Midrats

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Episode 659: Keeping the US Undersea Advantage, with Bryan Clark Jun 26, 2023

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For generations, a great comparative advantage the United States has enjoyed at sea is the superiority of its submarine force.
It has become simply an assumption in our war planning to the point it is treated as almost a natural part of the environment.Of course, nothing stands still in war. Time and technology usually finds a way to blunt any advantage, leverage any vulnerability.
As the challenge at sea grows, what can the US do to maintain the comparative advantage under the sea?
Returning to Midrats this Sunday is Bryan Clark, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.The starting point for our conversation will be the recent report he co-authored with Timothy Walton this month at Hudson’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, Fighting into the Bastions: Getting Noisier to Sustain the US Undersea Advantage.

Episode 658: Strategy for Facing the Chinese & Russian Threat, with Brent Sadler Jun 11, 2023

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By 2030, the People's Republic of China is expected to have a navy of 425 warships, up significantly from their 360 today - already larger than the United States Navy.
In spite of her struggles ashore, demographic collapse, and structural deficiencies, the Russian Navy still maintains a significant submarine force.While the world's strategic situation has changed dramatically, it isn't something not seen.
For fits and starts for over a decade, the US has tried to address the change in a cohesive manner, but in 2023, everyone is still looking for the right response.
This Sunday for the full hour our guest will be, Brent Sadler, Captain, USN (Ret.), senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, to discuss the issues he raises in his recent book, U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century: A New Strategy for Facing the Chinese and Russian Threat.
Brent served twenty-six-year in the Navy with numerous operational tours on nuclear powered submarines and has been a member of personal staffs of senior defense department leaders and was a military diplomat in Asia.

Episode 657: Strategy, Uncertainty and the China Challenge Jun 04, 2023

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From the abstract of the article in the Naval War College Review Winter 2023 Edition, Strategy, Uncertainty, and the China Challenge;
"Despite China’s increasing aggressiveness, its intentions are indeterminate, even aligning with U.S. interests in some arenas. Furthermore, China simply may fail in achieving even its foremost national and foreign-policy goals. Given this uncertainty, the United States should not base its policy and strategy on any specific prediction about Chinese intentions or abilities."
Our guest for the full hour will be Jeffrey W. Meiser from the University of Portland (Oregon). We'll dive in to the issues raised in the article and discuss related topics as they come in to the conversation.

Episode 656: The Philippine Pact with Claude Berube May 21, 2023

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You're in for a treat this Midrats with a regular since 2010 returning to the podcast, Claude Berube.
Claude will be with us the full hour to discuss his third novel in the Connor Stark series, The Philippine Pact, bringing back most of your favorite characters from the first two books in the series, The Aden Effect and Syren's Song.
As with all of Claude's novels, his characters always seem to find themselves in the location you find breaking in to the news in the real world.Don't miss it!
Claude is the author of four non-fiction books, three novels and more than eighty articles. His latest, The Philippine Pact, continues the adventures of a private naval company countering China's small wars around the world.
He earned his doctorate from the University of Leeds. He retired from the Navy Reserve as a Commander, serving out of the country in Europe, in the Persian Gulf, and as the Deputy J2 at JTF-GTMO. He has worked as a navy contractor for Naval Sea Systems Command and the Office of Naval Research, as a civil servant with the Office of Naval Intelligence, 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.

Episode 655: Command Posts - Hunter or Hunted, with Lt Col. Matt. Arrol, U.S.A. May 01, 2023

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For generations, the US military’s senior leadership in the field had no reason to worry about being on the receiving end of enemy fires at their command posts. Even at the company level but especially at higher echelons, we expected that we would be safe and secure in our command posts. Command posts were where one watched, planned, and executed operations – not become player in one.
One of the defining characteristics early in the Russo-Ukrainian War was the high loss rate of Russian General Officers from enemy action. Part of this was due to the top-down traditions in the Russian Army that required direct, forward, and in person direction and guidance – but a significant part of that was the Ukrainian military’s reaching out to eliminate senior leadership where they led the fight - their command posts.
As precision long range conventional fires and the ISR that supports them become more common on even the most primitive battlefield, is it time for the USA and her allies to reconsider their own reliance on large, static, and “noisy” command posts?
Using an article he co-authored in the March issue of the US Army’s “Military Review” titled “The Graveyard of Command Posts” as a starting point for our conversation, our guest this Sunday for the full hour from 5-6pm Eastern will be Lt. Col. Matthew R. Arrol, U.S. Army, commandant of the U.S. Army Joint Support Team at Hurlburt Field, Florida.
He is a contributing member of NATO’s Integrated Capabilities Group on Indirect Fire. He is a graduate of the Command and General Staff College, and his civil schooling includes a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from Michigan State University and an MBA from Eastern Michigan University. His most recent operational assignment was as the deputy commanding officer of the 19th Battlefield Coordination Detachment in Ramstein, Germany, where he served from 2016 to 2020. Previous tactical assignments include battalion operations officer and executive officer, 3rd Battalion, 16th Field Artillery Regiment; and G-5 fires planner, 1st Cavalry Division.

