Midrats

Can a military organization suffer from attention deficit disorder? There are very few moments in time – the mid-1990s was a rare one – where a nation’s national security apparatus has the luxury and white space to get distracted and complacent. 2021 is not one of those times. With a new leadership team in place in DOD, are we sure they are focused on the important challenges of China, North Korea...

The Navy wants to talk some more about unmanned systems, the unknown war we have been fighting for years along the bleeding edge of Islam in Africa seems to be going nowhere we want it to go, China decides to let the mask slip at last, in the mandated extremism training The Pentagon realized the military reflects the nation it serves and not the readers of The Washington Post ... and we still don'...

While the rest of the world paused to focus on COVID-19 the last year, even though the pandemic started there, the People's Republic of China did not stop her long, steady push out to the world to take the place she feels she in entitled to. From the border of India to South America and back to the Western Pacific, China feels the wind at her back. Where is China signaling she will be be the great...

If geography is destiny, then Singapore is a nation of destiny. Sitting astride one of the world's most critical chokepoints, this polyglot island republic with a population of Denmark on a spot of land 1/4 the size of Rhode Island. For her size, she has a modern, large, and capable navy and military - important for what has always been a rough neighborhood. What makes Singapore's national securit...

Where is European naval power in 2021, what is shaping it, and where is it going? This week returning guest Jeremy Stöhs is with us to review the above issues as outlined in an exceptional report he produced for the Centre for Military Studies at the University of Copenhagen., "How High? The Future of European Naval Power and the High-End Challenge." Jeremy is the Deputy Director of the Austrian C...

After a week moving from the warm embrace of Valentines Day to the cold jolt of a nation wide arctic freeze, come join us this Sunday at 5pm Eastern for a live Midrats Free For All! Open chat room, open phone, and open topic on the - mostly - maritime national security front. From the new Biden DOD and State Department's first moves, to the ongoing efforts of the USA and our allies as we try to fi...

First aired in Feb. 2017. Since his election in November, the administration and several articles have suggested Donald Trump is a new Andrew Jackson whose portrait now hangs in the Oval Office. What might that mean for the Navy? How did Andrew Jackson approach his Navy and what lessons can we draw from that? Our guest for the full hour for a discussion of an understudied part of our naval history...

Today we are going to discuss military strategy from the a macro level. We will cover the ways to teach military strategy to already seasoned military and civilian personnel, some of the significant members of the strategic canon, and larger strategic challenges we find today. Our guest for the full hour will be Dr Alessio Patalano. Alessio is Reader in East Asian Warfare and Security at the Depar...

This show first aired in August 2017. Nothing is really new, unprecedented, or that unique. If you are willing to look with the right eye, though tools may have changed, the fundamentals often remain the same. In the opening months of WWII, there is a story we don't study enough - mostly because it is not a pleasant story. For today's episode, we're going to take some time to do look at the story...

New year, new decade, and a new President. Where should be be looking to have the right view on changes to strategy and maritime power? What existing trends are getting stronger, weakening - and what new things are starting to show up on the scope? Our guest for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern to cover the full natsec waterfront as we find it will be returning guest James R. Holmes, P...

Over a hundred years on, what insights can we gain from the war that started in August of 2014? What are some of the lessons we need to remember in all four levers of national power; diplomatic, informational, military, and economic - in order to help steer our future course as a nation, and to better understand developing events? Using his article in The National Interest, World War I: Five Ways...

There is one area of agreement among navalists, the US Navy is beset with a whole series of hard, long building problems, ignored for too long. Many, including our highest ranking uniformed leadership, seem incapable of not only acknowledging them, but coming up with a plan to address them. As we enter 2021 and the third decade of the 21st Century, what are our greatest challenges, and what are so...

Since his election in November, the administration and several articles have suggested Donald Trump is a new Andrew Jackson whose portrait now hangs in the Oval Office. What might that mean for the Navy? How did Andrew Jackson approach his Navy and what lessons can we draw from that? Our guest for the full hour for a discussion of an understudied part of our naval history and what it could mean fo...

