It feeds, fuels, and makes everything a fleet does possible - we're talking logistics for the full hour with returning guest, Salvatore Mercogliano. Sal sailed with MSC from 1989 to 1992, and worked MSC HQ as Operations Officer for the Afloat Prepositioning Force 1992-1996. He has a BS Marine Transportation from SUNY Maritime College, a MA Maritime History and Nautical Archaeology from East Carolina University, and received his Ph.D. in Military and Naval History from University of Alabama. Movi...
Jan 28, 2018•1 hr 1 min
After the events of the last year in WESTPAC, there is general agreement that there is something wrong with our surface force. There have always been "incidents" involving warships - including tremendous loss of life. This time, things seem different - and we are still only in the beginning of a general reassessment of what needs to be done to make our surface navy better. Our guest this week to explore these and related issues will be Kevin Eyer, CAPT USN (Ret.). As a starting off point, we wil...
Jan 21, 2018•1 hr 6 min
First aired in Sept. 2014 How are we keeping out legacy Aircraft Carrier's in shape for the regular demands for extended deployments while at the same time bringing the new FORD Class CVN online? What are some of the lessons we have learned in our decades of operating nuclear powered aircraft carriers that we are bring forward to serve the Fleet in the coming decades so we always have an answer to the question, "Where are the aircraft carriers?" To discuss this and more, our guest for the full h...
Dec 24, 2017•1 hr
Join CDR Salamander and EagleOne as they wrap up Year-7 of Midrats with an end of the year review. From WestPac to the former Caliphate; South China Sea to Sub-Saharan Africa; from LCS to our new SSN - we’re cover it. As always, our listeners are welcome to call in or ask us questions from the chatroom as look back at the year - and give a few ideas for what we see coming in 2018.
Dec 17, 2017•1 hr 11 min
Power projection, sea control, access denial, and the ability to impose your will on the enemy from the sea; or depending on your perspective, prevent them from doing the same. If the comparative advantage of American military power includes the use of the world's oceans as a basing area from projecting power and national will, how can other nations design systems and tactics to trump that advantage? What are in place now, and what can we expect to see in the near future? Our guest for the full ...
Dec 10, 2017•1 hr 11 min
Take a moment to get away from your shock that it is already December, and let it soak in that it will be 2018 in less than a month. That means that we are officially well in to the end of the second decade of the 21st Century. It is time to look at the latest global feet developments breaking this year, and to what should shape discussions next. From Argentina's missing submarine, submarine proliferation around the world, Asias growing naval powers, Russian naval capabilities, European naval tr...
Dec 03, 2017•1 hr 4 min
What is the best way to hone the intellectual edge of the officers who will lead our Navy? How do we gather our best minds and ideas together to best prepare our Navy for the next war? How is our constellation of war colleges structured, how did it get to where it is today, and how do we modernize it to meet todays challenges? We've put together a small panel for today's show to address this and related issues with returning guests Dr. James Holmes, Dr. John Kuehn, and Dr. Terry Beckenbaugh. Dr....
Nov 19, 2017•1 hr 5 min
In the early years of the show, we had the opportunity to inverview Captain Hudner, who just passed. His is a holder of the Medal of Honor from the Korean War. With him is 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 in the shuff...
Nov 12, 2017•1 hr
This week saw the release of the reports on the collision reports and Comprehensive Review of the incidents this summer between merchant ships in WESTPAC and the destroyers USS FITZGERALD and USS MCCAIN. The totally avoidable collisions resulted in the death of 17 Sailors and removal from our most important theater two of our most critical assets. Our guest for the full hour will be Bryan McGrath, CDR, USN (Ret.). Bryan grew up in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of Vi...
Nov 05, 2017•1 hr 5 min
This Sunday we're going to convince you to make plans to be in Annapolis next month. Coming up Saturday, Nov. 18, from 12 - 5 p.m. Eastern, our friend Claude Berube is husbanding the Naval Academy Museum's latest effort in what promises to be a very original and entertaining conference, NavyCon. NavyCon has a great line up to discuss how fleet forces have been portrayed in science fiction, in comparison to our Navy today. It kicks off with former NASA astronaut and Naval Academy Class of 1981 gr...
