Midrats

While good ideas are often forgotten, bad ideas seem to pop up over an over again - especially the sexy ones that sound so good, but never seem to work well. The answer, of course, is to try again and hope for a better result.Some would argue that sea swap is one of those sexy ideas that just isn't that practical in actual operation.A good idea? One of the good ideas mostly forgotten is that of the Junior Officer in significant positions of authority. LTJG as XO? LT as Skipper? Sure... used to be common; now not so much outside the MIW and PC community.What are the different challenges for the officer on a smaller warship? As JO command opportunities shrink, what is our Navy losing?Our guest for the full hour to discuss this and anything else the squirrels deliver will be Lieutenant Matthew Hipple, USN.We'll start the conversation from his article in the July 2013 Proceedings, Sea Swap - Its a Trap - then we'll be off to the races from there.LT Hipple is a surface warfare officer who graduated from Georgetown

From a 2012 show; 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?Our guest for the full hour to discuss this and more will be Brigadier General Donald A. McGregor, in 2012 the Deputy Director of Operations for Domestic Operations, Headquarters, United States Northern Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado.

How do you design a game that has practical tactical application to the naval tactician?  Even more ambitious, how do you make one accessible and understandable with the goal of making it a mobile wargame for eventual use by sailors and warfare commands.For today's show we will discuss one of the projects of the CNO's Rapid Innovation Cell (CRIC), the game "Fleet Battle School."Our guests to discuss this game, gaming in general, and its practical application will be three individuals involved in the project; LT Matthew Hipple, Paul Vebber and Chris Kona.Chris Kona is a warfare analyst at Naval Undersea Warfare Center. A former submarine officer in the U.S. Navy, he was project lead for the CRIC’s Fleet Battle School wargame project.Paul works for the Naval Undersea Warfare Center Mission Area Director for Undersea Warfare and is lead game designer on the project.LT Matthew Hipple, USN In addition to his day job as your quasi-standard issue Surface Warfare Lieutenant, Matthew is President of the Center for int

When a nation of laws goes to war, their laws go with them. In a decade and a half of fighting terrorism, the laws that define our actions overseas and at home have morphed as the threat and strategy for dealing with it has.From fighting ISIS, operating with and in failed states, dealing with the expanding "refugee crisis," to keeping the balance between security and safety - what has the legal shop been up to?Our guest for the full hour is returning guest Charles J. Dunlap, Jr., Major General, USAF (Ret.), Professor of the Practice of Law, and Executive Director, Center on Law, Ethics and National Security at Duke University.General Dunlap’s teaching and scholarly writing focus on national security, international law, civil-military relations, cyberwar, airpower, counter-insurgency, military justice, and ethical issues related to the practice of national security law.

With a lot of new listeners in the last year, I thought I would bring back a show from our first year, 2010.When you mention the possibility of an Electro Magnetic Pulse attack (EMP) - people have a reaction of, "What?" - either that or they get all fidgety or roll their eyes. Is the EMP threat trick or treat? Our guests will be Jason Sigger, defense policy analyst, opinion writer and blogg'r for the first half of the hour. For the second half of the hour, James Carafano, Ph.D., Deputy Director, The Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies and Director, Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.

This Sunday we are going to look at the big pixels that supports the entire national security infrastructure above it.Using his recent article in The National Interest, The Real Threat to America's Military (And It's Not China, Russia or Iran), we will tackle the greatest challenge of a world power - those things it has no one else to blame for.Procurement, strategy, and the choices we make. The run of the last 30 years of weapons development and strategic foresight has not been a very good one. Why?

This Sunday for the full hour our guest will be author Claude Berube to discuss his second Connor Stark novel, Syren's Song, from Naval Institute Press. From the Amazon page;"Syren's Song is the second novel featuring Connor Stark, and it promises to be just as engaging asThe Aden Effect. This geopolitical thriller begins when the Sri Lankan navy is unexpectedly attacked by a resurgent and separatist Tamil Tiger organization. The government issues a letter of marque to former U.S. Navy officer Connor Stark, now the head of the private security company Highland Maritime Defense. Stark and his eclectic compatriots accept the challenge only to learn that the Sea Tigers who crippled the Sri Lankan navy are no ordinary terrorists."We will also discuss the craft of writing, how emerging real world events can influence the writing of fiction, and as we usually do with Claude, perhaps some other interestiing topics that crop up in the course of our conversation.

