Midrats

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.

So much has happened since we had this interview 2.5-yrs ago focused on NATO, but the points are still spot on. Well worth the revisit, especially if you missed it the first time.

NATO continues to test what kind of alliance it is after the fall of the Soviet Union roughly a quarter-century ago.

Where does the alliance stand, and what direction is it going? Are the roles of the member states changing? Where is the alliance strongest, and where does it need the most improvement?

Our returning guest for the full hour to discuss this and more will be Dr. Daniel Goure, is Vice President with the Lexington Institute.

Dr Goure has held senior positions in both the private sector and the U.S. Government, as a member of the 2001 Department of Defense Transition Team, two years as the director of the Office of Strategic Competitiveness in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, as a senior analyst on national security and defense issues with the Center for Naval Analyses, SAIC, SRS Technologies, R&D Associates, and System Planning Corporation.

Prior to joining the Lexington Institute, Dr. Goure was the Deputy Director, International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

He has consulted for the Departments of State, Defense and Energy. He has taught or lectured at the Johns Hopkins University, the Foreign Service Institute, the National War College, the Naval War College, the Air War College, and the Inter-American Defense College. Since 2001, Dr. Goure has been an adjunct professor in graduate programs at Georgetown University, and the National Defense University since 2002.

Dr. Goure holds Masters and Ph.D. degrees in international relations and Russian Studies from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in Government and History from Pomona College.

It is time to catch up with Putin's Russia, her domestic developments, involvement in Ukraine, and the changes she is forcing on border nations and the near abroad.

To discuss this and more, for the full hour we will have returning guest Dr. Dmitry Gorenburg, Senior Analyst, CNA Strategic Studies, an Associate at Harvard’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, an author, and host of the Russian Military Reform blog.

Dr. Gorenburg focuses his research on security issues in the former Soviet Union, Russian military reform, Russian foreign policy, ethnic politics and identity, and Russian regional politics. He is also the editor of the journals Problems of Post-Communism and Russian Politics and Law and a Fellow of the Truman National Security Project. From 2005 through 2010, he was the Executive Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies.

Join Sal from "CDR Salamander" & EagleOne from "EagleSpeak" with their returning guest, author David Sears for the full hour to discuss his latest book, Pacific Air: How Fearless Flyboys, Peerless Aircraft, and Fast Flattops Conquered the Skies in the War with Japan.

For WWII and aviaition fans - this is a show you do not want to miss!

18 June will be the 200th Anniversary of the battle of Waterloo, fought in present-day Belgium.   

Just in time, regular guest to Midrats, John Kuehn has his latest book out, Napoleonic Warfare: The Operational Art of the Great Campaigns where he covers the operational level analysis of European warfare from 1792 to 1815,  including the tactics, operations, and strategy of major conflicts of the time.

More than just a description of set piece battle, there is a discussion of naval warfare, maneuver warfare, compound warfare, and counterinsurgency.

We've got him for the full hour ... we should be able to get to most of it.

Dr. John T. Kuehn is the General William Stofft Chair for Historical Research at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. He retired from the U.S. Navy 2004 at the rank of commander after 23 years of service as a naval flight officer in EP-3s and ES-3s. He authored Agents of Innovation (2008) and co-authored Eyewitness Pacific Theater (2008) with D.M. Giangreco, as well as numerous articles and editorials and was awarded a Moncado Prize from the Society for Military History in 2011.

His previous book was, A military History of Japan: From the Age of the Samurai to the 21st Century.

As the world has set its own course as we have been planning other things, some believe that the 2016 election will be more focused on foreign policy and defense issues that any of the candidates thought would be the case at the end of last year.

What will be the above-the-fold topics? The baseline was set by the '16 budget battle last year and the winding down and a post-mortum on the sequestration gambit of the last couple of years.

As proxies in the emerging discussion, to join the old bulls on the Hill, are there emerging new leaders on defense issues elected in the '14 cycle?

