The South China Sea, a crucial area for trade in the Pacific, entered international headlines this week when the United States Army sent its navy within 12 miles of newly claimed Chinese territory.

The issue has been latent for decades but is finally bubbling to the surface now. The South China Sea, which rests east of the Philippians, west of Vietnam and south of China, has been fought over like the prettiest girl at the dance. Vietnam and China have both claimed to own the hundreds of tiny uninhabited islands that reside within its massive waterways. Most of these claims are harmless politics that mostly deal with trade routes, but recently China has decided to flex its rapidly growing muscles.

China has sent dozens of dredgers, or island-building ships, to surround shallow reefs in the Pacific and has blasted them with sand from the ocean floor for the past two years. This has resulted in the artificial creation of five multiple mile long islands, all equipped with a harbor and an airstrip. Vietnam has claimed to own this territory, and international law does not allow artificially created land to be recognized as its own territory, meaning the 12 miles of ocean surrounding the island do not belong to the country that own the land either.

Other than the ownership of the land, there have not been any other disputes regarding the islands between Vietnam and China.

Why is the United States getting involved, you ask?

The answer isn’t clear, but it’s a draw between the United States thinking we’re not involved in enough wars or that we just have a death wish as a nation.

As retaliation for the land grab, the United States sent a fleet of armed Naval vessels as close as they could to the islands without entering restricted waters. The reason released to the press was that the United States wanted to ensure the waters remain free to everyone, which they did in the first place.

When the American Naval fleet arrived close to the islands, the Chinese Navy sent a few of its own ships with missiles to shadow our fleet. No shots were fired, and the American ships eventually left the area.

This whole issue is nothing more than a power contest between America and China. The waters were disputed between Vietnam and China, and we decided to get involved due to our egotistical world-police title that we gave ourselves, and in return it has put us on the fast track into a war with China.

The last thing we need is to begin fighting a country that is an economic juggernaut, which has one billion more people than us, and one that makes so many of our goods for us. If China were to prevent ships from entering the disputed South China Sea area, and it began to affect our trade, that would be one thing, but as of right now, there was no reason to get involved, and we did anyway.

The Chinese told the United States that if we attempted to come that close to the islands again with armed vessels that violent action would be taken and it would be declared an act of war.

My message for the United States is to let this one go. We need to focus on our economy and how we’re going to internally strengthen our own nation, not how we are going to go to war with another one. It would be too costly and too hard of a war to win or be beneficial at all. Let the Chinese build their islands and say they own the land. They’re doing no true harm to the world in the grand scheme of things, and that’s good enough, for now at least. The path of peace is the best road to travel in this case.