Midrats

Most agree that our nation's national security focus needs to shift its weight towards the swath across the Western Pacific through the Strait of Malacca to the Northern Arabian Gulf.   We have started the same path in response to national budget and debt problems that started a decade ago in Europe; and the defense budget here as there will take the first hit.   Are we starting in the right direction - or are we in danger of inserting in to the equasion a fundemantel error?   Our guest for the entire hour will be returning guest and panel member, Bryan McGrath.   Bryan is the Founding Director of Delex Consulting, Studies and Analysis specializing in Defense and National Security issues, including strategy and strategic planning, executive communications, and strategic communications.   You can also find him online at Conservative Wahoo and Information Dissemination.   A retired Naval Officer, Bryan spent 21 years on active duty including a tour in command of USS Bulkeley (DDG 84), with his final duties ashore included serving as Team Lead and Primary Author of the U.S. Navy's 2007 Maritime Strategy; A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower.

Many are sobering up to the fact that the military is about to face a budget challenge not seen in a generation. Especially those who have seen this movie before, a number know that this one has the potential to be the most challenging seen in over half a century.

For the full hour, our guest will be Col. Robert Killebrew, USA (Ret.)., using his article in the DEC Armed Forces Journal, Cutbacks & Crisis, as a starting point.

In addition to being a contributing editor at AFJ, among the many other things he has done since retirement he writes and consults on national defense issues as a Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. 

Prior to his retirement from active duty he served for thirty years in a variety of Special Forces, infantry and staff duties.  His assignments ranged included duty in Vietnam with MACVSOG, the Vietnamese Airborne Division, command in mechanized, air assault and airborne units, and staff positions in the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force, as director of plans, XVIII Airborne Corps, special assistant to the Chief of Staff of the Army, command of a deployed joint task force and as an instructor in strategy and policy at the Army War College.

If you want to be ahead of the game in the growing budget battles, make sure and tune in this Sunday at 5pm EST or get the archive.

Yes friends, believe it or not we are on our 105th episode!

Two years behind us, and a third in front. Though we already have some great guests lined up in the upcoming weeks, as a way of saying thanks to everyone for tuning in, for our 2nd Anniversary show we are going to try something a little different - we are going to turn the tables on ourselves.

This time, it is our friends, listeners and regular guests who will get to ask the questions and visit for awhile.

What would you like the hosts to talk about? Is there a topic you would like us to address that we don't?  Well here is your chance.

Look at the top of the showpage - that's our call in number.

Episode 104: Best of; China looking forward

Episode 103: Christmas Best Of, Stavridis on Writing

Episode 102: The Military Media at a Pivot

A lot has been written about what went wrong at Pearl Harbor - a very American perspective.

If you look at it from a neutral tacticial view, or look at things from a Japanese perspective - there was a lot that went right at Pearl Harbor at the Tactical and Operational Level.

Join Sal from CDR Salamander and EagleOne of EagleSpeak as they discuss for the full hour many of the less understood aspects fo the attack on Pearl Harbor and the development in the Imperial Japanese Navy's tactical innovations with one of the co-authors of the article in December's Naval History magazine, Pearl Harbor's Overlooked Answer - Jonathan Parshall.

"Where are the Carriers?"

Whenever the expected unexpected happens on the globe, that is the question that is often asked first.  As our nation also faces one of its greatest budget crisis - it is also one that the budget cutters are asking as well.

What is the status of our carrier force as we approach 2012 and what possible directions are we heading?  Is the carrier more important in supporting our national strategy than it used to be, or less?  Are we buying the right kind of systems to go on and in our carriers?  Are we buying enough? How are we assessing our technology risk as we bring in new tools?

Our guest for the full hour will be J. Talbot Manvel, CAPT, USN (Ret.), presently teaching at the U.S. Naval Academy and is a frequent writer on issues of carrier issues and larger Navy policy issues.  In the course of his career he served on three carriers and led development o f the maintenance plan for the Nimitz class and design of the Ford class carriers.

No better way to digest all that Turkey than with a great interview EagleOne and I had this summer with a superb author.

When you mention books on naval history, there are but a few authors whose work immediately come to mind, and our guest is one of them.

Unquestionably one of the finest writers of naval history of the last half-century; James D. Hornfischer.

We have talked about his books on a regular basis both on Midrats and over at our homeblogs; The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors &  Ship of Ghosts.  He has a new book out, one that will be required reading for his fans - Neptune's Inferno: The U.S. Navy at Guadalcanal.

We will have him for the full hour, so don't miss the discussion of the U.S. Navy in the opening of WWII, the lessons we should take from history, and the importance of the study of naval history for both the professional and amateur.

For those who listen to All Things Considered on NPR, earlier this month you caught an outstanding series on the 3rd Battalion 5th Marines – the  Darkhorse Battalion — the Marine unit that suffered the highest casualty rate of any Marine unit during the 10-year Afghan war.

 

Our guest for the full hour is the journalist who brought the American people that story - Tom Bowman, NPR National Desk reporter covering the Pentagon.

In his current role, Bowman has traveled to Iraq and Afghanistan often for month-long visits and embedded with U.S. Marines and soldiers.

Before coming to NPR in April 2006, Bowman spent nine years as a Pentagon reporter at The Baltimore Sun. Altogether he was at The Sun for nearly two decades, covering the Maryland Statehouse, the U.S. Congress, the U.S. Naval Academy, and the National Security Agency (NSA).