How a modern Lend-Lease could help save the South China Sea

FDR’s Lend-Lease program during World War II threw our allies a lifeline. It signaled U.S. resolve before hostile powers choked off our access to Europe and endangered us.

Nick Danby is an intelligence officer in the U.S. Navy. He recently completed a two-year tour in the Indo-Pacific region.

The stakes are high. For decades, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has spuriously claimed sovereignty over 90% of the South China Sea, harassing, blocking, ramming and boarding Philippine ships – sometimes wielding axes – from Scarborough Shoal to Second Thomas Shoal, from Whitsun Reef to Thitu Island.  Beijing has persisted even eight years after an international tribunal at the Hague rejected Beijing’s sweeping claims.