It is that time of the year ... time for a Fall Free For All on Midrats.No guests, no agenda, open phones, open topics, open mic.Join Sal from "CDR Salamander" and EagleOne from "Eaglespeak" for a full hour as we dive in to the national security topics of the day with a maritime bent - or whatever topics break above the background noise.This is your chance by calling in or by throwing it out in the live chat room, to bring up the topic you wish we would cover, or to just play stump the chump.

If the requirement is to be able to operate, fight, and win in the Littorals - is the Littoral Combat Ship the answer?Other nations have the same requirement - yet have come up with different answers.Are we defining our requirements properly in face of larger Fleet needs and the threats we expect?What platforms and systems need to be looked at closer if we are to have the best mix of capabilities to meet our requirements?Using his article from 2013 in Armed Forces Journal, Go smaller: Time for the Navy to get serious about the littorals, as a stepping off place, our guest for the full hour will be Milan Vego, PhD, Professor of Joint Military Operations at the US Naval War College.NB: Show first aired APR13.

As 2015 starts its final act, where is China heading?From her Great Wall of Sand in the South China Sea, to economic stress, and her increasingly nervous neighbors, where does the USA and her allies need to adjust to China’s expanding footprint globally, and where do they need to stand firm?Our guest for the full hour to discuss this and more will be James Kraska.Dr. James Kraska is Professor in the Stockton Center for the Study of International Law, where he previously served as Howard S. Levie Chair in International Law from 2008-13. During 2013-14, he was a Mary Derrickson McCurdy Visiting Scholar at Duke University, where he taught international law of the sea. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Center for Oceans Law and Policy at the University of Virginia School of Law, Guest Investigator at the Marine Policy Center, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, and a Senior Associate at the Naval War College's Center on Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups. 

How did the US Marine Corps and local tribal leaders turn the corner in Fallujah?  Who were the people on the ground, Iraqi and American, who were the catalyst for the change that brought about a sea change in the tactical, operational, and strategic direction in Iraq?Our guest for the full hour to discuss that and more will be author Bill Ardolino. We will use as a base of our discussion his new book, Fallujah Awakens: Marines, Sheikhs, and the Battle Against al Qaeda.Bill is the associate editor of The Long War Journal. He was embedded with the U.S. Marine Corps, the U.S. Army, the Iraqi Army, and the Iraqi Police in Fallujah, Habbaniyah, and Baghdad in 2006, 2007, and 2008, and later with U.S. and Afghan forces in Kabul, Helmand and Khost provinces in Afghanistan. His reports, columns, and photographs have received wide media exposure and have been cited in a number of academic publications. He lives in Washington, DC.

One man's chore is another man's hobby. Another man's dread, is the other's fantasy. Such, in a fashion, is Program Management in the Navy.To be a good one, step one is to be self-aware. From his latest article in USNI's Proceedings, Confessions of a Major Program Manager, Captain Mark Vandroff, USN just lays it out; "Face it: Everyone hates MPMs. For the budget-conscious officials in the Pentagon, our products are never cheap enough. For technologists both inside and outside the Department of Defense who want military progress to be state of the art, our products are never fielded fast enough. For the fleet users and their advocates, products could always be more capable, usable, or maintainable. Industry gets upset when we treat the taxpayers’ money like it is worth saving rather than help Wall Street with its next earnings report. Our uniformed brothers and sisters, support scientists, contractors, and comptrollers all loathe us—and if you aren’t in one of those groups, you probably quit reading already."C

Wars are full of accidental battles, unexpected horror, and the valor of ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances.Often lost in the sweeping stories of the Pacific in WWII, there is a story that - if not for one man's inability to properly recognize one ship from another - should have never have happened. Because of that one man's mistake, and a leader's stubborn enthusiasm to double down on that mistake, the lived of hundreds of men were lost - and possibly the course of a pivotal early battle changed.Our guest for the full hour will be author Don Keith to discuss the tale of the USS Neosho (AO-23) and USS Sims (DD-409) at the Battle of the Coral Sea in his latest book, The Ship That Wouldn't Die: The Saga of the USS Neosho- A World War II Story of Courage and Survival at Sea.Don is an award-winning and best-selling author of books on a wide range of topics. In addition to being a prolific writer, he also has a background in broadcast journalism from on-the-air personality to ownership.Don’s web site i

There is a fair bit of talk about the rush for the arctic for economic and strategic reasons - and where there is international interest on the seas, the nations involved need to think about what is the best way to secure their interests.While the initial thought might be Navy - is the natural answer really the Coast Guard? If the USCG is the right answer, is it trained, manned and equipped for the job?What does it need to do in order to fulfill its role - and why may it be the best answer to the question - who will show the flag up north?Our guest this Sunday for the full hour from 5-6pm EST will be U.S. Naval War College Professor James R. Holmes. As a starting point for our conversation, we will use his latest article in Foreign Policy: America Needs a Coast Guard That Can Fight: As the Arctic becomes an arena for conflict, the United States’ forgotten naval force will need to cowboy up.

