Midrats

With Thanksgiving behind us and another month of the Holiday Season to go, it's time to catch up on the goings on at the waterfront with a special guest calling in who we decided to hijack and keep for the rest of the show - returning listener favorite Mark Vandroff.

How is a maritime power like the United States going to be able to sustain a fight against a land power with four times its population, a larger Navy, and is located on the other side of the Pacific?The only reliable way you can get the fuel, weapons, and supplies is with a robust force of combat logistics ships.Do we have that force? Do our budgets and plans match realistic requirements?We're going to dive in deep on the topic today with returning guest, Dr. James Holmes, the inaugural J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the US Naval War College. We will pin our discussion today on his recent article, More Combat Logistics Force Ships? Yes Please! at the Center for Maritime Strategy.

You're heard people talk - and on occasion argue - about "presence" as a naval mission, but what exactly is it? What does that actually mean for our nation and what role does it have in promoting its national security requirements?What does our nation need to do to properly resource it?We're going to dive in deep on the topic today with returning guest, Jerry Hendrix, using as a foundation a report he authored recently for the Sagamore Institute, Measuring & Modeling Naval Presence.Dr. Henry J. “Jerry” Hendrix, PhD is a retired Navy Captain, having served 26 years on active duty following his commissioning through the Navy ROTC program at Purdue University. During his career Hendrix served in a variety of maritime patrol aviation squadrons as well as on supercarriers and light amphibious assault ships. His shore duty assignments were as a strategist on the staffs of the Chief of Naval Operations, the Secretary of the Navy, the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy and within the Office of Net Assessment. Through these tours Dr. Hendrix established a reputation for using history to illuminate current strategic challenges. Following his retirement from the Navy following a standout tour as the Director of the Navy History and Heritage Command, he has worked as a senior fellow the Center for a New American Security and as a vice president at a Washington, DC defense consultancy.Dr. Hendrix holds a bachelor’s degree from Purdue University in political science, a masters in national security affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School, a masters in history from Harvard University, and a PhD in war studies from Kings College, London.

There are few naval leaders who had a legendary reputation and such a long running - and not uncontroversial - record of service as Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, USN.Talk to any submarine officer or surface nuclear power officer over the age of 60 and they will have a personal story directly or indirectly about the man who is generally seen as the "Father of the Nuclear Navy."Was the man as he lived really in line with his reputation? We now have a broad collection of Rickover in his own word is the just published collection of his papers, Rickover Uncensored, edited by Claude Berube, Samuel Limneos. From the book's Amazon page;"Nearly 250 archival boxes full of his personal papers were bequeathed to the U.S. Naval Academy Museum. Outside of his official biographer, no historian had access to these documents. In "Rickover Uncensored," the editors present a broad section of Rickover's life from love letters in the 1930s to his first wife, his speeches, transcripts of telephone conversations, and memoranda through his retirement."Joining us for the full hour will be one of the editors of this collection - returning and founding guest of Midrats, Claude Berube.Claude is the author or editor of five non-fiction books, three novels and more than eighty articles. He earned his doctorate from the University of Leeds, and is a retired CDR in the USNR. He has worked as a navy contractor for NAVSEA and ONR, as a civil servant with the ONI, and as a staffer to two US Senators and a House member. He has taught in the Political Science and History Departments at the US Naval Academy since 2005.

Fall is in the air ... so Sal and EagleOne return to the podcast to get you caught up now that FY24 is behind us.We'll cover the waterfront.Links mentioned during the show:SECNAV Del Toro Calls for a New, Bold Maritime Statecraft.What’s Keeping the USS Ronald Reagan in Yokosuka?Taiwan launches its first homemade submarine.What is a DASH?What is this quad-copter son of DASH?Ukraine's repurposed agricultural drones made in to bombers.USN’s unmanned ships get a workout near Japan.USMC’s autogyro in 1930s Nicaragua.Role of the U.S. Merchant Marine in National Security; Project Walrus Report.Sine Qua Non of U. S. Sea Power: the Merchant Ship, By Rear Admiral John D. Hayes, U. S. Navy (Retired), Proceedings, March 1965.America Needs a Cabinet-Level Maritime Department, by Jimmy Drennan