Episode 654: April Free For All!!! Apr 24, 2023

Show notes

It's a maritime and natsec free for all on Midrats!
No fixed topic, open chat room and open studio line for those who are joining us live.
From some rather strange comments in congressional briefing rooms to recruiting woes at home, to some rather interesting riverine amphibious operations in the Dnipro River in Ukraine, what it takes to fire a Russian Navy fleet commander, and whatever other topics come across the transom - a full hour of maritime excellence!

Episode 653: the Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts at 35, with Bradley Peniston Apr 17, 2023

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History, heritage, ethos, and institutional culture are more than just books, lectures, static displays, songs, stories and rituals - they are part of a tapestry that define the characteristics of an organization and a people.In a cold, neutral review of individual parts, it can be a challenge to see why they are important, what they really signify ... why we keep, remember, and practice them.
On occasion, events suddenly reveal how that tapestry creates a culture and the amazing things that culture can accomplish. Those events become in themselves a story and reinforce and expand the tapestry.One such event took place 35 years ago this April, the mine strike of the USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) on 14 APR 1988.
Returning to Midrats to discuss the events of that day and the very real legacy we see today from the ship and her crew will be Bradley Peniston, deputy editor of Defense One and author of the reference book on the mine strike; No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf (Naval Institute Press, 2006), which has been featured in the Chief of Naval Operations' Professional Reading Program.
Brad is a national security journalist for a quarter-century, he helped launch http://Military.com, served as managing editor of Defense News, and was editor of Armed Forces Journal.

Episode 652: If it Flies, it Dies - with Tom Karako Apr 02, 2023

Show notes

Two of the above-the-fold topics in the last year in the national security arena both in involve one of the most technologically advance, complicated, and essential parts of modern warfare; ground based anti-air.
For over a year we have watched and evolving ongoing real world laboratory in the Russo-Ukrainian War. On the other side of Asia, when not looking in the sky for big balloons, America and her allies are sobering up to the very significant threat of the People’s Republic of China conventional ballistic missile putting almost all of our forward bases “under the gun.”
From small, slow, lawnmower sounding combat drones, to hypersonic missiles - how to you see them and kill them before they reach their targets?
For the full hour this Sunday we will address these and related challenges with our guest Tom Karako, senior fellow with the International Security Program and the director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Episode 651: NATO's Evolution in Response to the Russo-Ukrainian War Mar 27, 2023

Show notes

The last 13-months has seen a scenario few in NATO’s uniformed or civilian leadership either predicted, or for that matter, though was possible.
How has the alliance reacted, grown, succeeded, or shown cracks under the pressure of the growing war in Ukraine as it moves it to its second year?
Returning to Midrats for the full hour will be Jorge Benitez, Associate Professor of International Relations at the Marine Command and Staff College in Quantico, Virginia.He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council. He specializes in NATO and transatlantic relations, European politics, and US national security. He previously served as assistant for Alliance issues to the Director of NATO Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
He has also served as a specialist in international security for the Department of State and the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. Dr. Benitez received his BA from the University of Florida, his MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and his PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Episode 650: Keeping America's Dominance at Sea with Jerry Hendrix Mar 20, 2023

Show notes

Except for those over a 85, no one alive has ever existed at a time when the US Navy was not the premier naval power - and no one alive at all has known a world where the US Navy was not the premier naval power in the Pacific.
Though on paper it could be challenged in the first third of the 20th Century by the Royal Navy, and was challenged in a very real way by the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific in the early mid-century, after the 1930s no industrial power could hope to compete with the United States in production and warships ready to fight at sea in a major conflict.
During the Cold War, there were a couple of decades where the Soviet Union could put a fleet to sea to give the US Navy regional concern, but never really on an ocean wide scale.As we approach the end of the first quarter of the 21st Century, a rising power is presenting a challenge in the Pacific the US Navy, and its political leaders, seem to have trouble accepting.The People's Republic of China is clear that it wants the global power the USA presently has - including on the high seas.
Returning to Midrats to discuss his recent article in The Atlantic, "The Age of American Naval Dominance is Over" is Jerry Hendrix, PhD.
Jerry is a retired USN Captain, author, and a senior fellow with the Sagamore Institute, in Indianapolis. His most recent book is To Provide and Maintain a Navy (2020).

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