Payment in Iron, that is the title of the only US Navy art that hangs in my office. It depicts the USS Constitution leading the American response on pirates in payment for their attacks on US commercial shipping in Africa during the Jefferson administration. The United States has always defended ourselves at sea and our Navy continues that tradition today as it attacks the Houthi pirates in Yemen for their disruption of international shipping lanes. Thanks to the Trump Administration the Houthis are once again designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, following their hundreds of attacks against commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. Note they don’t attack Chinese shipping but have conducted over 300 attacks against the US Navy and other commercial ships. A lot of questions remain unanswered, however. Iran has been provided targeting intelligence and command and control ships for the Houthi anti-shipping operation, but will we stop them now? Will we continue to spread our Navy thin in the Indo-Pacific or will we eventually choose to use civilian contractors to take the Houthis down, as is authorized in the constitution? Strategically, can we address our weak shipbuilding capabilities and get back on track to overtake our main adversary’s capability that is hundreds of times more productive than u=ours and our allies combined? Captain John Konrad is my guest today to talk about this issue. He is the founder and CEO of gCaptain Maritime News and author of the book Fire On The Horizon. He is licensed to captain the world's largest 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.

🇺🇸Colonel's Brief is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Get full access to 🇺🇸Colonel's Brief at colrobmanessret.substack.com/subscribe