Midrats

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Episode 549: What a Navy is For with Sam Tangredi Jul 13, 2020

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Do policy makers and those who design our grand national strategy really understand what a Navy is? How does the planet's premier naval power seem to have trouble explaining why it needs a navy, what a navy does, and how to get it ready for war?
How do navalists set the table when it is time to define, invest, and assign roles, responsibilities, missions and who get what percentage of the DOD pie?
Our returning guest this Sunday to discuss this and related topics will be Sam Tangredi, and we will use his recent article, Does the Pentagon Understand What a Navy Is For?, as a starting point for our conversation.
Professor Tangredi was appointed as the Leidos Chair of Future Warfare Studies in March 2019 and since May 2017, has served as the director of the Institute for Future Warfare Studies. He initially joined the Naval War College as a professor of national, naval and maritime strategy in the Strategic and Operational Research Department, Center for Naval Warfare Studies in October 2016. He has published five books, over 150 journal articles and book chapters, and numerous reports for government and academic organizations. He is a retired Navy captain and surface warfare officer specializing in naval strategy. He held command at sea and directed several strategic planning organizations.

Episode 548: Best of Terrorists on the Ocean with CAPT Bob Hein, USN Jul 13, 2020

Show notes

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 defeat it?
Our guest for the full hour to discuss will be CAPT Bob Hein, USN. We will use his latest article with CIMSEC, Terrorists on the Ocean: Sea Monsters in the 21st Century, as a starting out point for discussion.
Captain Hein is a career surface warfare officer. Over the last 28 years, he has served on seven ships around the globe and has had the privilege of commanding two of them: the USS Gettysburg (CG 64), and the USS Nitze (DDG 94),
He completed two tours as a requirements officer on the Navy staff for combatant modernization and for future logistics capabilities. He also served as the current operations officer for U.S. Fleet Forces Command. Additional tours include as an action officer on the Joint Staff, Joint Operations Directorate, and as Chief of Staff to the NATO Mediterranean Fleet.
He is currently the Branch Head for Strategy on the OPNAV Staff (N513) Captain Hein graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelor's in physical science. He also holds a master's in national security affairs and strategic studies from the Naval War College, is a graduate of the Joint Forces Staff College, and a former Navy Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is also the proud father of two Surface Warfare Officers; it's a family business.

Episode 547: China in the Post-COVID-19 World with Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro Jun 29, 2020

Show notes

From the alpine lakes on the Indo-Tibetan frontier to the sweltering tropics of the South China Sea, China is on the offensive in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. Aggressive and persistent in her pursuit of expanding her control and influence in her near-abroad and globally, she is challenging the distracted and slothish West to keep up with her.
What are the latest moves on the global chess board?
Our guest for the full hour covering the full range of China related challenges will be Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro.
Oriana is an assistant professor of security studies at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. In August, she will join the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University as a Center Fellow where she will continue her research on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and an inaugural Wilson Center China Fellow. Additionally she serves in the United States Air Force Reserve as a Senior China Analyst at the Pentagon. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.

Episode 546: Best of Where Youth and Laughter Go; With "The Cutting Edge" in Afghanistan Jun 28, 2020

Show notes

First airing in DEC 2016, For the full hour this Sunday our guest will be then Lieutenant Colonel Seth W. B. Folsom, USMC the author of Where Youth and Laughter Go. Described by USNI Books:
It is the culminating chapter of a trilogy that began with The Highway War: A Marine Company Commander in Iraq in 2006 and continued with In the Gray Area: A Marine Advisor Team at War in 2010.
"Where Youth and Laughter Go completes LtCol Seth Folsom’s recounting of his personal experiences in command over a decade of war. It is the culminating chapter of a trilogy that began with The Highway War: A Marine Company Commander in Iraq in 2006 and continued with In the Gray Area: A Marine Advisor Team at War in 2010."
We will discuss not just his latest book, but also larger issues related to command, the nature of the war in Afghanistan, and the Long War.

