For the last 23 years, the major powers outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC) have been engaged in a series of imperial police actions like in Afghanistan, small wars turning into inextricable problems, like Iraq, and not-insignificant medium sized wars as we see in Ukraine.The PRC chose to stay out of these conflicts, but has been learning from them.After studying 20th-century Pacific war lessons deeply and, though untested in combat since 1979, the PRC is preparing for something.Dr. Tos...
Sep 23, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Summer is over, and it's time to focus on adult things once again. If it is of interest to from the Pacific to the Red Sea to the Potomac River—we have you covered. Showlinks: Royal Navy Ship Availability graphic CO USS John S. McCain relieved Egypt in Yemen Civil War 1960s/70s US Army Typhon (not Typhoon, I know) launcher Egypt's Interest in PRC Aircraft Summary The conversation discusses the current situation in the Red Sea and the challenges posed by the Houthi rebels and Iran. It explores th...
Sep 09, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Where there appears to be a fair bit of shock and surprise in the general public, for those who have tracked the story closest, the feeling could be found along the spectrum from resignation to dismay. This did not happen overnight - and for those given responsibility for our nation’s sea power, this was only a matter of time. By acts of commission and omission, the nation that likes to call itself the world’s greatest - because we are no longer the largest - seapower, finds itself here; The Nav...
Aug 26, 2024•1 hr 5 min
If you find a message that is consistent over time, through times of ease and times of challenge, and at each challenge in the real world this message is validated, reinforced, and found to be correct — is that a message you need to pay attention to? Since the Houthi joined a second front with the Gazans against Israel by attacking international shipping in the Red Sea and its approaches, the US Navy has led the international response and has been engaged in continuous combat operations facing a...
Aug 19, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Look who we have on a short-turnaround visit to Midrats, Dr. Emma Salisbury!We’re going to cover the waterfront issues in the Anglosphere, but we’ll kick off the discussion with the issues she outlined in her recent Behind the Front post, Franken-FREMM: How the Constellation Class Became a Monster . Emma recently completed her PhD at Birkbeck College, University of London, with research focusing on the history of the U.S. military-industrial complex. She is the Sea Power Research Fellow at the C...
Aug 12, 2024•57 min
What has the People’s Republic of China been doing to grow its influence in the Pacific Island nations that proved so crucial in the Pacific theater in WWII, and will be just as important for the next Great Pacific War? Our guest for the full hour is be Cleo Paskal.Cleo is Non-Resident Senior Fellow focusing on the Indo-Pacific at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies . She has testified before Congress multiple times and regularly lectures for seminars for the U.S. military. She is also a c...
Aug 05, 2024•1 hr 2 min
Summary In this conversation, Sal and Mark discuss various topics related to national security and the military. They start by questioning the purpose and effectiveness of the US presence in the Red Sea. They also touch on the lack of accountability in the executive branch, the importance of congressional oversight, and the decline in military press coverage. They highlight some positive developments, such as improvements in ship maintenance and the increased visibility of sailors through social...
Jul 29, 2024•1 hr 3 min
How have the modern European navies developed since the start of the Cold War, and how are they positioned to address the challenges we see today? Returning to Midrats this Sunday at 3pm Eastern will be Dr. Jeremy Stöhs.Jeremy is an Austrian-American security and defense analyst. He co-heads the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda & Security Studies at the University of Graz and is a senior fellow at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University. His publications include The ...
Jul 22, 2024•59 min
In a news cycle dominated by the attempted assassination of former President Trump, give yourself a break with an update on the Russian military in year three of the Russo-Ukrainian War, with regular Midrats guest Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg. Dmitry Gorenburg is Senior Research Scientist in the Strategy, Policy, Plans, and Programs division of CNA, where he has worked since 2000. Dr. Gorenburg is an associate at the Harvard University Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies and previously served ...
