Producers’ Pick | Adm. James Stavridis is Worried About a “Miscalculation” in the Taiwan Strait

Looks as though China has broken off talks with us on military and climate. They've also personally sanctioned Nancy Pelosi and her immediate family.

What is the aftermath and what about these exercises, how they're playing out? A man who knows the region as well as anyone in the country joins us now, Admiral James Stravidis. Admiral, welcome back. What's your take on the impact of the speaker's trip? Well, it's very unhelpful, the US-China relations, but let me begin by saying we cannot cede to China the ability to dictate who can come and who can't come, whether they're private citizens or senior government officials. That's our call. And above all, it's the call of the Taiwanese. Having said that, tactically, Brian, this is going to put a lot of sand in the gears in terms of trying to reduce tensions.

And here's what I'm really worried about. You've got Chinese fighter pilots, Chinese destroyer captains, they're operating under very tense circumstances. They've surrounded, effectively blockading Taiwan, just a few hundred miles away to the east are three US carriers.

One nuclear powered, two of our conventional powered, very capable, US strike force. They're going to come in contact. And so the real worry, Brian, is a miscalculation that occurs up there in the air in particular, as it did about 20 years ago when a US P-3 was forced down to land in Hainan Island. So we got to remember up there flying these jets, that's not Tony Blinken up there flying that Hornet, you know, measured, calm, senior, et cetera.

This is Goose and Maverick, if you will, are up there and their equivalents on the Chinese side. So the potential for an incident, a miscalculation, a spark is pretty high right now. So we understand the drills are in six zones over the last two days. There really looks like for, some people are saying they're looking like it's a dry run for sealing off the island. You wrote about different ways in which this war would begin or the takeover of Taiwan would happen.

Is this it? Certainly we have studied this. We, the US Navy, we, the Department of Defense have thought China might, instead of launching an immediate full out invasion, might start with a blockade. And boy, they're showing us what it would look like. They're just flooding zones all around the island, North, South, East, and West. They're launching missiles just off axis from the mainland that are not hitting Taiwan, but are hitting parts of the Pacific Ocean to the North and South. As you mentioned, they're potentially overflying very, very dangerous situation. And yeah, this is a bit of a dry run for what a blockade would look like. And if they institute that, then the international community has a big decision to make, just like we're making in Ukraine right now with the grain shipments coming out, do we go in effectively and crack that blockade? So this is a path to real escalation, very worrisome. So we see that Japan has called on China to stop the exercises. Five of their missiles landed in the so-called economic zones and China's foreign minister yesterday walked out of a dinner at a regional diplomatic forum in protest of the criticism from the US and other nations, by the way they've been acting since the visit.

So some of these things are pretty, are pretty direct. The other thing China did is they were no longer talking about climate and military. What's the ramifications of that, if any? The military one worries me particularly because what we were discussing is a series of communication protocols so that if a Chinese fighter and a US fighter ended up in the same airspace, how would they communicate?

How would they ensure they didn't have an inadvertent miscalculation as we were talking about earlier, when that stops again, the risk of miscalculation goes up. The climate long-term issue that can be put on pause, but I worry a lot additionally, and you're going to be talking to an economist shortly, I think, ask him about what the impact of this will be on economic talks. Potentially we were thinking about lifting tariffs, which would help us consumers.

Now that looks like it's on hold. So overall, we've got a very difficult, tactical situation here. I'm not predicting a war in the next few weeks or months, but I do worry about a miscalculation that could spark something broader. From the Fox News Podcast Network. I'm Janestine, Fox News Senior Meteorologist. Be sure to subscribe to the Janestine Podcast at foxnewspodcast.com or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

And don't forget to spread the sunshine. Well, we understand the Pentagon is delaying another incident, intercontinental ballistic missile test to avoid, get this, angering China during their military drills. Even though ours was announced, some people are saying that that shows a weakness. They're postponing a routine test launch of an Air Force Minuteman III intercontinental missile to avoid further problems.

Do you feel that sends the wrong message? I think that our position ought to be business as usual. We ought to be sailing our ships where they would normally go. We ought to be conducting military training and tests. We ought to be doing our land exercises.

Our Marines ought to be deploying where they deploy in the Pacific. Business as usual, at the same time saying to China, look. So we shouldn't have stopped it.

We should have done the test. Yes, I agree with that. I think that business as usual is the order of the day alongside a message to China that look, we're not looking to escalate this situation and neither should you. It's not in either nation's interest.

So I understand that behind the scenes, you know diplomacy, you also know military. Behind the scenes, the State Department and the White House officials went and said, hey, listen, not a good time to go. Why don't you just postpone it? And evidently her indications was, this is gonna be like a capstone to my career. If that's the case, this would be a totally selfish move.

I'll let others judge whether the motivations of the speaker were purely political, personal, somewhere in between or both. But I will say this, it's an unhelpful time for a visit like this. And it has done nothing to try and reduce tension in the region.