Where do declared or expected candidates for President for both parties  stand on policy and present operations?

To discuss this and more in the foreign policy and defense arena will be returning guest, Mackenzie Eaglen,

Mackenzie is a resident fellow in the Marilyn Ware Center for Security Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where she works on defense strategy, defense budgets, and military readiness.

She  has worked on defense issues in the House of Representatives and Senate and at the Pentagon in the Office of the Secretary of Defense and on the Joint Staff. In 2014, Eaglen served as a staff member of the congressionally mandated National Defense Panel, a bipartisan, blue-ribbon commission established to assess US defense interests and strategic objectives. This followed Eaglen’s previous work as a staff member for the 2010 congressionally mandated bipartisan Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel, also established to assess the Pentagon’s major defense strategy. A prolific writer on defense-related issues, she has also testified before Congress.

She has an M.A. from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a B.A. from Mercer University.

Midrats is back live this Sunday at 5-pm Eastern; tanned, rested and ready for the summer.

Join EagleOne from EagleSpeak and Sal from CDR Salamander for the full hour as they cover the major national security and maritime issues that are set to dominate conversations as the kids get out of school and that moving trucks start to roll.

From China's sand islands, the Islamic States expansion, the response to a revanchist Russia, to the usual goings on with the Potomac Flotilla - we'll cover it all.

On Friday, 22 May 2015 a great warship was decommissioned, the USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG-58). In her honor, we will replay our show on the day that defined her.

Little has changed since the USS SAMUEL B. ROBERTS (FFG-58) struck a mine, and in retribution, the US Navy launched Operation PRAYING MANTIS.

The tactical and operational aspects of each, as well as combat leadership, remain constant even while the tools may have changed a bit.

To discuss this an more, our guest for the full hour will be Brad Peniston, author of "No Higher Honor: Saving the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf," released in 2013 by the Naval Institute Press in paperback and on Kindle.

Lost to many whose news sources in the USA consists of the major newspapers and the standard networks, for most of the last dozen+ years, the conflict in Afghanistan has not been a USA-Centric battle; it has been a NATO run operation.

When the Commander of the International Security Assistance Force has been an American 4-star, the visuals can be misleading.

For most of the last decade, American forces were dominate in only one region of Afghanistan, the east. Other NATO nations from Italy/Spain in the west, Germany in the North, and Commonwealth nations and the Dutch in the south.

More important than the actual numbers involved, it was the Rules of Engagement, caveats, and the fickle nature of national politics that drove what effects those forces had on the ground.

The good, the bad, and the ugly of modern coalition warfare was all in view for all in Afghanistan, but outside small circles, has yet to be fully discussed.

Our guest for the full hour will be Stephen Saideman.

Stephen holds the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University’s Norman Paterson School of International Affairs.  He has written The Ties That Divide: Ethnic Politics, Foreign Policy and International Conflict and For Kin or Country: Xenophobia, Nationalism and War (with R. William Ayres) and NATO in Afghanistan: Fighting Together, Fighting Alone (with David Auerswald), and other work on nationalism, ethnic conflict, civil war, and civil-military relations.  Prof. Saideman spent 2001-02 on the U.S. Joint Staff working in the Strategic Planning and Policy Directorate as part of a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship.  He writes online at OpenCanada.org, Political Violence at a Glance, Duck of Minerva and his own site (saideman.blogspot.com).  He also tweets too much at @smsaideman.

Excuse the host's audio quality ... but the guest's audio is perfect.

For America's natural position as a naval and aerospace power, are we thinking correctly on how to best leverage our resources and strenghts?

How should we be using sea power and air power to create the right effects during peace, yet be poised to have the best utility at war?

Are there concepts, habits, and systems that have had their time and should be moved aside for newer tools and ideas?

Our guest for the full hour will be Dr. Adam Lowther, Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest in Washington, DC.

He is the author of numerous books and articles on national security topics and previously served in the US Navy.