Jul 15, 2024•58 min
Law. Ethics. Morality. Character. What do these words mean, and why are they important in the profession of arms. That is the subject of this week’s Midrats. We have just the right person to dig in to this topic, returning to Midrats, Dr. Pauline Shanks-Kaurin. Professor Shanks-Kaurin is the Admiral James B. Stockdale Chair in Professional Military Ethics at the Naval War College. She holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University and specializes in military ethics, “just war theory” and phi...
Jun 24, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Anyone even remotely around the Navy or the national defense area in DC and the Pacific knows this two words, “Fat Leonard” and the unprecedented impact it has had on the navy as an institution and its very highest uniformed leadership for well over a decade. Visiting the topic on Midrats for the full hour will be Craig Whitlock, investigative reporter for The Washington Post. #1 NYT Bestselling author of " Fat Leonard: How One Man Bribed, Bilked, and Seduced the U.S. Navy " (2024) and " The Afg...
Jun 10, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Hope you enjoy the new audio quality for this month's melee! We kick things off with an overview of the Gaza Pier debacle, the Eisenhower deployment extension, the Constellation Class frigate purgatory, the potential fun with the #AsianNATO, and finish things up with a former VCNO who is not in a happy place. Showlinks: Better Tabletop Exercises for Wartime Acquisition By Ron Weinberger Army JLOTS v. Navy ELCAS You Go to War with the Industrial Base You Have, by Mackenzie Eaglen "Just as PLA is ...
Jun 03, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Midrats returns for a broad-reaching discussion on maritime and national security issues from the Gaza Beaches to the South China Sea! My audio was a bit poppy early in the show, but it gets better. Mentioned links: PRC is playing games with undersea cables CONGRESSIONAL GUIDANCE FOR A NATIONAL MARITIME STRATEGY Reversing the Decline of America’s Maritime Power When US Army tried to deactivate the unit that built the Gaza pier SECNAV has a testy time on The Hill Azeri percentage of Iranian popul...
May 20, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Just as they share a common tradition going back to before the American Revolution, the United State's Navy and Britain's Royal Navy, today both nations' navies share a similar challenge of prioritizing and finding the navy - and the industrial base to support it - that both nations need in order to secure their nation's from global threats and challengers. We'll cover both nations' military industrial base, the latest lrelated essons from the Red Sea, AUKUS, and even a funny little moment in th...
Apr 29, 2024•1 hr 3 min
For the first two decades of this century, as the West and her friends were distracted by small wars in Central Asia and the Middle East, the People's Republic of China slowly, deliberately, and steadily grew her economic, diplomatic, and economic power. As we are in the last year closing out the first quarter of the 21st Century, the West distracted by an ongoing major conventional war in its third year in Europe, and still cannot extract itself from the Middle Eastern tar-pit. Haw is the PRC d...
Apr 15, 2024•1 hr 4 min
For navalists from Souda Bay to San Diego, April has started not with a whimper, not a grin - but with a scream. For the full hour, we'll start in Baltimore, review the latest revelations about shipbuilding, and some enlightening developments on our allies from Australia to NATO…and end things up after a little spot of tech bother, with a discussion on how to tell our Navy story right - and why it matters. Links: The shipbuilding grid . CANX ship brief . AUKUS and Japan . US, Japan, Australia, &...
Apr 08, 2024•1 hr 3 min
For our last podcast of March, come join us for and open-ended free-for-all format to look at the national security environment as we head in to April. From the water cannons off the Philippines to the folly of keeping your naval bases in range of your enemies missiles ... and perhaps a dive in to the long winter for navalists that 2024 is lining up to be ... we'll cover it! Links mentioned in the show: Amphib USS Boxer Sidelined by "General Complacency" and Breakdowns The Lost Opportunity: The ...
Mar 25, 2024•1 hr 8 min
If people are policy and policy shapes decisions, then that is the start in understanding why a nation like the USA wound up neglecting what should be a core sector of not just its economy, but its strategic advantage - its civilian maritime industry. Using his recent article, The Urgent Need for U.S. Maritime Reform as a starting point, our guest for the full hour is William Cahill. Will is president of Applied Maritime Sciences, a maritime technology and strategy consultancy. He served as Dire...
