically about global affairs.” Does the U.S. Navy still dominate the Pacific? Or will China—where the highest-grossing film of all time, Wolf Warriors 2, this month unleashed a wave of propaganda about the People’s Liberation Army Navy’s rising global influence—soon supplant the United States as the region’s maritime power?