Since its first formation in 2007, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or "Quad" of the Australia, India, Japan and the United States of America has continued to evolve in to something that isn't a fully formed alliance, but is a bit more than just a talking shop as well. Encouraged by the changing nature of the People's Republic of China, it is evolving in to something with great potential for enhancing security and international norms at sea to the benefit of not just the Quad, but the other nations in the area.For the full hour today to discuss the Quad will be returning guest Blake Herzinger.The foundation for our discussion will be via the Unites States Study Centre, Bolstering the Quad: The case for a collective approach to maritime security.Blake is a Research Fellow in the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre. His work is broadly focused on Indo-Pacific defence policy and US security cooperation, with emphasis on maritime security and sea power. Previously a Non-resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Blake also directed global security policy for Twitter, and was a Non-resident WSD-Handa Fellow and Young Leader at Pacific Forum. Prior to that, Blake was a civilian adviser to the US Pacific Fleet, focusing on maritime security cooperation in Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the South Pacific. During that time, he and his team developed the Indo-Pacific Maritime Security Initiative program, delivering assistance ranging from coursework to coast guard cutters to regional maritime law enforcement organisations. He is a serving US Navy Reserve foreign area officer and spent ten years in active service.His work can be found in Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, The Diplomat, The Straits Times and Nikkei Asia, among other publications. His book, Carrier Killer, focuses on China’s anti-ship ballistic missile program and its influence on the regional military balance. Blake holds an MSc in Strategic Studies from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at Nanyang Technological University, and completed his BA in Political Science at Brigham Young University.

While almost all the intellectual energy in the American military establishment is focused on the end of the FY potlatch of spending before fiscal year 2024 kicks off in under three weeks, it's time for EagleOne and Sal to take a deep breath and take a look around the national security waterfront.For the first third of the show we discuss DEPSECDEF Hick's "Replicator" project and some of the issues around it, and then regular guest Mark Vandroff calls in the show and we take the conversation on from there, eventually winding up what is more valuable than all the technology you can buy - the supply chains that enable it and the people who put it together.Showlinks:Sal’s overview of “Replicator.”Navy’s “Disruptive Capabilities Office.”Tom Clancy’s “Red Storm Rising” Dance of the Vampires video.BuildSubmarines.com commercial.BuildSubmarines.com job list.Fincantieri careers.

Today we’re going to discuss a helpful solution to the simple reality in our busy world that it is difficult to build a culture of understanding of any challenge unless those involved in addressing that challenge have a similar foundational knowledge of it.As in most complicated issues, addressing the rise of the People’s Republic of China suffers perhaps more than most from this lack of a foundation to build off of.Our guest today is Dr. Alessio Patalano who along with his fellow contributing editors Catherine L. Grant and James A. Russell published this summer through Georgetown University Press, The New Age of Naval Power in the Indo-Pacific: Strategy, Order, and Regional Security, that brings together a variety of authors’ works to outline an framework in which five "factors of influence" explain how and why naval power matters in this pivotal part of the world. Alessio Patalano is Professor of War & Strategy in East Asia at the Department of War Studies (DWS), and Co-Director of the Centre for Grand Strategy (CGS) at King’s College London (KCL). He specialises in maritime strategy and doctrine, Japanese military history and strategy, East Asian security, and British defence and foreign policy towards the Indo-Pacific. His book on Japan titled Post-war Japan as a Seapower has redefined the study of the country’s post-war history, whilst his work on Chinese maritime coercion remains as a reference in the field.At CGS, Prof Patalano leads the King’s Japan Programme and the newly established Indo-Pacific Programme. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), a Visiting Professor at the Japan Maritime Command and Staff College (JMCSC), and an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, Temple University Japan. Prof Patalano maintains an active policy role collaborating regularly with think tanks and government institutions. He is a Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), and is Sir Herbert Richmond Fellow on naval strategy at the Council on Geostrategy. He is also visiting fellow at the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre (RNCSS) and non-resident fellow at the Royal Australian Navy Seapower Centre. In 2022, Prof Patalano became the first specialist advisor on the Indo-Pacific to the Foreign Affairs Committee in the UK Parliament. In 2023, he became also the first academic to be awarded a Commendation of the Ambassador of Japan to the UK for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of UK-Japan ties in defence and security. Prof Patalano is an active media commentator and writer (Nikkei, The Spectator); he collaborates on international documentaries, and is also regularly involved in military education, developing and delivering programmes on East Asian affairs.

We are two years since the greatest national humiliation since the Fall of Saigon almost half a century ago.The negotiated surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban, retreat to Kabul, and withdraw from Kabul under the grace of our enemy in the summer of 2021 remains a mostly untold story. Partially is it from the attention given to the Russo-Ukrainian War that started six months later, but it seems more a byproduct of disinterest by most of our press who seem to want to discuss almost anything else.Not any more. In to that gap is a superb book by our guest today from 5-6pm Eastern will be Jerry Dunleavy, co-authored with James Hasson; Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End If you want to know the road to the last plane out of Kabul, this is your book.Jerry is an investigative reporter who has focused on the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community, and the national security arena at the Washington Examiner for half a decade. He has published numerous groundbreaking stories of national importance, ranging from China’s coverup of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan to the FBI’s atrocious mishandling of the Trump-Russia investigation. He frequently appears for in-depth discussions on Fox News and C-SPAN.You can listen live here or get the podcast later here.

What better way to recover from mid-August heat than to kick back and listen to Midrats as we check in on what the People's Republic of China is up to.This Sunday live is returning guest Dean Cheng.Dean is a Senior Adviser at the US Institute of Peace, a (non-resident) Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and a Non-resident Fellow with the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.