Midrats is back live! With a week left to go till the election, I am sure you are about done with all the political talk, so join us at 5pm Eastern this Sunday, October 30th as we cover the the globe on the breaking national security and maritime issues that have come up over the last month. From FORD to KUZNETSOV; from The Baltic to Yemen we'll have it covered. As always with our Free For Alls; it is open mic an open mind. Call in with your issues and questions, or join us in the chat room....
Oct 30, 2016•1 hr 13 min
For those who have seen the Great Carrier Debate between Jerry Hendrix and Bryan McGrath, one thing was clear - both gentlemen had only scratched the surface of their thoughts on the topic. At about the same time, the concept of "distributed lethality" had seeped its way in to the conversation. To examine both topics and to review the national security issues you should expect to see in 2015 will be returning guest, Bryan McGrath. Bryan McGrath is the founding Managing Director of The FerryBridg...
Oct 23, 2016•1 hr 4 min
With all the news out of Yemen, I thought it would be timely to go back four years to our interview with Claude Berube about his first fiction, novel, The Aden Effect. Last year he had a follow on, Syren's Song. Terror attacks on an American embassy. Piracy on the high seas. Political intrigue. Leadership at sea. Not just the news of the day, but some of the topics you'll find in Claude Berube's first non-fiction book. We'll have the author with us for the full hour to talk about the book, writi...
Oct 16, 2016•1 hr 3 min
What is a "crisis in leadership? In an organization that prizes the Type-A personality that takes risk combined with a strong intellect - yet at the same times asks from it silence and order - what happens when each end loses faith and trust in the other? Our guest for the full hour will be Peter Munson, Marine officer, KC-130 aircraft commander, Middle East specialist, author, and editor of Small Wars Journal. As a starting point, we will use his article in SWJ, Disruptive Thinkers: Defining th...
Oct 09, 2016•1 hr 1 min
At the height of hurricane season, people think of the impact such storms can have on the security, economy, and even the political direction of places if hit by such huge events such as Katrina. As we saw in the attacks in New York City in 2001, terrorists are trying to create those same effects, along with a few more. With a global economy, local events can have international impact. How do you best to prevent, prepare for, and recover from natural events - but on the high end, terrorist attac...
Oct 02, 2016•1 hr 2 min
Reaching back to a great show from four years ago this week. The "Arab Spring" has not turned out as well as many hoped, and in much of the Arab and Muslim world, the will of the people does not necessarily translate in to freedom and a pro-Western leadership. With many more years to go in the Long War struggle, how do we navigate through the rapidly changing world which is mostly beyond our control? While we cannot back away, we also cannot control. Is there a better way - and how do we more to...
Sep 25, 2016•1 hr 2 min
Put the popular, and mostly accurate, image of the flamboyant General Patton, USA given to us by popular culture to the side for a moment. Consider the other side of the man; the strategic thinker, student of military history, and innovator for decades. This week's episode will focus on that side of the man. For the full hour we will have as our guest J. Furman Daniel, III, the editor of the next book in the 21st Century Foundations series; 21st Century Patton. Furman is an assistant professor a...
Sep 18, 2016•1 hr 2 min
Let's go back to October of 2010 for a great pair of guests. First, since the end of US involvement The Vietnam War almost 40 years ago, there are just a few USN Commanding Officers who know what it is like for a warship under attack; one of the handful will be our first guest, CDR Kirk Lippold, USN (Ret.). He was the Commanding Officer of the USS Cole (DDG-67) when it was attacked while in port Aden, Yemen 12 October 2000 - the 16th anniversary will in a few weeks. We will discuss his experienc...
Sep 11, 2016•59 min
As with most concepts and good ideas, you really don't know what you need and how you need to do it until you put Sailors to task and head to sea. The idea of an Afloat Forward Staging Base has, in a variety of forms, been a regular part of naval operations arguably for centuries under different names and with different equipment. What about the 21st Century? More than just a story about the use and utility of the AFSB concept, the story of the USS PONCE is larger than that - it also has a lot t...
Sep 04, 2016•1 hr 2 min
With a resurgent Russia, the security environment from former Soviet Republics to the traditionally neutral nations of Finland and Sweden has changed dramatically. What are those changes and how are they changing how these nations see their place in the larger Western security infrastructure? We’re going to look at how thing are changing in how they work and see each other, NATO, and what they need to do to provide for both their and collective defense. Our guests for the full hour will be Colon...
