Midrats

Do we have the right balance between strike as embodied by carrier air and expeditionary forces based around amphibious ships.

What capability is most cost effective and gives the combatant commanders the most flexible assets in their area of responsibility?

What is driving our Fleet structure, and do we have the right mix? What is informing our decisions, and what should be informing it?

Our guest for the full hour will be Lieutenant Colonel James W. Hammond III, USMC (Ret), senior manager at WBB.

Prior to retirement in 2005, he was Director, Commandant’s Staff Group. 

As a starting point for our discussion, we will review his points in the FEB13 Proceedings article, "A Fleet Out of Balance." Previous published articles and letters in the Naval Institute Proceedings and the Marine Corps Gazette have dealt with Naval Surface Fire Support, Counterbattery support from the Sea, Electronic Attack, Revolution in Military Affairs, and Provisional Rifle Companies.

This Episode first aired in March of 2013.

What is the impact of the right man at the right time with the right ideas? What is the impact of what seems to some as just a man, but to a son is all?

Our 1st Guest will be LCDR BJ Armstrong author of, 21st Century Mahan: Sound Military Conclusions for the Modern Era .

For the second half of the hour we will have Stephen Roderick author of, The Magical Stranger: A Son's Journey into His Father's Life.

Armstrong is a Naval Aviator and an occasional naval historian. His articles have appeared in numerous journals including USNI's Proceedings and Naval History, Naval War College Review, Infinity Journal and others. He is a research student with the Department of War Studies at King's College, University of London. He was recently named the 2013-14 Morison Scholar by Naval History & Heritage Command and was awarded the 2013 Navy League Alfred Thayer Mahan Award.

Rodrick is a contributing writer for The NYT Magazine and a contributing editor for Men's Journal. He has also written for New York, Rolling Stone, GQ, The New Republic, Men's Journal, and others. 

Before becoming a journalist, Rodrick worked as a deputy press secretary for US Senator Alan J. Dixon. He hold a bachelors and masters in political science from Loyola University of Chicago and a masters in journalism from Northwestern's Medill School of Journalism.

Since its ascendency to the premier maritime power, the US Navy - especially in the area of undersea warfare - has been at the leading edge of using technology to get a military edge. 

During the Cold War, significant and steady progress in the first two steps of the kill chain against submarines, location and tracking, made the prospect of engaging superior numbers of Soviet submarine forces manageable.

We continue that tradition today, but to keep ahead of growing challenges, we have test. Build a little, test a little, learn a lot will stop dead in its tracks without testing in the real world. Computer simulation is only so good. 

When it comes to submarines especially, you have to get in the water with them.

Knowing our technological track record an operating a generation or two ahead of some potential adversaries - are there ways they can negate our edge - or at least buy time while they catch up?

Are we vulnerable to potential challengers using national and international law against us? Undersea Lawfare?

Our guests for the full hour to discuss will be Rear Admiral J. Michael "Carlos" Johnson, USN (Ret.) and Captain Michael T. Palmer, USN.

As a stepping off point, we will be using their article in the latest Naval War College Review; UNDERSEA LAWFARE - Can the US Navy Fall Victim to This Asymmetrical Warfare Threat?

RADM Johnson retired after 33 years of service as a naval aviator that included combat in Vietnam, Libya, the Balkans, and the Persian Gulf. He commanded the John F. Kennedy Battle Group, CVW-8, and VFA-86. Ashore he served on the staffs of the CNO as Director of Aviation Plans and Requirements) and the J3 of EUCOM. 

Captain Palmer is an active-duty JAG and an adjunct assistant professor at ODU. Her has served as environmental counsel to the CNO; U.S. Fleet Forces Command; and Commander, Navy Region Mid-Atlantic.

Everyone knows CENTCOM, many know PACOM or EUCOM ... but what about NORTHCOM?

What is their role in national defense, and what special role does it have inside the United States - specifically in disaster response?

This Sunday, September 9th from 5-6pm EST, our guest for the full hour to discuss this and more will be Brigadier General Donald A. McGregor, the Deputy Director of Operations for Domestic Operations, Headquarters, United States Northern Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

Show first played in Sept. 2012.

What happens when a global maritime power finds itself in a position where it can no longer sustain the global presence it once considered an essential requirement?

The US Navy has been in a period of decline in both numbers and capability for awhile, and as budgetary reality sets in and burn out starts to hollow remaining capabilities - the decline is set to continue for at least another decade.

How far the decline goes until stability sets in is unknown, but what is the best reaction to this reality? Are the lessons one can derive from history that can help policy makers shape direction and priority going forward?

Our guest for the full hour to discuss will be Daniel J. Whiteneck, Ph.D.

Dr. Whiteneck is a Senior Research Scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses. He has directed projects ranging from Tipping Point and the future of US maritime dominance, to the use of naval forces in deterrence and influence operations.  He also led studies on naval coalition operations and maritime security operations focusing on counter-piracy and counter-proliferation.

