Midrats

Many continue to focus on the "Pacific Pivot" and/or IndoPac, but the news seems to keep finding its way back to Africa. This Sunday we're going to leave IndoPac and all that in order to focus the full hour discussing the eastern part of Africa with a returning guest Alex Martin who will give us a first hand report from a personal and professional perspective. Alex graduated with distinction from...

Though over three years old, this topic remains at the top of the list of importance and if you are a new listener to Midrats and haven't listened to it yet - this is required listening. If you caught it in a previous year, then it is well worth a relisten. Look at the performance of the US Navy in World War II - those ships came in the shipbuilding programs of the 1920s & 1930s. At a time with no...

For a maritime power with global requirements, what is the role of the small ship in times of peace and war? What are the tradeoffs between quantity and capability, size and range, survivability and affordable? Does the US Navy need a high-low mix; or a Strike Group-Flotilla mix?   Where do our national requirements influence how we build our Fleet vs. the process other nations build theirs? Do we...

In less than a month we will be firmly in the middle of the 2nd decade of the 21st Century. What path were we put on at the start 21st Century that got us here? How do we evaluate the right decisions, the neutral decisions, and the less than optimal calls of the last decade and a half? What lessons can we take away now in order to make decisions to best position the Navy on the approaches to 2030?...

Almost two and a half years ago we had a show that is a fitting ago now as it was then.   Almost a decade of involvement in two land wars in Asia combined with a series of costly and ill timed shipbuilding programs that have yet to produce ships anywhere near promised cost and performance has brought our Navy to the growing budget crisis in a delicate position.  The national security arena suffers...

When one hangs up the uniform after decades of service, but still wants to contribute to their nations national security needs, what paths can that take? How does one find a path forward, and what are the keys to success? In a budgetary challenge not seen by the US military in two decades, what are the important "must haves" that need to be kept at full strength, and what "nice to haves" may have...

Are there lessons one can learn from the most exceptional edges of the military experience that can be useful to the civilian world? Was there something from the experience of American prisoners of war imprisoned at the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War that had to do with their success in their subsequent careers? Our guests to discuss for the full hour will be Peter Fretwell and Taylor Baldw...

Going back 14 months, this Veterans Day weekend, let's review the war we have been soaking in. There are certain points in a nation's history that define a transition from one era to another.  These moments are so clear that you don't realize it in retrospect - you know it the moment it happens.  No one argues the fact that everything has changed; from all sides, everyone sees it.  September 11th,...

In an arch that spans the immediate post-Cold War era through the Iraq War, what are the observations & lessons a front-line leader at the tactical level and, for those who are injured in service to their nation, through recovery. Our guest for the full hour will be Jason Redman, author of The Trident: The Forging and Reforging of a Navy SEAL Leader. Jason joined the Navy on September 11, 1992 and...

If you have only started to think about the budget problems this year, you are late to the game Shipmate. We are years in to it, and almost 2-yrs ago, as many were sobering up to the fact that the military was about to face a budget challenge not seen in a generation. Especially those who have seen this movie before, they knew that this one has the potential to be the most challenging seen in over...

This week, we'll go back to 2011 for an interview with one of the better reports from an embed this decade. For those who listened to All Things Considered on NPR in 2011, you caught an outstanding series on the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines – the  Darkhorse Battalion — the Marine unit that suffered the highest casualty rate of any Marine unit during the 10-year Afghan war. Our guest for the full hour...

While good ideas are often forgotten, bad ideas seem to pop up over an over again - especially the sexy ones that sound so good, but never seem to work well. The answer, of course, is to try again and hope for a better result. Some would argue that sea swap is one of those sexy ideas that just isn't that practical in actual operation. A good idea? One of the good ideas mostly forgotten is that of...

From long-term issues like sequester, the strategic review, the QDR, to bolt-from-the-blue incidents like the murders at the Navy yard - how does the Navy communicate to the public and the press in an information starved culture? When the race to being wrong first seems to be a standard, how do we maintain the standard of being a useful source of information, but in a timely manner? In some areas...

