Midrats

Punitive expeditions, retaliatory strikes, raiding, hitting pirate camps, attacking enemy ships in the dark of night, striking enemy facilities & resources on shore and other forms of irregular naval warfare - sound new, transformational?No. They've been with the US Navy from day-1.Join us this Sunday with returning guest BJ Armstrong to discuss his latest book, "Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare, and the Early American Navy."CDR Benjamin "BJ" Armstrong is an Assistant Professor of War Studies and Naval History at the U.S. Naval Academy. A former search and rescue and special warfare helicopter pilot, he earned his PhD at King's College London and is the author or editor of three books, including his most recent "Small Boats and Daring Men: Maritime Raiding, Irregular Warfare and the Early American Navy."

Recently, when one hears of disease and Africa, if you only listened to the media, then what would come to mind would be Ebola.That is not the real challenge in Africa. There is a disease that not only kills, it impedes economic growth, interferes with good governance, and as a result is just another catalyst to conflict there and in South Asia.To give a better understanding of the ongoing impact of malaria and the fight against it, our guest will be Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer, USN (Ret.)Rear Admiral Tim Ziemer was appointed in June 2006 to lead the President's Malaria Initiative (PMI). The PMI strategy is targeted to achieve Africa-wide impact by halving the burden of malaria in 70 percent of at-risk populations in sub-Saharan Africa, approximately 450 million people, thereby removing malaria as a major public health problem and promoting economic growth and development throughout the region.PMI is a collaborative U.S. Government effort, led by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in conjunction with the Department of Health and Human Services (Center for Disease Control and Prevention), the Department of State, the White House, and others. As coordinator, Rear Admiral Ziemer reports to the USAID administrator and has direct authority over both PMI and USAID malaria programs.This episode first aired in January of 2015.

How does our Army help officers understand military doctrine, history, and theory? How do we ensure that our staffs have leaders capable of generating options for commanders engaged with our most complex operational and strategic problem sets?It doesn't happen by accident.To address these questions and related topics, our guest this Sunday will be Colonel Kirk Dorr, USA the Director of the U.S. Army’s School of Advanced Military Studies (commonly known as “SAMS”) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.COL Dorr is a career Armor Officer, has commanded formations from the company to brigade-levels, and served in staff officer assignments up to the Army Staff and Joint Staff-levels.COL Dorr’s military education includes attendance at both Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a resident Fellow studying international affairs and security studies. He is also a graduate of the School of Advanced Military Studies, Joint and Combined Warfighting School, and the Army Command and General Staff College.

He’s back! EagleOne is back in the studio to help us kick of summer with a Midrats early-summer melee!With most schools out, what you need right now is a good maritime hour to refocus the brain.For the full hour we’ll try to cover it all from the latest McCain kerfuffle to WESTPAC to NATO to the FFG(X) dropouts and more, we’ll cover the waterfront.As always, the phones and chatroom will be open if you want to join the show.See you Sunday!

Today's Midrats Best of first aired on August 2016.We live in a crowded world with limited resources. What happens when this meets modern technology's ability to shorten the time/distance equation and increase the ability to know of what lies below the waves?What complications do we fine when the above two points meet up with the eternal search by growing nations to reach for the seas to support their homeland's growing needs? As populations demand more protein in their diets as per capita incomes rise, many nations see the open seas as the best place to fill that demand. With more competing for shrinking resources, can fishing be seen as a security threat? How does it impact coastal states' economic, food, and environmental security? What are the roles of transnational organized crime and state power in this competition. Is international law being strengthened to meet this challenge, or is the challenge undermining the rule of law? More than last century's quaint "Cod Wars," does this have the potential trigger to broader, more serious conflict?Our guest to discuss this and more will be Scott Cheney-Peters, LCDR, USNR.Scott serves as a civil servant at the State Department, and is the founder of the Center for International Maritime Security (CIMSEC).Scott's active duty service at sea included the USS Fitzgerald (DDG 62) and USS Oak Hill (LSD 41). His shore duty before leaving active service was in Washington, DC, where he served as the editor of Surface Warfare magazine. Scott graduated from Georgetown University with a B.A. in English and Government and holds an M.A. in National Security and Strategic Studies from the U.S. Naval War College. Scott researches issues affecting Asian maritime security and national security applications of emerging technology.