Mar 18, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Especially for the Royal Navy, it was assumed the military leaders, politicians, and the general population understood that they were island nations and that their security and prosperity depended on a strong navy and civilian maritime commerce. Even the greatest naval power of the last century, the United States of America seems to be unable to have people understand why it needs a strong navy. What happened? Focused primarily on the core of the issue with the Royal Navy, our guest for the full...
Mar 10, 2024•1 hr 11 min
Feel like the chaos from the Black Sea, Red Sea, South China Sea and various places ashore seems just too much to keep track of? Well, if you need an hour to catch up and ponder as Sal & Eagle One will take you from the Houthi's sinking their first ship, Darwinism at war, to the US Navy heading in to Haiphong witih guns blazing ... for peace.
Mar 04, 2024•1 hr 19 min
From the February 12th guest post over at Sal's substack , our guest today opened with a firm point;"..the combat performance of U.S. Navy destroyers in the Red Sea against a variety of weapons employed by the Houthis from Yemen stands as a monument to decades of brilliance, hard work, and dedication across generations of naval officers, government civilians, industry executives, talented engineers and technologists, assembly line workers, and shipbuilders. THIS—is the military-industrial comple...
Feb 26, 2024•1 hr 5 min
The vulnerability of aircraft carriers is nothing new. They are vulnerable not just because of how they are designed - really just a thin hulled ship full of fuel and explosives - but because of what they do. At peace and at war, there is no other platform that can project power and national will on a global scale at sea than an aircraft carrier. As such, everyone either wants one, or wants to sink one - or both.While many people think of the Pacific wars of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam as places wh...
Feb 12, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Feel like there is too much going on in the national security world to keep up with? Well, let your heart not be troubled. Mark & Sal will deliver a full hour of discussion of not just what's breaking in to the news in the last week of January 2024, but whatever else pops up. Iranian proxies causing American military losses from Jordan to the Horn of Africa; Iranian drone carriers to America's need for some inventive ideas to bring more VLS cells forward sooner - with some ASBM pondering thr...
Jan 29, 2024•1 hr 7 min
If we are approaching the end of the almost century-long age of the aircraft carrier, for the United States Navy, what are some of the options we could have in fleet designed to execute the Navy's mission in its place? Challenges, opportunities, and compromises - we'll dive into it all with guest Jeff Vandenengel, CDR USN.The reference point for our conversation will be his new book, Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy . Jeff completed three tours on fast-att...
Jan 21, 2024•1 hr 1 min
While everyone is focused on the Red Sea or the goings on in Ukraine, there are serious developments between The Philippines and the Peoples Republic of China that is not going to wait for the other world's problems to finish up their time in the sun. If the main game is in the Western Pacific, then The Philippines are the center square. Returning to Midrats to discuss this ongoing story will be Ray Powell.Ray is the Founder and Director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project of the Gordia...
Jan 14, 2024•1 hr 3 min
From moving grain to the world markets from the Black Sea to global trade through the Red Sea, and the People’s Republic of China’s unabashed bullying of The Philippines and the nations surrounding the South China Sea – the US Navy is not large enough to carry the burden of maintaining the international order at sea. We have a series of alliances with most of the top-10 maritime powers on the globe, but are they being effectively harnessed toward maintaining this order? Are we an ally that insti...
Jan 07, 2024•1 hr 4 min
With a few exceptions on the sidelines by Japan and France, what has been clearly apparent in the last two months has been the absence of the International Community's presence in the Red Sea to enforce the International Order everyone seems to consider of utmost importance to the economic system that gives us the standard of living the globe is accustomed to? Once again, it is the U.S. Navy that seems to be the force of choice, or the only real option to do the bare minimum to keep lawlessness ...
Dec 10, 2023•56 min
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.
Dec 04, 2023•1 hr 4 min
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. ...
Nov 20, 2023•1 hr 2 min
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. H...
Nov 13, 2023•1 hr 6 min
