Midrats

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 and what it could mean for the current administration is returning guest Claude Berube.Claude is the Director of the Naval Academy Museum and has taught in both the Political Science and History Departments at the Naval Academy. He has worked in the U.S. Senate, as a maritime studies fellow at the Heritage Foundation, as the head of a terrorism analysis team for the Office of Naval Intelligence and as a defense contractor. An intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve, he deployed with Expeditionary Strike Group Five in 2004-05. His articles have been published in Orbis, Vietnam Magazine, Naval History, The Washington Times, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Naval Institute Proceedings and others. He’s also written or co-authored five books.

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 Department of War Studies (DWS), King’s College London (KCL), and specializes in maritime strategy and doctrine, Japanese military history and strategy, East Asian Security. From 2006 to 2015, he was visiting professor in Strategy at the Italian Naval War College (ISMM), Venice. In Japan, Dr Patalano has been a visiting professor at the Japan Maritime Command and Staff College (JMCSC). He is also a Senior Fellow at the highly influential think tanks Policy Exchange and RUSI.This show was pre-recorded.

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 of the Asiatic Fleet in 1941, and what her story might inform us about the challenges today.Our guest for the full hour will be Hunter Stires. From our guest's article from last August's Naval Institute's Proceedings, he sets the stage;Even in the missile age, we can gain much insight on naval strategy in Asia from the trials and travails of Admiral Thomas C. Hart and his castoff flotilla of all-gun cruisers, four-stacker destroyers, and diesel submarines manned by the weathered “old China hands” of the Asiatic Fleet. Hart and his 11,000 highly experienced officers and men, most with many more years in service than their counterparts elsewhere in the Navy and Marine Corps, faced the same challenges that our forward forces and strategic planners are grappling with today, including the use of submarines and surface ships to find and destroy high-value targets in denied areas at war’s opening, the indefensibility of forward bases, and the vital importance of mobile logistics assets to replace them.Hunter is a Fellow at the Hattendorf Center for Maritime Historical Research and provides support to staff at NWC. He is a regular contributor to The National Interest and is the author of 1941 Asiatic Fleet Offers Strategic Lessons, published in the USNI Proceedings in August 2016. He is a student at Columbia University.

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, PhD.James holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College and served on the faculty of the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs. A former U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer, he was the last gunnery officer in history to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger, during the first Gulf War in 1991. He earned the Naval War College Foundation Award in 1994, signifying the top graduate in his class. His books include Red Star over the Pacific, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of 2010 and a fixture on the Navy Professional Reading List. General James Mattis deems him “troublesome.”

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 Germany Could Have Won the First Battle of the Atlantic as a starting point for an hour long discussion, our guest will be James Holmes, PhD, professor of strategy at the Naval War College and senior fellow at the University of Georgia School of Public and International Affairs.Jim is former U.S. Navy surface warfare officer, graduating from Vanderbilt University (B.A., mathematics and German) and completed graduate work at Salve Regina University (M.A., international relations), Providence College (M.A., mathematics), and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University (M.A.L.D. and Ph.D., international affairs).His most recent books (with long-time coauthor Toshi Yoshihara) are Strategy in the Second Nuclear Age and Red Star over the Pacific.Jim has published over 25 book chapters and 150 scholarly essays, along with hundreds of opinion columns, think-tank analyses, and other works. First aired August 2014.

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 some steps we can take to start the process of meeting them?Returning to Midrats to discuss this and related issues he raised in this recent article, The Navy Has Problems and Must Be Bold to Fix Them, will be Bryan McGrath, CDR USN (Ret.), Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC defense consultancy.Bryan grew up in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, and graduated from the University of Virginia in 1987. He was commissioned upon graduation in the United States Navy, and served as a Surface Warfare Officer until his retirement in 2008. At sea, he served primarily in cruisers and destroyers, rising to command of the Destroyer USS BULKELEY (DDG 84). During his command tour, he won the Surface Navy Association’s Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Award for Inspirational Leadership, and the BULKELEY was awarded the USS ARIZONA Memorial Trophy signifying the fleet’s most combat ready unit. Ashore, Bryan enjoyed four tours in Washington DC, including his final tour in which he acted as Team Leader and primary author of our nation’s 2007 maritime strategy entitled “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.”Since retirement, Bryan has become active in presidential politics, serving first as the Navy Policy Team lead for the Romney Campaign in 2012, and then as the Navy and Marine Corps Policy lead for the Rubio Campaign in 2016.

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 for the current administration is returning guest Claude Berube.Claude is the Director of the Naval Academy Museum and has taught in both the Political Science and History Departments at the Naval Academy. He has worked in the U.S. Senate, as a maritime studies fellow at the Heritage Foundation, as the head of a terrorism analysis team for the Office of Naval Intelligence and as a defense contractor. An intelligence officer in the Navy Reserve, he deployed with Expeditionary Strike Group Five in 2004-05. His articles have been published in Orbis, Vietnam Magazine, Naval History, The Washington Times, Jane’s Intelligence Review, Naval Institute Proceedings and others. He’s also written or co-authored five books. He’s completed his PhD through the University of Leeds.First aired in FEB 2017.

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 place due to the advance of progressive ideology the quarter century prior during the Gilded Age.Our guest for the full hour to discuss these and related issues raised in his new book, Progressives in Navy Blue: Maritime Strategy, American Empire, and the Transformation of U.S. Naval Identity, 1873-1898, will be Scott Mobley, CAPT, USN (Ret).Scott is the current Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy (CSLD) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy and holds an M.A. in National Security affairs from the Naval Postgraduate School. Most recently, he earned a Ph.D. in History at the University of Wisconsin.As a career U.S. Navy surface warfare officer, Scott commanded USS BOONE (FFG-28) and USS CAMDEN (AOE-2). While under his command, CAMDEN participated in the opening assault phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Other notable tours included: Reactor Officer in USS HARRY S. TRUMAN (CVN-76); Navy Section Chief at the U.S. Military Group in Buenos Aires, Argentina; and Chief of Staff for Commander, Naval Surface Group Pacific Northwest. Scott retired from the Navy with the rank of Captain, after thirty years of service.Scott also serves on the U.S. Naval Institute Naval History Advisory Board and is a founding editor for Voices & Visions, an open-access online reader featuring primary media sources that illuminate the history of U.S. foreign relations.First aired AUG 2018

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 hope you’ll join us this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern.DON’T MISS IT!

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?To discuss this and related issues this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be one of our favorite guests, Dr. Jerry Hendrix, CAPT USN (Ret.), and author of the upcoming book, To Provide and Maintain a Navy; Why Naval Primacy is America's First, Best Strategy.Since retirement, Jerry has remain engaged in the full breadth of national security issues while at The Telemus Group and Center for a New American Security.When on Active duty, his staff assignments include tours with the CNO’s Executive Panel, the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, and the OSD Office of Net Assessment. His final active duty tour was the Director of Naval History. He has a BA in Political Science from Purdue University, Masters Degrees from the Naval Postgraduate School (National Security Affairs) and Harvard University (History) and received his doctorate from King’s College, London (War Studies).He has twice been named the Samuel Eliot Morison Scholar by the Navy Historical Center in Washington, DC, and was also the Center’s 2005 Rear Admiral John D. Hays Fellow. He also held the Marine Corps’ General Lemuel C. Shepherd, Jr. Fellowship. He authored the book Theodore Roosevelt’s Naval Diplomacy and received a number of awards, including the United States Naval Institute’s Author of the Year and the Navy League’s Alfred T. Mahan Award for Literary Achievement.