Midrats

Today we’re going to discuss a helpful solution to the simple reality in our busy world that it is difficult to build a culture of understanding of any challenge unless those involved in addressing that challenge have a similar foundational knowledge of it.As in most complicated issues, addressing the rise of the People’s Republic of China suffers perhaps more than most from this lack of a foundation to build off of.Our guest today is Dr. Alessio Patalano who along with his fellow contributing editors Catherine L. Grant and James A. Russell published this summer through Georgetown University Press, The New Age of Naval Power in the Indo-Pacific: Strategy, Order, and Regional Security, that brings together a variety of authors’ works to outline an framework in which five "factors of influence" explain how and why naval power matters in this pivotal part of the world. Alessio Patalano is Professor of War & Strategy in East Asia at the Department of War Studies (DWS), and Co-Director of the Centre for Grand Strategy (CGS) at King’s College London (KCL). He specialises in maritime strategy and doctrine, Japanese military history and strategy, East Asian security, and British defence and foreign policy towards the Indo-Pacific. His book on Japan titled Post-war Japan as a Seapower has redefined the study of the country’s post-war history, whilst his work on Chinese maritime coercion remains as a reference in the field.At CGS, Prof Patalano leads the King’s Japan Programme and the newly established Indo-Pacific Programme. He is also a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), a Visiting Professor at the Japan Maritime Command and Staff College (JMCSC), and an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary Asian Studies, Temple University Japan. Prof Patalano maintains an active policy role collaborating regularly with think tanks and government institutions. He is a Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), and is Sir Herbert Richmond Fellow on naval strategy at the Council on Geostrategy. He is also visiting fellow at the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre (RNCSS) and non-resident fellow at the Royal Australian Navy Seapower Centre. In 2022, Prof Patalano became the first specialist advisor on the Indo-Pacific to the Foreign Affairs Committee in the UK Parliament. In 2023, he became also the first academic to be awarded a Commendation of the Ambassador of Japan to the UK for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of UK-Japan ties in defence and security. Prof Patalano is an active media commentator and writer (Nikkei, The Spectator); he collaborates on international documentaries, and is also regularly involved in military education, developing and delivering programmes on East Asian affairs.

We are two years since the greatest national humiliation since the Fall of Saigon almost half a century ago.The negotiated surrender of Afghanistan to the Taliban, retreat to Kabul, and withdraw from Kabul under the grace of our enemy in the summer of 2021 remains a mostly untold story. Partially is it from the attention given to the Russo-Ukrainian War that started six months later, but it seems more a byproduct of disinterest by most of our press who seem to want to discuss almost anything else.Not any more. In to that gap is a superb book by our guest today from 5-6pm Eastern will be Jerry Dunleavy, co-authored with James Hasson; Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End If you want to know the road to the last plane out of Kabul, this is your book.Jerry is an investigative reporter who has focused on the Justice Department, the courts, the intelligence community, and the national security arena at the Washington Examiner for half a decade. He has published numerous groundbreaking stories of national importance, ranging from China’s coverup of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan to the FBI’s atrocious mishandling of the Trump-Russia investigation. He frequently appears for in-depth discussions on Fox News and C-SPAN.You can listen live here or get the podcast later here.

What better way to recover from mid-August heat than to kick back and listen to Midrats as we check in on what the People's Republic of China is up to.This Sunday live is returning guest Dean Cheng.Dean is a Senior Adviser at the US Institute of Peace, a (non-resident) Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, and a Non-resident Fellow with the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University.

In mid-July, a rather normal letter from the White House delivered at an awkward time about the authorization to activate 3,000 reservists to support operations in Europe enabling aid to Ukraine got everyone's attention. The reaction has a lot of reservists from all services and National Guardsmen cracking a little smile because even with the wars of most of this century are past, here has been no rest for reservists and the "Total Force."To discuss what the US military's reservists have been doing in Ukraine for almost a decade and how they are being used now in Europe and elsewhere will be returning guest to Midrats for the full hour is,\ Chris Rawley, Captain, USNR (Ret.).Chris recently retired from a 30-year Naval Reserve career as a Surface Warfare Officer where he deployed to the Persian Gulf, Western Pacific, Iraq, Afghanistan, and across Africa. Chris is the founder and CEO of Harvest Returns, a platform for bringing farmers and ranchers together with investors.

This week we were reminded, again, that the world relies on the free flow of goods at market prices across its oceans to maintain a reasonable standard of living.Most of the world consumes more food and fuel than it can produce locally. Most of the world's people live from paycheck to paycheck, and entire societies' stability rely on the grain and oil that economically can only be moved internationally at sea.In a story as old has time, there are power who are using that need as leverage by threatening - or proposing to threaten - access to the seas they have access to.In this case it is the Russians threatening grain shipments through the Black Sea, and the Iranians the shipments of oil and gas.Joining us for the full hour to discuss this threat and how to address it will be returning guest Captain John Konrad.John is the founder and CEO of gCaptain and author of the book Fire On The Horizon. He is licensed to captain the world's largest commercial ships and has sailed from ports around the world. John has built some of the world's most advanced ships and managed billion-dollar offshore construction projects in some of the world's harshest marine environments. John is a distinguished alumnus of New York Maritime College.

