Only by continuing to act on the high seas as it always has can the United States hope to maintain a system of international rules that serves its own interests. Ratifying UNCLOS could very well have the opposite effect.

There are five broad trends leading to greater instability in the South China Sea in the coming years. These are the failure of UNCLOS--or the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea--a weakening of ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), China's evolving South China Sea policy, Southeast Asian military modernization, and a hollowing out of the U.S. military.

The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea returns to the fore, and this time, it may well become ratified.