Friday, June 04, 2010

Midrats Episode 24: The Navy's New Normal

The budget axe points to sea; the nation suffers sea blindness; a non-traditional actor challenges a fundamental exercise of naval power.

Join EagleOne and me live this Sunday, 06 JUN at 5pm EST as we look at the return of familiar challenges to making the Navy effective.

As our guests we will have two Midrats regulars; Bryan McGrath and Claude Berube.

To discuss “The Navy Under Siege—SECDEF and Naval Preponderance” and "Sea Blindness" will be Bryan McGrath, CDR USN (Ret.) the Founding Director of Delex Consulting, Studies and Analysis (CSA), a division of Delex Systems, Incorporated, headquartered in Vienna, Virginia. Delex CSA is a niche consultancy, specializing in Defense and National Security issues, including strategy and strategic planning, executive communications, and strategic communications.

Bryan spent 21 years on active duty including a tour in command of USS BULKELEY (DDG 84), a guided-missile destroyer homeported in Norfolk, Virginia. His final duties ashore included serving as Team Lead and Primary Author of the US Navy’s 2007 Maritime Strategy “A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century Seapower”. He also hosts his own BTR format radio show and blog by the same name, Conservative Wahoo.

Claude Berube, LCDR USNR will follow up with a broad discussion of NGOs at sea. Though the recent incident off Gaza brought the issue to the front - his recent article in the Small Wars Journal outlines that there is a lot more out there involving aggressive civilian entities from NGOs to advocacy groups using the maritime domain to pursue their larger goals.

Claude is a Visiting Fellow for Maritime Studies at The Heritage Foundation. He has taught at the U.S. Naval Academy, and worked on Capitol Hill, at the Office of Naval Intelligence, and for a defense firm. A lieutenant commander in the US Navy Reserve, he's been mobilized several times including a deployment with Expeditionary Strike Group Five in 2004-05. In addition to many articles, he has co-authored two books. His next book will be published next year on maritime security companies (Eagle1 is a contributor). For the past year, he's served as the President of American Independent Writers.

Join us live if you can and pile in with the usual suspects in the chat room during the show where you can offer your own questions and observations to our guests. If you miss the show or want to catch up on the shows you missed - you can always reach the archives at blogtalkradio - or set yourself to get the podcast on iTunes.

As a show note - one of the only real issues with the show to this point has been some technical and connection problems ... well ... we've update our software and switchboard. Hopefully, all will have a much better listening experience.

Listen to Midrats on Blog Talk Radio

3 comments:

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

Off Topic, I know, but I want to remond everyone that it is June 4th, Midway Day.   One of the USN's better days.

C-dore 14 said...

My flag's already out...not that most of the neighbors will know why.  An excellent "teaching moment".

SCOTTtheBADGER said...

I think of George Gay today, and how that must have felt, after being returned to HORNET, to wander the VT-8 area of the ship, and know that you are the only survivor of your squadron, that participated in the attack.   I also think of the other half of VT-8, that had been detatched for the squadron's  conversion to TBFs, for them to be told that the rest of the squadron had been wiped out.  It's got to be devatating, to lose 48 brothers in one day.