Episode 545: June Maritime Melee! Jun 15, 2020

Show notes

Long deployments, new SECNAV, civ/mil stew bubbling, and everyone who left the USN to the USNR because they couldn't stand being in the yards, are being activated to spend a year ... in the yards.
These are just a few of the topics that we'll be covering in this month's LIVE Melee.
No guests this week, just us and you.
As with all melees, we'll take questions in the chat room or on the phone.

Episode 544: “Dunkirk and the Little Ships" with Dr. Phil Weir Jun 08, 2020

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Most people think they know about the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1940 … or at least they do … but it is an incredibly complicated and enthralling story that was just one part of an almost unimaginable year that was 1940.
Our guest Dr. Phil Weir here to discuss his upcoming book on the topic, “Dunkirk and the Little Ships."
Phil is a naval historian specializing in the Royal Navy in the first half of the twentieth Century. He gained a PhD from the University of Exeter in 2007 looking at the development of naval aviation in the Royal Navy between the two World Wars, and is now an author and sometime broadcaster who has just completed a book on Dunkirk and the Little ships.

Episode 543: AI, Autonomous Systems, Emerging Tech & the Future of War Jun 01, 2020

Show notes

The relentless advance of knowledge and technology has always been with us. The speed and impact of the advance can vary, but the key - especially when it comes to those advances related to warfare - is to at least pace the advance, and if possible, be at the front.
There can be box canyons, false trails, mirages and other dead ends you may follow, but mixed in with the wrong is "what's next."
Are the USA and its allies ready for the changes in artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, and other emerging technologies that are already here or right over the horizon?
To discuss this and related issues in his book, The Kill Chain: Defending America in the Future of High-Tech Warfare will be Christian Brose.
Brose is currently Chief Strategy Officer of Anduril Industries, a technology start-up that develops national defense capabilities, and Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He served as Staff Director of the Senate Armed Services Committee (2015-2018), where he was the youngest person to hold the position in the committee’s history. Before that, he served as Senator John McCain’s senior policy advisor (2009-2015). Brose was previously a speechwriter to two secretaries of state, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, and a member of the State Department Policy Planning Staff.

Episode 542: Best of Clausewitz - now more than ever, with Donald Stoker Jun 01, 2020

Show notes

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 U.S. Civil War, won the distinguished Fletcher Pratt award for the best non-fiction Civil War book of 2010. Past winners include Bruce Catton and Shelby Foote.

Episode 541: Post COVID-19 China, with Dean Cheng May 18, 2020

Show notes

From international relations to trade to almost every aspect of modern society, the outbreak of COVID-19 has altered the global landscape in ways we are only now getting a grasp on.
As the world's largest nation and the source of the pandemic, how China responds and how it impacts her growth will be the top-line story of this change.
This Sunday we are going to look at China's response and reaction to COVID-19, in conjunction with cyber, human right abuses, Hong Kong unrest, military power, economic connections and more.
To join us for a wide ranging conversation centered on China in the post-COVID-19 world will be returning guest, Dean Cheng.
Dean is a Senior Research Fellow at the Asian Studies Center, Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation

Episode 540: Best of Anniversary of Waterloo with John Kuehn May 18, 2020

Show notes

This first aired in June of 2015.
18 June 2015 was the 200th Anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, fought in present-day Belgium.
Just in time, regular guest to Midrats, John Kuehn has his latest book out, Napoleonic Warfare: The Operational Art of the Great Campaigns where he covers the operational level analysis of European warfare from 1792 to 1815, including the tactics, operations, and strategy of major conflicts of the time.
More than just a description of set piece battle, there is a discussion of naval warfare, maneuver warfare, compound warfare, and counterinsurgency.
We've got him for the full hour ... we should be able to get to most of it.
Dr. John T. Kuehn is the General William Stofft Chair for Historical Research at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He retired from the U.S. Navy 2004 at the rank of commander after 23 years of service as a naval flight officer in EP-3s and ES-3s. He authored Agents of Innovation (2008) and co-authored Eyewitness Pacific Theater (2008) with D.M. Giangreco, as well as numerous articles and editorials and was awarded a Moncado Prize from the Society for Military History in 2011.
His previous book was, A military History of Japan: From the Age of the Samurai to the 21st Century.

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