Midrats

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Episode 479: One Nation Under Drones, with John Jackson Mar 11, 2019

Show notes

How are unmanned systems and the increasing use of robots from the kitchen to the battlefield impacting how our personal, professional, and national lives are being run?
What are the obvious and not so obvious places they are already a dominate presence today, and where are trends leading us?
Our guest for the full hour to discuss the issues he raises in his book, "One Nation Under Drones" will be John E. Jackson, CAPT, USN (Ret.).
Professor Jackson has served at the Naval War College for more than 20 years, teaching in the areas of national security decision-making, logistics, and unmanned and robotic systems. He holds the E.A. Sperry Chair of Unmanned and Robotic Systems and lectures frequently. His latest book “One Nation, Under Drones" was published by the U.S. Naval Institute in December 2018. He is the program manager for the Chief of Naval Operation's professional reading program.
Additionally, he serves on the President's Action Group and as chairman of the 9-11 Memorial Committee. A retired Navy Captain, he served in supply and logistics assignments both afloat and ashore retiring in 1998 after 27 years of active service.

Episode 478: "Five Ocean Navy Strategy" with Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) & Dr. Jerry Hendrix Mar 03, 2019

Show notes

During the 2016 election, then candidate Donald Trump ran on building a 350 ship Navy. That number soon moved up to 355.
Two years after his inauguration, the path to get there is hard to see.
There is a movement of navalists who are not just looking for the path to 355, but looking to the challenge of China at the end of the next decade, want our Navy to move north of 400 ships.
To that end, in February a resolution was introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Jim Banks (R-IN) titled, “Five Ocean Navy Strategy.”
Congressman Banks will join us for today’s episode along with Dr. Jerry Hendrix, CAPT, USN, (Ret) to discuss the Resolution and the need behind it.

Episode 477: Afghanistan & the Long War with Bill Roggio Feb 24, 2019

Show notes

We are going to take a clear, cold, and unsparing look at the status of the conflict in Afghanistan and the Long War in general with our returning guest, Bill Roggio.
In a far-reaching discussion, we will touch on the rather unpleasant reality of where we have put ourselves through our own action, and what people should expect going forward.
Bill is a senior fellow at FDD and editor of FDD’s Long War Journal, which provides original reporting and analysis of the Global War on Terror from Afghanistan and Pakistan to Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia, North Africa, Iran, and beyond. He is also president of the nonprofit media company Public Multimedia Inc.
Bill was embedded with the U.S. Marine Corps, U.S. Army, and Iraqi forces in Iraq between 2005 and 2008, and with the Canadian Army in Afghanistan in 2006. From 1991 to 1997, Bill served as a signalman and infantryman in the U.S. Army and New Jersey National Guard. His articles have been published in The New York Times, The Weekly Standard, The Daily Beast, National Review, and The New York Post, and his work has been in outlets including The New Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, CNN, Foreign Policy, and Bloomberg.

Episode 476: August Cole & P.W. Singer's Ghost Fleet, Best of Feb 24, 2019

Show notes

The best fiction doesn't just entertain, it informs and causes the reader to think.
Our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern is August Cole, the co-author with P.W. Singer of one of the best received military fiction novels on the last year, Ghost Fleet: An Novel of the Next World War.
August is an author and analyst specializing in national security issues.
He is a nonresident senior fellow at the Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security at the Atlantic Council where he directs The Art of the Future Project, which explores narrative fiction and visual media for insight into the future of conflict. He is a non-resident fellow at the Modern War Institute at the United States Military Academy (West Point). He is also writer-in-residence at Avascent, an independent strategy and management consulting firm focused on government-oriented industries.
He also edited the Atlantic Council science fiction collection, War Stories From the Future, published in November 2015. The anthology featured his short story ANTFARM about the intersection of swarm-warfare, additive manufacturing and crowd-sourced intelligence.
He is a former reporter for the Wall Street Journal in Washington and an editor and a reporter for MarketWatch.com.

Episode 475: The US Navy's Face Mission; Naval Presence - History & Present Use Feb 10, 2019

Show notes

From showing the flag in the Mediterranean in the first decades of our republic's history, through Teddy's Great White Fleet, to FONOPS in today's South China Sea - "being there" is a little understood strategic mission.
What is its history and utility in the 21st Century?
Our guest for the full hour will be Dr. James Holmes, returning to Midrats to discuss this and related issues.
Dr. Holmes is a professor of strategy and holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College. A former U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer and combat veteran of the first Gulf War, he served as a weapons and engineering officer in the battleship Wisconsin, engineering and firefighting instructor at the Surface Warfare Officers School Command, and military professor of strategy at the Naval War College. He was the last gunnery officer to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger.
The book he co-authored with Toshi Yoshihara, Red Star over the Pacific, now in its second edition.

