Midrats

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 National Security Council.Just in time for the holiday season, Mark will come visit us for the full hour to talk about his experience so far at the NSC, the NSC in general, and other related topics that may come up in the process.A 1989 graduate of the United States Naval Academy, Mark was the 10th Major Program Manager for the Arleigh Burke Class Destroyer program and the 37th Commanding Officer of NSWC Carderock. Immediately before coming to the White House, he was the Vice President of Maritime Programs at Zenetex, LLC. He holds a Master’s of Science in Applied Physics from the Johns Hopkins University and is a frequent contributor to the Naval Institute’s “Proceedings” and online publications such as Strategy Bridge and CIMSEC. The programs he led have been the recipient of some of Department of Defense’s highest awards for acquisition excellence, including the 2011 Secretary of the Navy’s Competition Excellence Award and the 2012 David Packard Award. Mark was recognized by the American Society of Naval Engineers with 2018 Gold Medal award for excellence in naval engineering.

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 The Washington Institute for Near East Policy focusing on counter-terrorism, counter-insurgency, and stability operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.He is a reserve officer with the U.S. Navy with multiple deployments to both Iraq and Afghanistan, along with holding several senior advisory positions dealing with the Middle East, Central Asia, and NATO/Europe in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the State Department.Dr. Green recently completed his third book, In the Warlords' Shadow: Special Operations Forces, the Afghans, and their Fight with the Taliban that we will use as a stepping off point for our conversation.

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 returning guest for the full hour to discuss this an more will be Mackenzie Eaglen. We will use her recent article, Putting Combatant Commanders on a Demand Signal Diet, at War on the Rocks as a starting point for our conversation.Mackenzie is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness. She has also served as a staff member on the 2018 National Defense Strategy Commission, the 2014 National Defense Panel, and the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel. Prior to joining the American Enterprise Institute, she worked on defense issues in the House of Representatives, in the Senate, and at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and on the Joint Staff.

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 point and diving it to some of the additional insights she gained while writing it, Megan Eckstein from USNINews will be joining us along with Sam LaGrone.Megan Eckstein is the deputy editor for USNI News. She previously covered Congress and the Pentagon for Defense Daily, and the surface navy and amphibious operations as an associate editor for Inside the Navy. She began her career covering the military at the Frederick (Md.) News-Post, where she wrote about personnel and family issues, military medical research, local reserve and National Guard units and more. Eckstein is a 2009 graduate of University of Maryland College Park.Sam LaGrone is the editor of USNI News. He has covered legislation, acquisition and operations for the Sea Services since 2009 and spent time underway with the U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps and the Canadian Navy.

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 bit … and then we’ll pick up where our pre-election left off.

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 Wood, Senior Research Fellow on Defense Programs at The Heritage Foundation.Dakota L. Wood, LtCol USMC (Ret.), Senior Research Fellow for Defense Programs at The Heritage Foundation.Dakota served two decades in the U.S. Marine Corps. Following retirement, Mr. Wood served as a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.Most recently, Mr. Wood served as the Strategist for the U.S. Marine Corps’ Special Operations Command.Mr. Wood holds a Bachelor of Science in Oceanography from the U.S. Naval Academy; a Master’s degree in National Security and Strategic Studies from the College of Naval Command and Staff, U.S. Naval War College.

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 more with an open chat room and open phones if you want to join in.

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 where are the trends taking the region?Our guest this Sunday, October 18th for the full hour to discuss this and more will be Steven A. Cook.Steven is Eni Enrico Mattei senior fellow for Middle East and Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He is an expert on Arab and Turkish politics as well as U.S.-Middle East policy. Cook is the author of False Dawn: Protest, Democracy, and Violence in the New Middle East; The Struggle for Egypt: From Nasser to Tahrir Square, which won the Washington Institute for Near East Policy’s gold medal in 2012; and Ruling But Not Governing: The Military and Political Development in Egypt, Algeria, and Turkey.He is a columnist at Foreign Policy magazine. He has also published widely in international affairs journals, opinion magazines, and newspapers, and he is a frequent commentator on radio and television. His work can be found on CFR.org. Prior to joining CFR, Cook was a research fellow at the Brookings Institution (2001–2002) and a Soref research fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (1995–1996). Cook holds a BA in international studies from Vassar College, an MA in international relations from Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and both an MA and a PhD in political science from the University of Pennsylvania. He speaks Arabic and Turkish and reads French.

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 Aden, Yemen 12 October 2000 - the 16th anniversary will in a few weeks. We will discuss his experiences then as well as the work he has done since his retirement with senior military fellow with Military Families United, & any other topics that fold their way in to our conversation. (since his first guest on Midrats, he published his book, Front Burner) Our second guest will be from the shadows of the Navy EOD world, Steve Phillips. After graduating from Annapolis in '92, Steve found honest work as a SWO, but then transferred into EOD where he served as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician at EOD Mobile Units 6, 8, and 10. He is the author of Proximity: A Novel of the Navy's Elite Bomb Squad which received a Gold Medal from the Military Writers Society of America in 2008. Some of the proceeds from Proximity support the EOD Memorial Foundation which provides scholarship to the children of EOD Technicians who made the ultimate sacrifice. If you like his work, Steve is currently working on a non-fiction account of EOD Technicians in our current conflict with a working title of Improvised: EOD Techs in the War on Terrorism. The first two of the chapters for the non-fiction work are available at: "The Birth of the Combined Explosives Exploitation Cell" & "A Remembrance of 9/11"

Turning merchant ships in to warships is a story as old as mankind. From war canoe to privateers to auxiliary cruisers fo the modern era - they always fit a certain niche in the drive to control the seas.What of today? What options are there if we need the ability to get as much "national will" downrange and over the horizon as soon as possible? Combine that question with a new one, "Where are all the VLS cells we need?" - and you have a great episode of Midrats.Returning to Midrats to discuss these and related issues will be Chris Rawley.Captain Chris Rawley is Reserve Chief of Staff for Commander, Naval Surface Forces, helping to oversee 3,800 reserve sailors supporting fleet units around the world. During his 28 year military career, Rawley has filled a variety of leadership positions in naval, expeditionary, and joint special operations units afloat and ashore. He has deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, throughout Africa, the Persian Gulf, and Western Pacific. Rawley has a degree from Texas A&M University, earned an MBA at George Washington University, and is a graduate of the U.S. Naval War College and Joint Forces Staff College. In his civilian role, Chris is the CEO of Harvest Returns, a platform for investing in agriculture.