What is the role of ground forces as the conversation revolves around the Air Sea Battle Concept? Is an emphasis on air and sea power sending the right message, driving balanced thinking, and sending the right messages to our friends and competitors? Building off his article in the May 2013 Armed Forces Journal, Back To Reality, Why Land Power Trumps in the National Rebalance Towards Asia, our gue...

When a few years turns in to many. When all of a sudden you seem to be the oldest guy in the room. When you have but days of memories of your kids and in the blink of an eye they are a year older - eventually everyone on active duty reaches the point where it is time to pack the sea bag one more time and put it in the attic. It is time to retire or leave active duty. Better or worse - it is time t...

This episode from 2011 came up three times this week, so it is a natural for a Best of. How do you intellectually prepare combat leaders?  If you are given a young man or woman at 18, how do you best educate that person so they have the cultural, ethical, technical, and historical knowledge to make the right decisions for the right reasons, and lead others to do the same? What are unchanged, timel...

Is there such a thing as Military Intellectual Entrepreneurialism? Large, sated, and complacent organization do not have a good track record of survival. Organizations of any size that nurture the mentality of small, hungry, and driven by creative destruction and friction based on competing ideas - that is the path to success. Always has been, always will be. How do we get that attitude to permeat...

We're going to go back a couple of years this weekend to our Lawfare episode from 2011. We'll be back live next week. Never in our history have we fought a war where law, lawyers, and layers of legalese have impacted all levels of the war, Political, Strategic, Operational, and Tactical. Why do we find ourselves here and in what direction are we going?   From Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and...

If the CNO's #1 priority is warfighting, how do leaders focus on that priority inside a 24-hr day? In a complicated structure of Administrative and Operational Chains of Command and the unending hunger of a bureaucracy for metrics and the reports that feed them - when does a system itself become and "Administrative Burden." On person's administrative burden is another person's critical requirement...

The War Between the States, the American Civil War - whichever description you prefer - this crucible on which our nation was re-formed has legion of books, movies, and rhetoric dedicated to it.  Most of the history that people know involves the war on land, but what of the war at sea? What are details behind some of the major Naval leaders of both sides that are the least known, but are the most...

Interesting idea recycle, and in the last couple of weeks, the subject of our DEC 2012 show has been making the rounds again. What got it all started was his article almost a year ago in the United States Naval Institute’s Proceedings, Offshore Control is the Answer. Enjoy today's best of show with Colonel T.X. Hammes, USMC (Ret.) Col. Hammes served thirty years in the Marine Corps at all levels i...

Remember when "Afghanistan" became "AFPAC" in the second half of the last decade? Concepts morph the more you study them. Just as you started to get used to the 'Pacific Pivot" - in case you missed it this summer, it is morphing in to the Indo-Pacific Pivot. Extending our view from WESTPAC in to the Indian Ocean, how are things changing that will shape the geo-strategic environment from Goa, Darwi...

We ran this as a best of back in December, but with yesterday being the 60th anniversary of the Korean War armistice, there is no question this is the right episode. Also, with the last year's announcement of the naming of DDG-116 after Medal of Honor recipient CAPT Thomas Hudner, USN (Ret) - it is an easy decision on today's show. A replay of our Navy Air Korean War episode with CAPT Hudner in th...

So, which is it? Do we forget our history and are therefor doomed to repeat it, or are we always preparing to fight the next war? As we finish up the final chapter of our participation in Afghanistan after well over a decade, and reflect on the changes in the arch of the Muslim world from the Atlas mountains to Mindanao - what do we need to intellectually, retain for what is coming "next?" With on...

What is the impact of the right man at the right time with the right ideas? What is the impact of what seems to some as just a man, but to a son is all? For the first half of the hour we will have LCDR BJ Armstrong to discuss his book, 21st Century Mahan: Sound Military Conclusions for the Modern Era. For the second half of the hour our guest will be Stephen Roderick to discuss his book, The Magic...