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, Iran, and Russia?What are the top distractions that those concerned with the proper stewardship of our nation’s defense need to make sure don’t entice away time, money, and effort?With his recent article, Don’t Let the Department of Defense Become the Department of Distraction, as a starting point for our conversation, our guest this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern will be Thomas Spoehr, Lieutenant General, USA (Ret.).Thomas is the director of The Heritage Foundation's Center for National Defense where he is responsible for supervising research on matters involving U.S. national defense. He is an expert on national defense policy and strategy, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on defense strategy, budgets and equipment modernization. His articles and commentary have been published widely in both civilian and military media and he is often called upon to provide expert commentary and analysis.He earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology from the College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, a Masters of Arts in Public Administration from Webster University in St. Louis, MO, and a Master of Arts in Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College, Carlisle, PA.

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't have any Service Secretaries nominated.This week produced more news than can be covered in one Midrats, but we're going to try.This Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern come join us for a Midrats free for all.Open topic, open chat, open phones.

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 greatest challenge to her neighbors and the global community?Returning to Midrats this Sunday for the full hour will be our guest Dean Cheng.Dean is the Senior Research Fellow for Chinese political and security affairs at the Asia Studies Center of The Heritage Foundation. He specializes in Chinese military and foreign policy, and has written extensively on Chinese military doctrine, technological implications of its space program, and “dual use” issues associated with China’s industrial and scientific infrastructure. He is the author of “Cyber Dragon: Inside China's Information Warfare and Cyber Operations.”Before joining The Heritage Foundation, he was a senior analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses, a federally funded research and development center, and a senior analyst with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC, now Leidos), the Fortune 500 specialist in defense and homeland security. He has testified before Congress, spoken at the (American) National Defense University, US Air Force Academy, and the National Space Symposium, and been published in the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post.

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 security requirements unique, and what role does she play as the Indo-Pacific Theater becomes the center of global concern?Returning to Midrats to discuss this and more will be Blake Herzinger.Blake is a Non-resident WSD-Handa Fellow with the Pacific Forum and President of the Singapore chapter of CIMSEC.He studied political science at Brigham Young University before spending a decade in active service with the U.S. Navy as an intelligence officer. His analysis has been published in Foreign Policy, War on the Rocks, and The Diplomat, as well as the publications for the Lowy Institute and the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. He's lived in Singapore since 2013 and is a 2017 graduate of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies.Blake’s research focus is on security assistance dynamics, maritime security, and seapower.

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 Center for Intelligence, Propaganda and Security Studies and the editor for their journal, JIPSS.After service in the Austrian Federal Police in 2005-2010, he studied History and English/American Studies at the Universities of Graz, St. Petersburg (USA) and Marburg (GER) 2009-2015. He was a Defense Analyst at the Institute for Security Policy at Kiel University (ISPK) 2016-2019 and received his PhD in political sciences from Christian-Albrechts University Kiel, 2019. He is the author of "The Decline of European Naval Forces: Challenges to Sea Power in an Age of Fiscal Austerity and Political Uncertainty” (US Naval Institute Press, 2018).His research focuses on International Relations, Strategic Studies, U.S. and European Security and Defense Policy, Maritime Strategy and Security, Public Security.

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 figure out what we need to do to ensure the global system that serves us all.Come join us and if you don't like these topics, join in the live chat or even give us a call.

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.”