Dr. Whiteneck deployed twice with Carrier Strike Groups for OEF and OIF.  His CNA field assignments included two tours on numbered fleet staffs, as well as field representative to the Commander of NATO Joint Command Lisbon in 2004-05.  He also did three tours in the Pentagon as CNA Scientific Analyst to N51, N31, and OPNAV DEEP BLUE.

He held academic positions at the Seattle University, the University of Colorado, and the Air Force Academy, before joining CNA.  In addition to authoring a number of CNA studies over the past 14 years, he has published articles and book chapters on US and British global leadership and naval operations, NATO’s expansion and operations, and the role of conventional and strategic deterrence against terrorist networks and rogue states after 9/11.

This episode first aired in July of 2013.

The wartime record of the US Navy in under four years of combat from late 1941’s low point to the September 1945 anchoring in Tokyo Bay did not happen by chance. It did not happen through luck, or through quick thinking. It happened through a process of dedicated, deliberate, disciplined and driven effort over two decades in the intra-war period.

What were the mindset, process, leadership, and framework of the 1920s and 1930s that was used to build the fleet and the concepts that brought it to victory in the 1940s?

This week we are going to dive deep in this subject for the full hour with Captain C.C. Felker, USN, Professor of History at the US Naval Academy and author of, Testing American Sea Power: U.S. Navy Strategic Exercises, 1923–1940.

In the mid-1930s, Leni Riefenstahl showed the power of the latest communication technology of her time to move opinion, bring support, and intimidate potential opponents.

The last quarter century's work of Moore's Law in the ability to distribute visual data world wide in an instant has completely change the ability of even the smallest groups with the most threadbare budgets to create significant influence effects well inside traditional nation states' OODA loop.

How are radical extremists using modern technology, especially in the visual arena, to advance their goals, who are their audiences, and how do you counter it?

Using as a starting point the Strategic Studies Institute and U.S. Army War College Press's publication, Visual Propaganda and Extremism in the Online Environment, Jihadology's ISIS and the Hollywood Visual Style, and  Small Wars Journal's ISIS and the Family Man; our guests will be Dr. Cori E. Dauber, Professor of Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Mark Robinson, the Director of the Multimedia Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Claims hundreds of year old in the South China Sea are being acted on today. Ethnic tensions that date back to recorded time are returning to the surface with renewed importance.

Regardless of what may be happening in the Middle East or Europe, China and the nations that border the South China Sea have their own set of priorities they will pursue this year.

To discuss the present state of play in the area and the events to look for as the year unfolds will be returning guest of the show, Dr. Toshi Yoshihara from the Naval War College.  

Professor Toshi Yoshihara holds the John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies and is an affiliate member of the China Maritime Studies Institute at the Naval War College. Before joining the College faculty, he was a visiting professor in the Strategy Department at the Air War College. Dr. Yoshihara has also served as an analyst at the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, RAND, and the American Enterprise Institute. He holds a Ph.D. from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, an M.A. from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and a B.S.F.S. from the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University. He is co-author of Red Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy and other books related to maritime concerns in national defense policy.

We're back live after a mid-winter break!

If there were some topics you'd like us to cover, or want to call in with a question for the hosts - now is your time.

We have a full and open hour. Call in at the number above or join in the chatroom as we catch up on the developments in the national security arena this month.

From the Med, to the South China Sea, to shipbuilding, to Syria, and whatever else strikes our fancy, we'll be there.

Looking for a "Best of" this Valentine's Day, I realized there is a guest we need to bring back on for an update. With Russia being Russia, you have to think Big Things that make Big Booms.

From a bit more than three years ago,

They're back; ICBM, IRBM, SRBM. Strategic forces. Long range strike and long range counter-air.

Some real old ones are coming back in to the lexicon: ABM.

Some new ones have joined the party as well - ASBM and super sonic ASCM.

Of course, they never really left us.

After the post-Soviet softness of the 1990s and the decade plus of COIN and small wars - the big toys are coming back. Old and new.

From Russia, China, Iran, & India - technology is reaching back out and spreading out.

Where does that leave the US military in 2012 (NB: original air date of this show)? Few leaders under the age of 45 even remember operating in the Cold War disciplines that peer technology required; range, EMCON, defense in depth.

Global reach will require more and better AAW, deep strike, I&W - it will also require a renewed understanding that for a Fleet at sea - the enemy gets a vote, and a shot.

Our guest for the full hour to discuss in detail will be Will Dossel, CAPT USN (Ret), a former E-2C NFO with over 3500 hours and 525 traps in the E-2C and other TACAIR. Retiring after 26 years, he held a number of Navy and Joint operational and staff positions afloat and ashore including VAW squadron command, CVN navigator, Deputy Director for Strategy and Policy, Navy Planner, and Reconnaissance Systems Officer. Currently employed as a senior analyst with a top 5 defense firm, he has been heavily involved in the policy and operational side of ballistic and cruise missile defense the past seven years.