Last week, the Naval Academy Museum opened a new exhibit “Warrior Writers: The U.S. Naval Institute" that will run through Jan. 31, 2016.The exhibit features literary work primarily from junior officers during their active duty service since the 1870’s. The majority of the literature focuses on controversies, issues, and trends of the time and is accompanied by over 100 artifacts including writings, weapons and tools from the authors. The artifacts are from the combined collections of the U.S. Naval Academy Museum and the U.S. Naval Institute as well as some on loan from recent authors.Our guest to discuss the exhibit and what it has to offer will be the LCDR Claude Berube, USNR – author, regular Midrats guest, and more importantly in this context, the director of the museum.

Stowaways, poaching, piracy, smuggling, and murder - the global commons of the open ocean is as wild of a place as it is vast.Using as a baseline his series on lawlessness on the high seas in the New York Times, The Outlaw Ocean, our guest for the full hour to discuss the anarchy of crime and violence on the high seas in the 21st Century will be Ian Ubina.Ian is a reporter for The New York Times, based in the paper’s Washington bureau. He has degrees in history from Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and his writings, which range from domestic and foreign policy to commentary on everyday life, have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, Harper’s, and elsewhere. 

We've had a lot of new listeners in the last three years, so it was time to bring back Norman.What makes a class of warship a success, a failure, or a missed opportunity? What fundamentals consistently result in a success, and what common threads need to be avoided in order to not repeat the mistakes of the past?What decision and results we have seen in previous classes of warships are we seeing repeated now, and what are some options for the Navy going forward?For warship classes from right before WWII to the present, to discuss this and more will be returning guest, Dr. Norman Friedman.In addition to numeral articles through the years, Dr. Friedman writes a monthly column, "World Naval Developments" in the US Naval Institute's magazine, Proceedings and is the author of many books including U.S. Destroyers: An Illustrated Design History; Unmanned Combat Air Systems; and Naval Weapons of World War One.As a starting point for our discussion we will be using Dr. Friedman's article in US Naval Institute's magazi

From the Balitic to the Black Sea, the last year has seen the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) return to its roots - the defense of Europe from Russian aggression.The names and players have changes significantly since a quarter century ago - but in many ways things look very familiar.To discuss NATO's challenge in the East in the second decade of the 21st Century for the full hour will be Dr. Jorge Benitez.Jorge is the Director of NATOSource and a Senior Fellow in the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security.He specializes in NATO, European politics, and US national security, and previously served as Assistant for Alliance Issues to the Director of NATO Affairs in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He has also served as a specialist in international security for the Department of State and the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis.Dr. Benitez received his BA from the University of Florida, his MPP from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and his PhD

Are there lessons one can learn from the most exceptional edges of the military experience that can be useful to the civilian world?Was there something from the experience of American prisoners of war imprisoned at the "Hanoi Hilton" during the Vietnam War that had to do with their success in their subsequent careers?Our guests to discuss for the full hour will be Peter Fretwell and Taylor Baldwin Kiland, authors of Lessons from the Hanoi Hilton: Six Characteristics of High-Performance Teams.

They never really went away, but for almost 20 years the world had a holiday from an old challenge and a new one; Russia and the prospect of nuclear war.Some thought, and more hoped that with the end of the Cold War, a newer world order would emerge that would enable an era of stability and peace. In a way, it did – but only in spots and for short periods of time.While for the last 15 years most of the attention was focused on the expansion of radical Islam, two not unrelated events began to wax. From the ashes of the Soviet Union, fed by a charismatic leader and a resource extraction economy, Russian began to reassert itself in a manner consistent with the last 500 years of its history, and in parallel – the boogyman of the second half of the 20th Century began to grow as well; the proliferation and possible use nuclear weapons.To discuss this and more for the full hour will be Dr. Tom Nichols,Tom is a professor at the Naval War College and at the Harvard Extension School, as well as a Senior Associate of th