Aug 28, 2016•1 hr 11 min
The thankfully bloodless embarrassment that was the Farsi Island Incident is still making news after the January 12, 2016 seizure of 10 U.S. sailors by Iranian forces. Especially for our Surface Warfare community, there are a lot of hard, cold lessons here not just about the incident itself, leadership and professionalism – and institutional lessons about how conditions are set and organizations are sub-optimized to a degree that an incident - in hindsight – was just a matter of “when” vice “if....
Aug 21, 2016•1 hr 4 min
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 bes...
Aug 14, 2016•1 hr 4 min
How did the US Marine Corps and local tribal leaders turn the corner in Fallujah? Who were the people on the ground, Iraqi and American, who were the catalyst for the change that brought about a sea change in the tactical, operational, and strategic direction in Iraq? Our guest for the full hour to discuss that and more will be author Bill Ardolino. We will use as a base of our discussion his new book, Fallujah Awakens: Marines, Sheikhs, and the Battle Against al Qaeda. Bill is the associate edi...
Aug 07, 2016•1 hr 2 min
The War Between the States, the American Civil War - whichever description you prefer - this crucible on which our nation was re-formed has legion of books, movies, and rhetoric dedicated to it. Most of the history that people know involves the war on land, but what of the war at sea? What are details behind some of the major Naval leaders of both sides that are the least known, but are the most interesting? What challenges and accomplishments were made by the belligerents in their navies, and h...
Jul 31, 2016•1 hr 2 min
The events of the last week in Turkey brought that critically important nation in to focus, and we are going to do the same thing for this week's episode of Midrats. Turkey has a history of military coups as a byproduct of an ongoing drive to be a modern secular nation against the current of a deeply Islamic people. This week we are going to look at how Turkey found itself at another coup attempt, the response, and the possible impact for Turkey and its relationship with NATO, Russia, Europe, an...
Jul 24, 2016•1 hr 2 min
From the sacking of the Baltic Fleet leadership, fighting in Syria, to developments from Central Asia to the Pacific - Russia in 2016 is on the move. To discuss the who, what, where, and why of Russia in 2016, our guest for the full hour will be Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg, Senior Analyst, CNA Strategic Studies, an Associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, an author, and host of the Russian Military Reform blog. Dr. Gorenburg focuses his research on security issues in the fo...
Jul 17, 2016•1 hr 4 min
As China continues to slowly use a variety of tools to claim portions of her maritime near-abroad in the South China Sea and elsewhere, part of their effort includes what can almost be considered naval irregular forces - a Maritime Militia. What is China doing with these assets, why are they being used, and what could we expect going forward as she taps in to a variety of assets to attempt to establish her authority? Our guest for the full hour to discuss this and more will be Dr. Andrew S. Eric...
Jul 10, 2016•1 hr 5 min
If the requirement is to be able to operate, fight, and win in the Littorals - is the Littoral Combat Ship the answer? Other nations have the same requirement - yet have come up with different answers. Are we defining our requirements properly in face of larger Fleet needs and the threats we expect? What platforms and systems need to be looked at closer if we are to have the best mix of capabilities to meet our requirements? Using his article in Armed Forces Journal, Go smaller: Time for the Nav...
Jul 03, 2016•1 hr 4 min
When the BREXIT dust settles one thing will remain – the Long War against Islamic terrorists. In a wide arch along its bloody edge, Islamic extremism continues to look for new opportunities for expansion, and within the borders of Dar al-Islam seeks to impose a retrograde view of Islam by destroying religious minorities, secular governments, and Islamic modernizers. This Sunday returning guest Bill Roggio will be with us for the full hour to discuss this and more. Bill is a senior fellow at the ...
Jun 26, 2016•1 hr 4 min
I still believe that The War Between the States is a more accurate term - but to keep with the last vestiges of Northern cultural imperialism - we'll call it the Civil War. Though mostly a land war - the war at sea was critical in keeping the agriculturally based South from getting the money and material it needed to fight the North. The war also saw innovation and concepts that echoed in every naval war since - and teaches the lessons of innovation. This Sunday's show will focus on that part - ...
