First aired in Feb. 2017. Since his election in November, the administration and several articles have suggested Donald Trump is a new Andrew Jackson whose portrait now hangs in the Oval Office. What might that mean for the Navy? How did Andrew Jackson approach his Navy and what lessons can we draw from that? Our guest for the full hour for a discussion of an understudied part of our naval history and what it could mean for the current administration is returning guest Claude Berube. Claude is t...
Feb 22, 2021•59 min
Today we are going to discuss military strategy from the a macro level. We will cover the ways to teach military strategy to already seasoned military and civilian personnel, some of the significant members of the strategic canon, and larger strategic challenges we find today. Our guest for the full hour will be Dr Alessio Patalano. Alessio is Reader in East Asian Warfare and Security at the Department of War Studies (DWS), King’s College London (KCL), and specializes in maritime strategy and do...
Feb 07, 2021•1 hr 11 min
This show first aired in August 2017. 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 gue...
Feb 05, 2021•1 hr 11 min
New year, new decade, and a new President. Where should be be looking to have the right view on changes to strategy and maritime power? What existing trends are getting stronger, weakening - and what new things are starting to show up on the scope? Our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to cover the full natsec waterfront as we find it will be returning guest James R. Holmes, PhD. James holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and served on th...
Jan 25, 2021•1 hr 5 min
Over a hundred years on, what insights can we gain from the war that started in August of 2014? What are some of the lessons we need to remember in all four levers of national power; diplomatic, informational, military, and economic - in order to help steer our future course as a nation, and to better understand developing events? Using his article in The National Interest, World War I: Five Ways Germany Could Have Won the First Battle of the Atlantic as a starting point for an hour long discuss...
Jan 25, 2021•1 hr 2 min
There is one area of agreement among navalists, the US Navy is beset with a whole series of hard, long building problems, ignored for too long. Many, including our highest ranking uniformed leadership, seem incapable of not only acknowledging them, but coming up with a plan to address them. As we enter 2021 and the third decade of the 21st Century, what are our greatest challenges, and what are some steps we can take to start the process of meeting them? Returning to Midrats to discuss this and ...
Jan 11, 2021•1 hr 3 min
Since his election in November, the administration and several articles have suggested Donald Trump is a new Andrew Jackson whose portrait now hangs in the Oval Office. What might that mean for the Navy? How did Andrew Jackson approach his Navy and what lessons can we draw from that? Our guest for the full hour for a discussion of an understudied part of our naval history and what it could mean for the current administration is returning guest Claude Berube. Claude is the Director of the Naval A...
Jan 11, 2021•1 hr
The last quarter of the 19th Century, the Gilded Age, was a period of breathtaking change in society, technology, politics and industry. This rapid change helped drive the intellectual and institutional change that brought the US Navy to the world’s attention in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The first two decades of the 20th Century are generally called the Progressive Era, but that only took place due to the advance of progressive ideology the quarter century prior during the Gilded Age. Ou...
Jan 11, 2021•1 hr 4 min
2020 has been a year … that is an understatement. From the maritime and national security perspective what were the bold-faced items that changed the outlook the most. While COVID-19 absorbed much of everyone’s time, the world kept turning and history kept moving. Using our ever-popular melee format – open topic, open chat room and open phones for Midrats’ end of the year review. We’ll be live and hope you’ll join us this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern. DON’T MISS IT!
Dec 22, 2020•1 hr 13 min
When trying to get a grasp on the best way to secure the nation's security and interests, why should Americans look to the sea? Do American's assume or take for granted what three-quarters of a century of American dominance of the high seas gifted them? Is this assumption in danger? Where do we stand and what steps need to be taken to secure what every American living assumes is their birthright? To discuss this and related issues this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be one of our favorite guests...
Dec 14, 2020•1 hr 6 min
Midrats regulars and all sound thinking navalists rejoiced earlier this year when one of our favorites were offered the honor to serve once again - in this case one of our favorite guests and all around great guy, Mark R. Vandroff, Captain, USN (Ret.) Mark found himself back in the mix with his appointment as Deputy Assistant to the President, Senior Director, Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council. Just in time for the holiday season, Mark will come visit us for the full h...
