The Fleets of Austerity; on Midrats

It is often said that with crisis comes opportunity; that stress brings innovation - without the right leadership and vision though; crisis and stress can also bring about collapse.

As the traditional Western powers struggle with an unprecedented peace time debt crisis, and rising powers have challenges of their own for economic, resource and demographic reasons - each is looking for the best fleet shrinking budgets can buy.

What trends can we see in Naval development now, and what new trends are taking shape? What established platforms are being repurposed, and which ones are being left behind?

Join EagleOne and me as we disscuss for the full hour with returning guest Eric Wertheim.

Eric is a defense consultant, columnist and author specializing in naval and maritime issues. He was named to the helm of the internationally acknowledged, one volume Naval Institute reference Combat Fleets of the World in 2002.

As author and editor, his duties include tracking, analyzing and compiling data and photography on every vessel, aircraft and major weapon system, in every naval and paranaval force in the world - from Albania to Zimbabwe. He leads an independent maritime intelligence effort that spans the globe to produce the book commonly known as Combat Fleets.

Frequently contacted by the news media for on-air interviews and background information related to international naval incidents, Eric Wertheim has served as a speechwriter for senior Pentagon officials and as a consultant to best-selling authors, publishers, organizations and companies. He has been instrumental in the advancement of numerous high-technology weapons and concepts, and from 1994 through 2004 Mr. Wertheim wrote the bimonthly "Lest We Forget" column on historic U.S. warships for the Naval Institute's Proceedings magazine.

Since 2004, Eric Wertheim has written the monthly "Combat Fleets" column for Proceedings, and his annual review of world navies runs in the March issue of the magazine. He is the coauthor with Norman Polmar of the books, Chronology of the Cold War at Sea 1945-1991 and Dictionary of Military Abbreviations, both published by the Naval Institute Press.

A unique background note is that Eric signed his first book contract with the Naval Institute Press at age 18 and have been a columnist with Proceedings since age 19.

Join us live if you can and pile in with the usual suspects in the chat room where you can contribute your thoughts and observation - and suggest to us questions for our guests.

If you miss the show you can always listen to the archive at blogtalkradio - but the best way to get the show and download the archive to your audio player is to get a free account and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Listen to Midrats on Blog Talk Ra