Oct 29, 2017•1 hr 7 min
The General Board of the Navy existed for the first half of the 20th Century. In his latest book, America's First General Staff: A Short History of the Rise and Fall of the General Board of the U.S. Navy, 1900-1950, our guest Dr. John T. Kuehn describes how the Board, a creature of its time born from a defined need following the "last war," became the organization that drove the growth of a world class navy and brought together the best in naval thought and strategic thinking. For the full hour ...
Oct 15, 2017•1 hr 5 min
As now VCNO Moran might say, this week we return to datum to an interview from bit more than three years ago when Admiral Moran, USN was Chief of Naval Personnel. We looked at the question of how does policy shape, limit, or empower the effectiveness of command at the unit level? Which policies are a net positive, and which ones are counter productive? Are there things we can do to better balance larger Navy goals with the requirement to give leaders the room they need to be effective leaders? I...
Oct 08, 2017•1 hr 1 min
He is quoted often, correctly and incorrectly, but few have actually read his works in full - and even fewer know much about the man himself, Major General Carl von Clausewitz, Kingdom of Prussia. Out guest for the full hour will be Donald Stoker, author of the new book, Clausewitz: His Life and Work. Stoker is a Professor of Strategy and Policy for the U.S. Naval War College's program at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California. His previous book, The Grand Design: Strategy and the...
Oct 01, 2017•1 hr 1 min
As the Syrian conflict enters what looks to be its end game, one old player on the scene is emerging stronger than it has ever been, a point of concern for all the nations in the area. How has the Syrian civil war changed Hezbollah and her allies, and what does it signal about the post-war order? To discuss this and related issues will be our guest for the full hour, Sulome Anderson. Sulome is journalist and author based between New York City and Beirut, Lebanon. An alumna of Columbia University...
Sep 24, 2017•1 hr 2 min
From WESTPAC to the Caribbean to the Euphrates river valley to Arakan province, we’ll be covering the mostly maritime national security developments of the last few weeks for the full hour in a Midrats free-for-all format. This is also your chance to bring up the topics you want addressed. Join in the chat room live to share your questions, or call in to the show if there is something you like us to talk about.
Sep 17, 2017•1 hr 4 min
In an era of the 24-hr news cycle but in a subject area where accuracy and subject-knowledge is required - how does the navy-focused media report on the fast changing environment? For the professional journalist, the last few months have shown that even peacetime naval operations can create stories as professionally demanding as reporting on wartime developments. The stories coming from the deaths of 17 Sailors from the USS FITZGERALD and USS JOHN S. MCCAIN and the reaction from the SECNAV on do...
Sep 10, 2017•51 min
In parallel efforts that in the Navy which led to Top Gun, the US Air Force looked hard at the lessons of air to air combat in the Vietnam War and brought forward "Red Flag," Moving beyond the technical focus, they looked to training and fundamentals to bring back a primacy of combat skills. Our guest for the full hour to discuss this and his new book, The Air Force Way of War: U.S. Tactics and Training after Vietnam, will be Dr. Brian D. Laslie, Deputy Command Historian, North American Aerospac...
Sep 03, 2017•1 hr 1 min
Nothing is really new, unprecedented, or that unique. If you are willing to look with the right eye, though tools may have changed, the fundamentals often remain the same. In the opening months of WWII, there is a story we don't study enough - mostly because it is not a pleasant story. For today's episode, we're going to take some time to do look at the story of the Asiatic Fleet in 1941, and what her story might inform us about the challenges today. Our guest for the full hour will be Hunter St...
Aug 27, 2017•1 hr 5 min
First broadcast in 2013, some details have changed, but the concepts are eternal. NB: ll ranks and discussions of future events are from 2013. Is there such a thing as Military Intellectual Entrepreneurialism? Large, sated, and complacent organization do not have a good track record of survival. Organizations of any size that nurture the mentality of small, hungry, and driven by creative destruction and friction based on competing ideas - that is the path to success. Always has been, always will...
Aug 20, 2017•1 hr 8 min
What role are Non-Governmental Organization (NGOs) playing in the ongoing crisis in the Mediterranean Sea as wave after of wave of people try to make the passage to Europe? Are they doing good? Are they filling a gap of lawlessness caused by government inaction, or increasing the problem? What are the motivations and goals of governments, international organizations, traditional NGOs, and new players on the scene? To discuss these question and related issues they raised in their two part series ...