What if they gave a war in WESTPAC and we couldn't come?It is easy to talk tactics, weapons, and warship numbers - but on balance, that is not what ensures victory in any major war. For a maritime nation, nothing can last very long without a large, sustained, scalable, and resilient merchant marine. When you look at our numbers, we are not ready.Our guest for the full hour will be John Konrad, using his recent editorial at gCaptain, Admiral, I'm not Ready for War, as a starting point for our talk. Captain John Konrad is the founder and CEO of gCaptain and author of the book Fire On The Horizon. John is a USCG licensed Master of Unlimited Tonnage, has sailed a variety of ships from ports around the world and is a distinguished alumnus of SUNY Maritime College.

Stowaways, poaching, piracy, smuggling, and murder - the global commons of the open ocean is as wild of a place as it is vast.Using as a baseline his series on lawlessness on the high seas in the New York Times, The Outlaw Ocean, our guest for the full hour to discuss the anarchy of crime and violence on the high seas in the 21st Century will be Ian Ubina.Ian is a reporter for The New York Times, based in the paper’s Washington bureau. He has degrees in history from Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and his writings, which range from domestic and foreign policy to commentary on everyday life, have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Harper’s, and elsewhere.

What is a good strategy and posture for Taiwan to take for her defense? Are there things she can learn from Japan?What is Taiwan’s posture today towards mainland China, and where are trends taking her?To discuss these and related questions today is our guest Grant Newsham.We will use his recent article in the Global Taiwan Institute, Rethinking Taiwan’s Defense: Looking at the Japanese Experience, as the starting point for our talk.Grant Newsham is a retired US Marine Corps Officer and a Senior Fellow at the Japan Forum for Strategic Studies. He served as Marine Attaché in Tokyo and was later the first USMC liaison officer to the Japanese Self-Defense Force (JSDF), and was instrumental in developing Japan’s new amphibious force. For 2019, he will live in Taiwan as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Taiwan Fellowship Scholar.

Do we have the means, capabilities, national will - and more important - the support of the American people to meet the demands from the global entanglements we are obligated by?What is the grand strategy?To discuss these and related questions this Sunday will be Dr. David Gioe. We will use his recent article in The National Interest, Make America Strategic Again, as the starting point for our talk.Dr. David Gioe is Assistant Professor of History at the US Military Academy at West Point, where he also serves as History Fellow for the Army Cyber Institute. He earned a BA in History and Social Science from Wheaton College, an MA from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, and a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge. He retains his commission as a senior officer in the Navy Reserve and is assigned to the Defense Intelligence Agency’s Defense Attaché Service.

Well inside an officer's career arch, we saw the American Navy move from the Great White Fleet, The Spanish American War to the age of the Dreadnought. Our Army, from ad-hoc volunteer units to a professional army going head-to-head with the finest professional army on the planet.How did our military and our Navy build up to WWI, and how did that experience inform the evolution of our national defense infrastructure.Our guest for the full hour will be Dr. John T. Kuehn , the General William Stofft Chair for Historical Research at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College CGSC). He retired from the U.S. Navy 2004 at the rank of commander after 23 years of service as a naval flight officer flying both land-based and carrier-based aircraft. He has taught a variety of subjects, including military history, at CGSC since 2000. He authored Agents of Innovation (2008), A Military History of Japan: From the Age of the Samurai to the 21st Century (2014), and co-authored Eyewitness Pacific Theater (2008) with D.M. Giangreco as well as numerous articles and editorials and was awarded a Moncado Prize from the Society for Military History in 2011. His latest book, due out from Praeger just in time for the 200th Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo is Napoleonic Warfare: The Operational Art of the Great Campaigns.