Midrats

For the first two decades of this century, as the West and her friends were distracted by small wars in Central Asia and the Middle East, the People's Republic of China slowly, deliberately, and steadily grew her economic, diplomatic, and economic power.As we are in the last year closing out the first quarter of the 21st Century, the West distracted by an ongoing major conventional war in its third year in Europe, and still cannot extract itself from the Middle Eastern tar-pit. Haw is the PRC doing? Keeping on, moving on...and it's time for an update on their progress.Returning to Midrats for the full hour will be Dean Cheng, Senior Fellow, Potomac Institute for Policy Studies; Senior Adviser, United States Institute of Peace; and Non-resident Fellow, George Washington University Space Policy Institute.Dean was recently appointed a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, a Senior Adviser with the US Institute of Peace, and a non-resident fellow with the George Washington University Space Policy Institute.He retired as the Senior Research Fellow for Chinese Political and Military Affairs at the Heritage Foundation after 13 years. He is fluent in Chinese, and uses Chinese language materials regularly in his work.Prior to joining the Heritage Foundation, he worked at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a Federally Funded Research and Development Center, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), and as an analyst with the US Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment.He is the author of the volume Cyber Dragon: Inside China’s Information Warfare and Cyber Operations (Praeger Publishing, 2016), and has written extensively on Chinese views of deterrence, Chinese views of space power, and Chinese mobilization, and contributed to a number of volumes on the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

For navalists from Souda Bay to San Diego, April has started not with a whimper, not a grin - but with a scream.For the full hour, we'll start in Baltimore, review the latest revelations about shipbuilding, and some enlightening developments on our allies from Australia to NATO…and end things up after a little spot of tech bother, with a discussion on how to tell our Navy story right - and why it matters.Links:The shipbuilding grid.CANX ship brief.AUKUS and Japan.US, Japan, Australia, & The Philippines go to sea.

For our last podcast of March, come join us for and open-ended free-for-all format to look at the national security environment as we head in to April.From the water cannons off the Philippines to the folly of keeping your naval bases in range of your enemies missiles ... and perhaps a dive in to the long winter for navalists that 2024 is lining up to be ... we'll cover it!Links mentioned in the show:Amphib USS Boxer Sidelined by "General Complacency" and BreakdownsThe Lost Opportunity: The Failure of the National Commission on the Future of the NavySal Mercogliano's What's Going on With ShippingWhy Houthi Attacks in the Red Sea Are Likely to Persist: They're PopularClaude Berube books

If people are policy and policy shapes decisions, then that is the start in understanding why a nation like the USA wound up neglecting what should be a core sector of not just its economy, but its strategic advantage - its civilian maritime industry.Using his recent article, The Urgent Need for U.S. Maritime Reform as a starting point, our guest for the full hour is William Cahill.Will is president of Applied Maritime Sciences, a maritime technology and strategy consultancy. He served as Director for Strategic Planning on the National Security Council and Maritime Advisor on the Council of Economic Advisers where he helped develop and lead Interagency efforts to enhance American maritime competitiveness. During his 20 years as a Coast Guard officer, Will completed numerous operational tours both at sea as a Cutterman and at air stations as a Coast Guard aviator. Will holds degrees in Naval Architecture and Marine engineering from the USCGA and a Master of Public Policy from Princeton University. 

Especially for the Royal Navy, it was assumed the military leaders, politicians, and the general population understood that they were island nations and that their security and prosperity depended on a strong navy and civilian maritime commerce. Even the greatest naval power of the last century, the United States of America seems to be unable to have people understand why it needs a strong navy. What happened?Focused primarily on the core of the issue with the Royal Navy, our guest for the full hour to discuss the scourge of seablindness will be Dr James WE Smith, the Laughton-Corbett Research Fellow in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London.He completed his PhD in ‘War and Strategic Studies’ that focused on studying the organization of defense and defense unification in the UK and US and how that impacts strategy and strategic thought. This has complemented a broader research effort which has taken nearly fifteen years about the devaluation of sea, navies and maritime strategy in nations and strategic thought from seabed to space.Links:'Seablindness' and the Royal Navy TodayThe US Navy versus Seablindness: par for the course for America?You can follow James on X, or his substack.

Feel like the chaos from the Black Sea, Red Sea, South China Sea and various places ashore seems just too much to keep track of?Well, if you need an hour to catch up and ponder as Sal & Eagle One will take you from the Houthi's sinking their first ship, Darwinism at war, to the US Navy heading in to Haiphong witih guns blazing ... for peace.

From the February 12th guest post over at Sal's substack, our guest today opened with a firm point;"..the combat performance of U.S. Navy destroyers in the Red Sea against a variety of weapons employed by the Houthis from Yemen stands as a monument to decades of brilliance, hard work, and dedication across generations of naval officers, government civilians, industry executives, talented engineers and technologists, assembly line workers, and shipbuilders. THIS—is the military-industrial complex, and it works."Returning for another visit to Midrats to dive into his arguments about where the Military Industrial Complex puts "Ws" on the board and related topics will be Bryan McGrath, CDR, USN (Ret.).Bryan is the Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC, a defense consultancy. The opinions expressed here are his.

The vulnerability of aircraft carriers is nothing new. They are vulnerable not just because of how they are designed - really just a thin hulled ship full of fuel and explosives - but because of what they do.At peace and at war, there is no other platform that can project power and national will on a global scale at sea than an aircraft carrier. As such, everyone either wants one, or wants to sink one - or both.While many people think of the Pacific wars of WWII, Korea, and Vietnam as places where the US Navy's aircraft carriers could operate at will and dominate everything, that really was not the case until late 1944.The reality was quite different before then. Proper use of carriers was mostly about husbanding carriers’s limited resources while still getting max value out of them.That will be the topic of today's show with returning guest Dr. John T. Kuehn.John is Professor of Military History at the Army Command and General Staff College. He served in the US Navy as a naval flight officer flying in EP-3s and ES-3s, retiring in 2004. He has authored or co-authored seven books and was awarded a Vandevort Prize from the Society for Military History in 2023 for his article “Zumwalt, Holloway, and the Soviet Navy Threat Leadership in a Time of Strategic, Social, and Cultural Change.”His latest book from is Strategy in Crisis (Naval Institute, 2023).

Feel like there is too much going on in the national security world to keep up with? Well, let your heart not be troubled. Mark & Sal will deliver a full hour of discussion of not just what's breaking in to the news in the last week of January 2024, but whatever else pops up.Iranian proxies causing American military losses from Jordan to the Horn of Africa; Iranian drone carriers to America's need for some inventive ideas to bring more VLS cells forward sooner - with some ASBM pondering thrown in for good measure.

If we are approaching the end of the almost century-long age of the aircraft carrier, for the United States Navy, what are some of the options we could have in fleet designed to execute the Navy's mission in its place?Challenges, opportunities, and compromises - we'll dive into it all with guest Jeff Vandenengel, CDR USN.The reference point for our conversation will be his new book, Questioning the Carrier: Opportunities in Fleet Design for the U.S. Navy.Jeff completed three tours on fast-attack submarines. Winner of the 2019 Admiral Willis Lent Award for tactical excellence at sea, he deployed to the Western Pacific three times and to the Atlantic at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.