The last quarter of the 19th Century, the Gilded Age, was a period of breathtaking change in society, technology, politics and industry. This rapid change helped drive the intellectual and institutional change that brought the US Navy to the world’s attention in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The first two decades of the 20th Century are generally called the Progressive Era, but that only took...

2020 has been a year … that is an understatement. From the maritime and national security perspective what were the bold-faced items that changed the outlook the most. While COVID-19 absorbed much of everyone’s time, the world kept turning and history kept moving. Using our ever-popular melee format – open topic, open chat room and open phones for Midrats’ end of the year review. We’ll be live and...

When trying to get a grasp on the best way to secure the nation's security and interests, why should Americans look to the sea? Do American's assume or take for granted what three-quarters of a century of American dominance of the high seas gifted them? Is this assumption in danger? Where do we stand and what steps need to be taken to secure what every American living assumes is their birthright?...

Midrats regulars and all sound thinking navalists rejoiced earlier this year when one of our favorites were offered the honor to serve once again - in this case one of our favorite guests and all around great guy, Mark R. Vandroff, Captain, USN (Ret.) Mark found himself back in the mix with his appointment as Deputy Assistant to the President, Senior Director, Defense Policy and Strategy at the Na...

First aired FEB 2018. In Afghanistan and the global struggle against terrorism, why is this war taking so long? Where are we making progress, where are we stalled, and where are we falling back? There are no easy answers to these questions, if there were they wouldn’t need to be asked. We will discuss these and related issues for the full hour with author Dr. Daniel R. Green, a Defense Fellow at T...

34 years after Goldwater-Nichols and the rise of the Combatant Commanders (COCOMS), is our national security structures more in line with what we need in the 21 Century, or the Roman Empire’s Proconsuls? What are these mini-Pentagons supposed to bring to the national security of the United States, and what are they actually delivering? What do they do right, and where are they off phase? Our retur...

Fewer carriers are deploying more even as repeated warning lights have been going off that we are expending in peace what we will need in war when it comes to personnel and materiel in carrier aviation. How did we get here, where are we, and where are we going? Using her article, No Margin Left: Overworked Carrier Force Struggles to Maintain Deployments After Decades of Overuse, as a starting poin...

The 2020 election is over … well, mostly over. Though there are a few threads to clean up, the fabric the next few years natsec policy will be sewn from is pretty well known – so where does that lead us? We’ll get to that – but once again we need to invest some time to talk about Midrats’s contribution to NavyCon! EagleOne presented a segment for NavyCon2020A, we we’re going to talk about that a b...

First airing in July of 2015. Are the growing feelings of crisis, confusion and strategic drift in the national security arena not so much the result of external challenges, but the result of poor thinking and intellectual habits on our part? Using his article in The National Interest, “The Real Problem with the American Military” as a starting point, our guest for the full hour will be Dakota Woo...

We don't do politics here ... but we do touch on how politics can impact national security issues ... so here we go! Why has national security almost been a non-issue this election? What to expect if Trump gets a second term. What and who will come to the front if Biden is elected. What will drive the challenge regardless of who gets elected? Come join us for the full hour as we discuss this and m...

In a very rough year, there were sprinkles of renewed optimism about the Middle East as Israel established relations with a few of the Gulf Arab nations, but the Middle East is, and has been, always about more than Arab-Israeli relations. From North Africa across the Mediterranean coast to Syria and across the Arabian Peninsula to Yemen, what is the state of play in the Middle East as a whole, and...

Let's go back to October of 2010 for a great pair of guests. First, since the end of US involvement The Vietnam War almost 40 years ago, there are just a few USN Commanding Officers who know what it is like for a warship under attack; one of the handful will be our first guest, CDR Kirk Lippold, USN (Ret.). He was the Commanding Officer of the USS Cole (DDG-67) when it was attacked while in port A...