Dec 07, 2020•1 hr 13 min
First aired FEB 2018. In Afghanistan and the global struggle against terrorism, why is this war taking so long? Where are we making progress, where are we stalled, and where are we falling back? There are no easy answers to these questions, if there were they wouldn’t need to be asked. We will discuss these and related issues for the full hour with author Dr. Daniel R. Green, a Defense Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy focusing on counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and ...
Dec 07, 2020•59 min
34 years after Goldwater-Nichols and the rise of the Combatant Commanders (COCOMS), is our national security structures more in line with what we need in the 21 Century, or the Roman Empire’s Proconsuls? What are these mini-Pentagons supposed to bring to the national security of the United States, and what are they actually delivering? What do they do right, and where are they off phase? Our returning guest for the full hour to discuss this an more will be Mackenzie Eaglen. We will use her recen...
Nov 23, 2020•1 hr 3 min
Fewer carriers are deploying more even as repeated warning lights have been going off that we are expending in peace what we will need in war when it comes to personnel and materiel in carrier aviation. How did we get here, where are we, and where are we going? Using her article, No Margin Left: Overworked Carrier Force Struggles to Maintain Deployments After Decades of Overuse, as a starting point and diving it to some of the additional insights she gained while writing it, Megan Eckstein from ...
Nov 16, 2020•1 hr 4 min
The 2020 election is over … well, mostly over. Though there are a few threads to clean up, the fabric the next few years natsec policy will be sewn from is pretty well known – so where does that lead us? We’ll get to that – but once again we need to invest some time to talk about Midrats’s contribution to NavyCon! EagleOne presented a segment for NavyCon2020A, we we’re going to talk about that a bit … and then we’ll pick up where our pre-election left off.
Nov 16, 2020•1 hr 6 min
First airing in July of 2015. Are the growing feelings of crisis, confusion and strategic drift in the national security arena not so much the result of external challenges, but the result of poor thinking and intellectual habits on our part? Using his article in The National Interest, “The Real Problem with the American Military” as a starting point, our guest for the full hour will be Dakota Wood, Senior Research Fellow on Defense Programs at The Heritage Foundation. Dakota L. Wood, LtCol USMC...
Nov 16, 2020•1 hr 1 min
We don't do politics here ... but we do touch on how politics can impact national security issues ... so here we go! Why has national security almost been a non-issue this election? What to expect if Trump gets a second term. What and who will come to the front if Biden is elected. What will drive the challenge regardless of who gets elected? Come join us for the full hour as we discuss this and more with an open chat room and open phones if you want to join in....
Oct 26, 2020•1 hr 10 min
In a very rough year, there were sprinkles of renewed optimism about the Middle East as Israel established relations with a few of the Gulf Arab nations, but the Middle East is, and has been, always about more than Arab-Israeli relations. From North Africa across the Mediterranean coast to Syria and across the Arabian Peninsula to Yemen, what is the state of play in the Middle East as a whole, and where are the trends taking the region? Our guest this Sunday, October 18th for the full hour to di...
Oct 19, 2020•1 hr 5 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...
Oct 19, 2020•59 min
Turning merchant ships in to warships is a story as old as mankind. From war canoe to privateers to auxiliary cruisers fo the modern era - they always fit a certain niche in the drive to control the seas. What of today? What options are there if we need the ability to get as much "national will" downrange and over the horizon as soon as possible? Combine that question with a new one, "Where are all the VLS cells we need?" - and you have a great episode of Midrats. Returning to Midrats to discuss...
Oct 05, 2020•1 hr 1 min
Some may call it the silly season, some may call it a quickening, some may just get eye cramps from rolling them all the time ... but here we are under 6-weeks from a national election and from swarms of unmanned ideas seeping out of the easy-button to solve all our worries, to doom and gloom from Taiwan to the arctic - all getting in the way of solid navalist conversation. EagleOne and I offer you a tonic for all this gibberish this Sunday as we cover the major issues from Dhahran to Washington...