Jun 19, 2016•59 min
As part of our ongoing series of interviews with the editors of each addition to the 21st Century Foundations series, we will have David Kohnen the editor of the latest in the series, 21st Century Knox, on for the full hour. Kohnen described the focus of the book, Commodore Dudley Wright Knox, USN, as someone who, "... challended fellow naval professionals to recognize the inherent relevance of history in examining contemporary problems. In his writings, Knox cited historical examples when strat...
Jun 12, 2016•1 hr 5 min
Last month started what we hope will be a regular occurrence in the education of our future leaders; the US Naval Academy took 10 Midshipmen along with a group of instructors onboard the topsail schooners Pride of Baltimore and Lynx as part of an elective history course titled “War of 1812 in the Chesapeake: A Schoolhouse at Sea.” We will have two of the instructors for the cruise with us for the full hour, returning guest LCDR Claude Berube, USNR, instructor at the USNA Department of History, D...
Jun 05, 2016•1 hr 2 min
Join us this Memorial Day for one of our favorite shows from our first year with guests; holder of the Medal of Honor from the Korean War Captain Thomas J. Hudner, Jr., USN (Ret), and the author of Such Men as These: The Story of the Navy Pilots Who Flew the Deadly Skies over Korea, David Sears as they talk about the role of Naval Aviation in the Korean War. Stuck between the Greatest Generation's high-water mark of World War II and the Baby Boomer's Vietnam War - the Korean War often gets lost ...
May 29, 2016•59 min
We are coming up on the 100-year anniversary of the Battle of Jutland. Stop for a moment, close your eyes, and then tell me what image comes to mind. If your image is of a huge mass of steel coming at you out from the mist at 25-knots belching out sun-blocking clouds of coal-smoke and burned black powder and searing fingers of flame pushing tons of armor-piercing explosives, then this is the show for you. For the full hour this Sunday we will have as our guest a great friend of the show, Robert ...
May 22, 2016•1 hr 3 min
The best fiction doesn't just entertain, it informs and causes the reader to think. Our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern is August Cole, the co-author with P.W. Singer of one of the best received military fiction novels on the last year, Ghost Fleet: An Novel of the Next World War. August is an author and analyst specializing in national security issues. He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council where h...
May 15, 2016•1 hr 4 min
For the career minded Naval professional, to have a chance for the greatest advancement and promotion, you have to push and push hard. The reputation you build in your first 10 years sets the tone for the rest. Except for very rare exceptions, there are no second chances. There are no pauses - one iffy set of orders - one poorly timed FITREP, and you are on an off-ramp. You must work harder, you must sacrifice, and if you are to have a family young, you need a very strong support structure. For ...
May 08, 2016•1 hr 1 min
When does the Long War go feet wet? Given the track record of the preceding couple of decades, it was expected shortly after the start of this phase of the war after 911, that terrorists would take the war to sea. There was an incident now and then, but the threat never really played out to the extent we thought early on. Recent events point to the possibility that this may be changing, in perhaps ways not originally thought. What is the threat? Where is it coming from, and how do you deter and ...
May 01, 2016•1 hr 5 min
Spring is here, and from the Baltic to the Beltway, there is a lot to catch up with. Join Sal from "CDR Salamander" and EagleOne from "EagleSpeak" for a national security catch-up. As with all free-for-alls - phones are open. Give us a call!
Apr 24, 2016•1 hr 2 min
Do we have the right balance between strike as embodied by carrier air and expeditionary forces based around amphibious ships. What capability is most cost effective and gives the combatant commanders the most flexible assets in their area of responsibility? What is driving our Fleet structure, and do we have the right mix? What is informing our decisions, and what should be informing it? Our guest for the full hour will be Lieutenant Colonel James W. Hammond III, USMC (Ret), senior manager at W...
Apr 17, 2016•1 hr 1 min
What is the impact of the right man at the right time with the right ideas? What is the impact of what seems to some as just a man, but to a son is all? Our 1st Guest will be LCDR BJ Armstrong author of, 21st Century Mahan: Sound Military Conclusions for the Modern Era . For the second half of the hour we will have Stephen Roderick author of, The Magical Stranger: A Son's Journey into His Father's Life. Armstrong is a Naval Aviator and an occasional naval historian. His articles have appeared in...
Apr 10, 2016•1 hr 1 min
