The budget axe points to sea; the nation suffers sea blindness; a non-traditional actor challenges a fundamental exercise of naval power.

Join milbloggers Sal from "Sal" from "CDR Salamander" and EagleOne from "Eaglespeak" as they look at the return of familiar challenges to making the Navy effective.

As our guests we will have two Midrats regulars; Bryan McGrath and Claude Berube.

To discuss “The Navy Under Siege—SECDEF and Naval Preponderance” and "Sea Blindness" will be Bryan McGrath, CDR USN (Ret.) the Founding Director of Delex Consulting, Studies and Analysis (CSA), a division of Delex Systems, Incorporated, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia.

Bryan spent 21 years on active duty including a tour in command of USS BULKELEY (DDG 84), a guided-missile destroyer homeported in Norfolk, Virginia. His final duties ashore included serving as Team Lead and Primary Author of the US Navy’s 2007 Maritime Strategy “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower”. He also hosts his own BTR format radio show and blog by the same name, Conservative Wahoo.

Claude Berube, LCDR USNR will follow up with a broad discussion of NGOs at sea. Though the recent incident off Gaza brought the issue to the front - his recent article in the Small Wars Journal outlines that there is a lot more out there involving aggressive civilian entities from NGOs to advocacy groups using the maritime domain to pursue their larger goals.

Claude is a Visiting Fellow for Maritime Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He has taught at the U.S. Naval Academy, and worked on Capitol Hill, at the Office of Naval Intelligence, and for a defense firm. He's been mobilized several times including a deployment with ESG5 in 2004-05. In addition to many articles, he has co-authored two books. His next book will be published next year on maritime security companies (Eagle1 is a contributor). For the past year, he's served as the President of American Independent Writers.