Sep 28, 2020•1 hr 2 min
The neglected American merchant fleet and industry is a problem long standing. The realization of the growing challenge on the other side of the Pacific, and the knowledge of what is needed to support it, has brought the problem in sharp relief. Like most long neglected problems, the causes are many and deep. Ships, personnel, legal, regulatory, and the latest punch from COVID-19 have all intensified an already gathering storm. Returning to Midrats this Sunday to discuss this critical foundation...
Sep 21, 2020•1 hr 11 min
Concerned with the ability of our maritime industrial base to not just build the navy the nation needs, but to help maintain it? Well, do we have the episode for you! Join us this Sunday at 5pm with out guest for the full hour, Maiya Clark, as we discuss the issues she raises in her recent work, U.S. Navy Shipyards Desperately Need Revitalization and a Rethink. Maiya Clark is a research assistant in The Heritage Foundation’s Center for National Defense, focusing on defense industrial base issues...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr 3 min
This episode first aired in March, 2016. In the mid-1930s, Leni Riefenstahl showed the power of the latest communication technology of her time to move opinion, bring support, and intimidate potential opponents. The last quarter century's work of Moore's Law in the ability to distribute visual data world wide in an instant has completely change the ability of even the smallest groups with the most threadbare budgets to create significant influence effects well inside traditional nation states' O...
Sep 14, 2020•1 hr 2 min
Culture is upstream from performance. Behind a sometimes playful, sometimes serious, argument about what rank structure the new Space Force should use is the very serious matter of culture. Culture for any organization is the foundation future success or failure, and is a based on words, and titles. These mean things – especially when they are related to the actual work you do. Using their recent article, Parochialism, not Congress or naval history, will kill the Space Force, returning Midrats a...
Aug 30, 2020•1 hr 7 min
First airing a little over three years ago, and still as timely as ever. Whenever there is a global crisis, natural disaster or manmade, civilians or of a security related issue - the world turns their eyes to the United States of America. The indispensable nation. The only global super-power. You all know the drill. Is it an honor, or a burden? Is it a habit we should, or can sustain? Our guest for the full hour to discuss this and related issues will be Christopher Preble, vice president for d...
Aug 30, 2020•59 min
In our COVID-19 summer doldrums, what could be better than kicking back with a nice cold drink with the kings of natsec social distancing, Sal & EagleOne for a live Midrats free-for-all? Come join us this Sunday from 5-6pm as we cover the waterfront from Sand Diego to DC; the Taiwan Strait to Cypriot gas fields. As always, the chat room will be up and the phone lines will be open.
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr 9 min
It may be 7-yrs old, but the points are still spot on.\ What happens when a global maritime power finds itself in a position where it can no longer sustain the global presence it once considered an essential requirement? The US Navy has been in a period of decline in both numbers and capability for awhile, and as budgetary reality sets in and burn out starts to hollow remaining capabilities - the decline is set to continue for at least another decade. How far the decline goes until stability set...
Aug 17, 2020•1 hr 2 min
This week we are returning to a critical topic that, like its subject, needs an ongoing push. At the very moment that the need for American Seapower advocacy is most critical, it is nowhere to be found. Are there existing institutions that can refocus their efforts or expand their mandate to do the job - or do we need something new? Building off his article from earlier this week, our guest this week is returning guest, Bryan McGrath, CDR USN (Ret.), Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LL...
Aug 03, 2020•1 hr 6 min
How do different standards related to intellectual property influence the spread and adoption of emerging military technology? How does the respect for law, process, and customs impact what shows up on the battlefield in the hands of both friend and foe? In a return visit to Midrats this Sunday, we are going to explore this topic with Robert Farley. As a starting point to our discussion we will look at the issues he raised in the new book he co-authored with Davida H. Isaacs “Patents for Power: ...
Jul 28, 2020•59 min