It's confrontational and I don't think it's a good time for that kind of move on the part of the senior US official. So what happens is we're finding out that Taiwan is short of fighter pilots. A lot of their submarines from World War II, a lot of the stuff is out of date. They need more to defend themselves. So are we going to blatantly get them defensive weapons like their own HIMARS or whatever it would take to be a missile defense? And if we do that, can you see China interdicting the delivery? We ought to be ahead of the game here with Taiwan, meaning offer them the opportunity to purchase let's not forget, this is a very rich country, very different than Ukraine.

As a standalone economy, a nation of 23 million people, it's roughly the 30th largest economy in the world. They certainly have the capacity to purchase weapons from us, from the West, from any source that makes sense. What they need are anti-ship cruise missiles. They need smart mines that can go into the water, be turned on, be turned off as necessary. They need better missile defense. They need better cyber. I'm a little surprised we haven't seen a Chinese cyber attack directed at Taiwan.

Watch for that over the next 48 hours. The point is the Taiwanese can and should be purchasing weapons. We ought to make sure that we offer them the systems that make the most sense to defend themselves. I want you to hear what Gordon Chang said about what their ultimate goal is with Russia, cut 15. Certainly China would like to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency with the renminbi. Now China's wanted to do this for decades, Tucker, and so have the Russians, but now they're actually attacking the dollar because they think they can get away with it. And so therefore this is a moment of vulnerability because certainly if we don't have the global reserve currency, the power of the United States will be substantially diminished.

We'll talk about that, the feasibility of that and what it would mean, please. Gordon is absolutely right that China and Russia are drawing together. They're doing military exercises all over the world. They're aligning politically and economically they would love to see a diminishment of the US dollar as a reserve currency. In terms of their ability to manifest that, I think it's pretty low right now simply because look at the facts on the ground.

Every time tensions start to rise up, people demand dollars, they want dollars. We continue to have the strongest economy in the world. We thought five years ago China would be overtaking us about now. Now it's, well, let's wait and see. China has major demographic problems, major internal economic problems.

So I think the chances of Russia, which has a broken economy, particularly under sanctions and China, which has its own set of challenges, particularly under constant COVID lockdown, the chances of them squeezing the US dollar out of its position as the top reserve currency I think are unlikely in the near term. Lastly, just about the Ukraine, what do you hear about the operation Ukraine's under to take back Kirsan? I know they've blown up bridges kind of trying to box in the Russian occupying forces. Can you shed any light on that for our listeners?

I can, it's going reasonably well. They're doing exactly what you described, Brian. They're trying to cut off the logistics. As we all know, Russian logistics have been pathetic throughout this period. What the Ukrainians want to do is isolate those Russian forces, crack their morale, then they'll move offensively. I think they've got a reasonably good chance that we're retaking the strategic city of Kirsan.

That would be a major tactical victory and a major psychological victory. Would you urge the Pentagon and the White House to back off the vaccination policy because you're about to lose tens of thousands of National Guardsmen who do not want to be vaccinated in a time in which the vaccination is not effective and the booster doesn't address this variant. Should we really be diminishing our National Guard forces because of that? Brian, I disagree that we should walk away from the vaccinations. I'm a firm believer in the vaccine. It's not perfect, no vaccine is, but when I joined the Navy, I took nine vaccinations. I took 11 anthrax shots in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War. I think there are still good, strong reasons to apply those vaccines. So no, I would not argue for taking those away. 40,000 National Guard members, 20,000 Army reservists will be told to hit the streets.

Is that okay? Let's wait and see how it all comes out in terms of the numbers. But the bottom line is if you won't take the vaccine that I just took for I think very clear medical reasons, I'm not sure I want you as my shipmate headed into combat. Yeah, I don't wanna get into this, but I also know three college athletes who have been unable to get back on the field because of the vaccine and the swelling of the heart and they were in prime shape. I'm sure we can find lots of anecdotes. On the other hand, I would argue that the vaccines have saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of American lives.

I think that's indisputable scientifically, Brian. Yeah, I just don't think we should use 40,000. I assume you were vaccinated and your family were vaccinated. No, well, I got vaccinated, but I not get boosted.

The booster is not effective against this variant and I see no reason for it. But that's a decision that I think even they're changing the policy gradually in businesses and around the country. I hate for the army to pay the price. I hate for the military to pay the price. I'll say this, Brian, policies ought to change as new facts emerge.

As I look at the fact pattern at this moment, I would still advocate for the shots. All right, we see a video now from Thursday of the speaker in Japan. She was just in South Korea. Thanks so much, Admiral, we'll keep you up. Thanks so much for riding the breaking news with us. From the Fox News Podcasts Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy Podcast. Former federal prosecutor and four-term U.S. Congressman from South Carolina brings you a one-of-a-kind podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to FoxNewsPodcasts.com.