Episode 474: Outlaw Ocean Best of Feb 04, 2019

Show notes

Stowaways, poaching, piracy, smuggling, and murder - the global commons of the open ocean is as wild of a place as it is vast.
Using as a baseline his series on lawlessness on the high seas in the New York Times, The Outlaw Ocean, our guest for the full hour to discuss the anarchy of crime and violence on the high seas in the 21st Century will be Ian Ubina.
Ian is a reporter for The New York Times, based in the paper’s Washington bureau. He has degrees in history from Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and his writings, which range from domestic and foreign policy to commentary on everyday life, have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Harper’s, and elsewhere.
First aired SEPT 2015.

Episode 473: The Fort Report on the FITZGERALD Collision with Geoff Ziezulewicz Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

Over 18-months after the deadly collision of the USS FITZGERALD with the Philippine-flagged merchant ship ACX Crystal off the Sea of Japan, from the courtroom to the fleet, we still have not come to terms with latent causes, accountability, or even a full understanding about what happened from a human and machine perspective.
Earlier this year, journalist Geoff Ziezulewicz received a copy of the Fort Report made shortly after the collision by Rear Admiral Brian P. Fort, USN.
Geoff will be our guest for the full hour to review the findings, the reactions to it, and further developments.
Geoff is a senior staff reporter for Military Times, focusing on the Navy. He covered Iraq and Afghanistan extensively and was most recently a reporter at the Chicago Tribune. He welcomes any and all kinds of tips at geoffz@militarytimes.com.

Episode 472: Undersea Lawfare w/RADM Johnson, USN (Ret) & CAPT Palmer, USN - Best of Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

Since its ascendency to the premier maritime power, the US Navy - especially in the area of undersea warfare - has been at the leading edge of using technology to get a military edge.
During the Cold War, significant and steady progress in the first two steps of the kill chain against submarines, location and tracking, made the prospect of engaging superior numbers of Soviet submarine forces manageable.
We continue that tradition today, but to keep ahead of growing challenges, we have test. Build a little, test a little, learn a lot will stop dead in its tracks without testing in the real world.
When it comes to submarines especially, you have to get in the water with them.
Knowing our technological track record an operating a generation or two ahead of some potential adversaries - are there ways they can negate our edge - or at least buy time while they catch up?
Are we vulnerable to potential challengers using national and international law against us? Undersea Lawfare?
Our guests for the full hour to discuss will be Rear Admiral J. Michael "Carlos" Johnson, USN (Ret.) and Captain Michael T. Palmer, USN.
As a stepping off point, we will be using their article in the latest Naval War College Review; UNDERSEA LAWFARE - Can the US Navy Fall Victim to This Asymmetrical Warfare Threat?
RADM Johnson retired after 33 years of service as a naval aviator that included combat in Vietnam, Libya, the Balkans, and the Persian Gulf. He commanded the John F. Kennedy Battle Group, CVW-8, and VFA-86. Ashore he served on the staffs of the CNO as Director of Aviation Plans and Requirements) and the J3 of EUCOM.
Captain Palmer is an active-duty JAG and an adjunct assistant professor at ODU. Her has served as environmental counsel to the CNO; U.S. Fleet Forces Command; and Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic.
Show first aired in April 2016.

Episode 471: Over the horizon, under the radar, & in your MEZ: ASCM & ASBM Jan 27, 2019

Show notes

This Sunday we're going to focus on the things of nightmares; Anti-Ship Cruise Missiles and Anti-Ship Ballistic Missiles with fellow paleo-milblogger SteelJawScribe.
In a wide ranging discussion, for the hour we'll cover ASCM history, Cold War tales, and what present day Russia and Crimea are bringing to the game.
SJS is a retired Navy Captain with multiple operational tours, including command of the VAW-122 Steeljaws, flying the E-2C Hawkeye as a Naval Flight Officer. With over 3500 hrs in type and 525 carrier arrested landings he was a designated Mission Commander, NATOPS and PMCF check flight NFO, a NATOPS qualified NFO copilot and the first CVW strike lead from the VAW community. He also was navigator on the USS DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER (CVN 69).
Shore tours included time at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA where he earned a Masters (with honours)in National Security Studies (Russia) and multiple joint penance tours working operational/technical intelligence, collection management and strategy/policy. Following retirement he worked in industry, first in BMD supporting the Missile Defense Agency and then helping establish the Navy Air and Missile Defense Command in Dahlgren VA. As the Navy’s premiere center for all things associated with ballistic and fleet air defense, NAMDC became the IAMD division (Dahlgren) of the Surface and Mine Warfighting Development Center (SMWDC) in 2015, where SJS works today after transitioning to govt work.
An honours graduate of the Naval War College, SJS also teaches 2of 3 JPME-1 courses as a Fleet Seminar Program professor and is a published author. Together with his wife Sharon and their fearless dachshund, Jake, they live in Chancellorsville, VA

Episode 470: Ninth Anniversary Midrats Show ... LIVE! Jan 27, 2019

Show notes

Nine years of Midrats.
That’s right, EagleOne and I have had the pleasure of talking to you and our guests for nine years.
This Sunday we’re going to have just the two of us on to talk about not just the last nine years, but the general growth of podcasting the last decade. We’ll also review what we have top-of-mind for 2019.
As always on our free-for-all shows, you’re invited to call in or ask questions in the chat room.
Join us!

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