What gives a grand strategy its democratic legitimacy? And what enables administrations to make adjustments to grand strategy?

Yeah, that's a really excellent question, Jeff.

Presidents will say that because they are the only ones in our political system that are elected by all of the people, that that is the source of their democratic legitimacy.

Whereas every member of Congress represents merely their district, every senator represents merely their state.

This is one of the reasons why presidents have said that when they embark on a foreign policy for the nation, they have that governing mandate by virtue of the fact that they were properly elected, even again, filtered through the electoral college.

I think that's a little specious, but it is an argument that you hear quite often.

The problem with it, and several problems with it, first of all, vesting that much power, again, unilateral power in the president's hands merely because, you know, two or three years ago, he won the election and is now, I mean, again, we can talk about the current president.

That's right.

Give us a sense of, of, of how you're reading these stories.

Sure.

I mean, uh, you know, it's no fun to be on a long deployment, and it's no fun to be on a deployment that's extended multiple times, uh, which has ha- certainly happened with the Lincoln, but with other ships that have been involved in these operations over the last number of, of months.

Um, you know, the U.S. Navy, there's only so many ships, and it's a big ocean, and they, they have been on station for a very, very long time.

You don't have the traditional port visits.

The ports are dangerous to, to pull into.

They're vulnerable.

What, what is the next strategy for the United States to somehow open the Strait of Hormuz?