There is a structural parallel between pre-WWI Britain-Germany and today's America-China: just as German steel production surpassed Britain's (1893) and doubled it by 1914 while Germany's waterways remained British-controlled, China is now a manufacturing superpower needing resources like South America's lithium triangle (Chile, Argentina, Bolivia holding ~50% of world lithium), and America cannot allow that rise so it will use sea power to disrupt global trade.