Aug 13, 2017•1 hr 4 min
When a few years turns in to many. When all of a sudden you seem to be the oldest guy in the room. When you have but days of memories of your kids and in the blink of an eye they are a year older - eventually everyone on active duty reaches the point where it is time to pack the sea bag one more time and put it in the attic. It is time to retire or leave active duty. Better or worse - it is time to go. What are the paths someone follows to reach that point? What decisions and inputs lead to that...
Aug 06, 2017•1 hr 5 min
Who was "The Gun Doctor," the officer who over a century ago led the revolution in naval gunnery, the development of torpedo boat and destroyer operations, and during WWI served as the senior US naval commander in Europe? More than the man instrumental in the establishment of the convoy system that helped keep the United Kingdom from starvation in the conflict, following the war his leadership as president of the Naval War College he help to established the creative and innovative Navy that in t...
Jul 30, 2017•1 hr 4 min
For a man who last walked the Earth almost 2,500 years ago, 2017 has been a great year for Thucydides. The old Greek historian is having quite a renaissance. Of course, he's always been there, but the Whitehouse is interested in himm, so everyone else is as well, especially with regard to the often mentioned, "Thucydides’s Trap." For those not familiar with his work, The History Of The Peloponnesian War, in her article earlier this month in The Atlantic, our guest this week outlines where people...
Jul 23, 2017•1 hr 3 min
As the USS FORD (CVN 78) delivered to the US Navy, the Royal Navy’s new HMS QUEEN ELIZABETH underway, and many nations either building or wanting built carriers of a variety of sized, the second decade of the 21st Century is an exciting time for those who are interested in carrier design. With the Senate recently dedicating $30 million to the study of a light carrier design, the discussion has begun again about what is the right size carrier for the requirements of our navy. We have the perfect ...
Jul 16, 2017•1 hr 8 min
Everyone seems to have a plan to get to 355 ships as the new President desires. Most plans include new construction, digging in the mothball fleet, extending service life of existing ships, and even some of the exotic options such as license building foreign designs. Most plans include a mix of some or all of them. The political and strategic foundations need to be put in place to support it - and a new SECNAV in place to push it - but that has not stopped the ideas from flowing. To review the o...
Jul 09, 2017•1 hr
From our live show in November of 2015, the full hour with author Claude Berube to discuss his second Connor Stark novel, Syren's Song, from Naval Institute Press. From the Amazon page; "Syren's Song is the second novel featuring Connor Stark, and it promises to be just as engaging asThe Aden Effect. This geopolitical thriller begins when the Sri Lankan navy is unexpectedly attacked by a resurgent and separatist Tamil Tiger organization. The government issues a letter of marque to former U.S. Na...
Jul 02, 2017•1 hr 1 min
The days are too long and hot to spend all your Sunday outside, to pour some iced tea and join us live for a free for all! We’re going to cover the maritime and national security breaking news from the USS FITZGERALD to Syria to any other topic that catches our fancy in a mostly random walk plan, so this is the time to ask us a question you’d like us to address via the chatroom, or even roll one of your questions our way by giving us a call.
Jun 25, 2017•1 hr 6 min
For our Father's Day Best of we will replay an interview with Stephen Roderick, author of, The Magical Stranger: A Son's Journey into His Father's Life. Rodrick is a contributing writer for The NYT Magazine and a contributing editor for Men's Journal. He has also written for New York, Rolling Stone, GQ, The New Republic, Men's Journal, and others. Before becoming a journalist, Rodrick worked as a deputy press secretary for US Senator Alan J. Dixon. He hold a bachelors and masters in political sc...
Jun 18, 2017•34 min
In the Western concept of the military art, there is a food chain. The Political feeds Strategic; Strategic the Operational; Operational the Tactical. Among the military chatting classes, there is a lot of pondering and pontificating about strategy and operational concepts – but what about tactics? If the Tactical level requires, ultimately, a Strategy to help define its purpose – besides logistics, shouldn’t the professional also talk tactics? On this week’s show we’re going to explore that spa...
Jun 11, 2017•59 min
2030 is as close to us today as 2004, only 13 years. As we look at various ways to maintain a Navy at t level at which we have become accustomed, the People’s Liberation Army Navy of China is building step by step as their economic power and global influence grows. The world will see a dramatically different PLAN in 2030 relative to now, and as the present global naval superpower, our assumptions and plans need to be ready for it. Our guest this Sunday to discuss this and more will be Dr. Patric...
Jun 04, 2017•1 hr 3 min