EagleOne and Sal pick up last weeks conversation to catch up on the conversation of the latest national security and maritime topics at hand.As always on the melee format, join us live with the open chatroom and studio line if you have some issues you'd like to discuss. We're taking requests!Links to items discussed:Stanford University’s Gordian Knot Center for National Security Innovation, SeaLight.Mackenzie Eaglen’s, Buying Power Is the Invisible Shortfall of the 2024 Defense Budget Request. Also here.Japan-India BILAT naval exercises.UN ship arrives in Yemen to prevent catastrophic oil spill from decaying tanker.Luconia Shoals.CSIS Island Tracker.AUKUS submarine officer training.

It's too darn hot to do anything outside, so stay inside and put your mind to work!EagleOne and Sal start the show with the discussion of books they plan to use to help overcome the mid-summer heat and then cover some of the latest and greatest on the national security front, at least as we define it!Books Discussed: EagleOne’s List:Developing the Naval Mind, B J Armstrong.Looking for a Ship, John McPhee,Jade Rooster: An Asiatic Fleet Thriller, R.L. CrosslandRaven One, Kevin Miller (Chinese Account of the Opium War, (annotated with study guide), E.H. ParkerThe Commodore, P. T. Deutermann,Flight of the Intruder, Stepheen Coonts,Winds of War, War and Remembrance, Herman Wouk,The Caine Mutiny, WoukThe Connor Stark Novels, Claude BerubeThe Abandoned Ocean, Andrew Gibson & Arthur Donovan \Bridges at Toko-Ri, James MichenerFreedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II, Arthur HermanSal’s List:The Castaway's War: One Man's Battle against Imperial Japan by Stephen HardingThe Political Uses of Sea Power by Edward LuttwakWhat the Citizen Should Know About the Navy by Hansen BaldwinSuez to Singapore by Cecil BrownLogistics in the National Defense by Henry EcclesThe White Guard by Mikhail Afanasevich BulgakovUpcoming books by upcoming Midrats Guests:Kabul: The Untold Story of Biden’s Fiasco and the American Warriors Who Fought to the End by Jerry Dunleavy, James HassonUpcoming book on Task Force Lion by Seth W.B. FolsomLinks Discussed:State Department after action report on AfghanistanNew Zealand’s economic addiction to the People’s Republic of ChinaCIA Director William J. Burns’s Ditchley Foundation lectureThe PLAN’s new Cambodian base.

For generations, a great comparative advantage the United States has enjoyed at sea is the superiority of its submarine force.It has become simply an assumption in our war planning to the point it is treated as almost a natural part of the environment.Of course, nothing stands still in war. Time and technology usually finds a way to blunt any advantage, leverage any vulnerability.As the challenge at sea grows, what can the US do to maintain the comparative advantage under the sea?Returning to Midrats this Sunday is Bryan Clark, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute.The starting point for our conversation will be the recent report he co-authored with Timothy Walton this month at Hudson’s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, Fighting into the Bastions: Getting Noisier to Sustain the US Undersea Advantage.

By 2030, the People's Republic of China is expected to have a navy of 425 warships, up significantly from their 360 today - already larger than the United States Navy.In spite of her struggles ashore, demographic collapse, and structural deficiencies, the Russian Navy still maintains a significant submarine force.While the world's strategic situation has changed dramatically, it isn't something not seen.For fits and starts for over a decade, the US has tried to address the change in a cohesive manner, but in 2023, everyone is still looking for the right response. This Sunday for the full hour our guest will be, Brent Sadler, Captain, USN (Ret.), senior research fellow at The Heritage Foundation, to discuss the issues he raises in his recent book, U.S. Naval Power in the 21st Century: A New Strategy for Facing the Chinese and Russian Threat.Brent served twenty-six-year in the Navy with numerous operational tours on nuclear powered submarines and has been a member of personal staffs of senior defense department leaders and was a military diplomat in Asia.

From the abstract of the article in the Naval War College Review Winter 2023 Edition, Strategy, Uncertainty, and the China Challenge; "Despite China’s increasing aggressiveness, its intentions are indeterminate, even aligning with U.S. interests in some arenas. Furthermore, China simply may fail in achieving even its foremost national and foreign-policy goals. Given this uncertainty, the United States should not base its policy and strategy on any specific prediction about Chinese intentions or abilities."Our guest for the full hour will be Jeffrey W. Meiser from the University of Portland (Oregon). We'll dive in to the issues raised in the article and discuss related topics as they come in to the conversation.