If you have not heard of One Belt, One Road you are missing what could be the landmark tale of this entire century. It is a saga of China’s grand strategy that could threaten American interests at every level.

Begun in 2013 as an initiative by President Xi Jinping, One Belt, One Road (OBOR) has received a tremendous amount of attention. The program has been primarily aimed toward what appears to be a massive economic endeavor. Divided along a land-based route titled the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and a sea-based route, the Maritime Silk Road (MSR), it is an overt attempt by China to enter the 21st century as a global power. The debate among many Western circles is whether or not this titanic economic venture has militaristic and imperialistic overtones.

This is a surprising question since the historical Silk Road was all of the above. Started by the Han dynasty, the Silk Road was used to knit together an economic and military power, creating what some historians dub the Pax Sinica, fielding an army of over a million and extending into East and South Asia. It seems a dubious proposition to compartmentalize Chinese objectives, and the real question is not whether China will use the One Belt, One Road project for political and military influence, but how.

Driven by nationalistic chauvinism, a climate of resource unpredictability, the endorsement of the “First Island Chain” policy fits the goals of OBOR completely. It is where the PRC seeks to initially dominate East Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and beyond. Chinese foreign policy is the textbook example of international relations realism and to expect China to compartmentalize its goals would be foolish, dangerous and childish.