Welcome to mid Rats with foul from Commander Salamander and the Eagle One from Eagle
Speak at sea or shore your home for a discussion of national security issues and
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hey, Eagle One, glad to talk to you this afternoon. Hey sol,
how are you doing. I'm better I deserved, though I do have
a little bit of a bone to pick with North Carolina today. I usually
try to keep our southern harmony in focus, but I got a little bait
and switch issue that it's kind of disturbing. But I found I found a
little bit of a way to recapture a little bit of my lost honor here
by this misrepresentation by the Tobacco state. On Netflix, I was trolling for
something to look more interesting than anything else being offered. In Lo and Behold,
there was a limited run series called Florida Man. I was like,
okay, I kind of like C list actors or a low budget and making
fun stuff. Let's go see what Florida Man is about. This is kind
of a murder mister Elda work. So I'm watching it, and I'm sitting
there with my wonderful, impatient spouse and we're going, okay, trying to
identify these spots that could be over in the Big Bend area, maybe similar
between cedar Key and Alma sassa Are. Could that be around south of Daytona,
maybe around Pillarsher Creek. I don't recognize this stuff. Well, they're
filming in North Carolina up in the Outer Banks in Wilmington. So congratulations North
Carolina. All the bad things about floridamand you can now claim credit for Well,
it's a it is a I hope it's a revenue generator. But yeah,
Wilmington is a pretty big spot for for cinema and TV shows. K
are A number of them were filmed filmed there, none, you know,
none of them. I think it's kind of like I think it's kind of
like Atlanta in the South. It's something that it's affordable to go to.
There's lots of different venues, there's a friendly government. Um, they're not
going to beach upside the head and shoulders with taxes. I will say that
because I've described for people for a year, mostly in a culinary context,
but culturally, I think it's accurate too that there is a subculture in the
south, the coastal South, the Jimmy Buffet South. However you want to
look at it, that kind of goes from Wilmington, North Carolina, down
the East coast to Daytona Beach, and you can say it has a sister
culture. I think from right north of Tampa, going counterclockwise across the Big
Bend to Florida, through Pensacola up to Mobile, which is you know,
the redneck rid of the area. It's it's similar but different, different food,
but that that coastal southern so it looks the salt marshes of coastal Wilmington
and the outer banks is not dissimilar from that northern part of East Coast before
you hit the mangroves of Florida. So I guess it is cheaper than in
Florida, and it nrbed a main places uh left on the coast that you
can kind of get some of the filming they're doing. So anyway, I've
only end into two episodes. If anybody's looking for I wouldn't say it's marshmallow,
but it's not high maintenance to watch. Everybody needs a little bit of
fluff. Well, you're considering what we usually talked about here on the show.
We don't do the flu fluff topics here. So yeah, I just
because it's a free for all and we own the territory, so to speak,
I just thought I would I would bring that up. But um,
well you should also mentioned, I'm interrupted, you should also mention that the
the USS North Carolina is down in Wilmington, and uh, that's that's a
very good, uh, very good ship to tour if you want to see
what's the big old battleships for l Yeah, I know Texas is in dry
dock right now getting some work done, thank goodness. But yeah, that
the Texas, the North Carolina, the Alabama when you go through mobilele Um,
those are those are just some great, some great warships, some great
stories. And most people you know, think about the Missouri over in Hawaii
and stuff. But if you want to get on an old battlewagon, you
don't have to travel that far. You can if you're near Mobile, Houston
or Wilmington. And I would I would say that you as as North Carolina
would be. If you had to do a destination, I'd rather Wilmington is
just I don't want to upset anybody from Mobile, but um, Wilmington,
North Carolina, in that area, it is one of the more pleasant parts
of the country to be in. It's not as as crowded or have issues
as you have with Houston. Um, it's it's definitely within striking range of
norfolking places like that. It's a it's a it's a nice place to go.
A couple of friends of mine has vacation houses off from the outer banks
too. It's also a pretty good giveaway. But I'll know, if you
want to have to advertise and have more people showing up, No, as
long as they don't stay, it's fine where we welcome everybody as long as
they go home. Um yeah, yeah, you know. The other the
other place it's got some interesting shifts is uh is Mount Pleasant, South Carolina,
where Patriot's point is they have an aircraft carrier and uh the USS leafy
I think the one that the destroyer, that destroyer escorts that took six kamikaze
hits a Roar two and came home. So for what it's worth, it
would not think there you go. Yeah, all right, so let's talking
about let's talking about let's let's talk about something meaningful. Well, let's let's
just go ahead, go for the top rungs that I speak. Um,
I kind of went down a rabbit hole this week that I hope everybody will
will be be patient with me on. But I had a person tapped me
on the shoulder this week when Admiral Acquilina was up on the hill give you
testimony in front of the House and Senate, and I, you know,
I got to generate taxable income, so I was a little busy. I
wasn't watching in a real time, And since then I try to grab what
I can based upon some of the taps on the shoulder that I got.
And Aquilino he's one of those guys that I guess in a way you've got
to you've got to tap your hat to him, and that he's got a
little bit of luck, a little bit of hard work, I guess.
But he was pack Fleet when the Balhamer shard bird. He was also in
the mix there and with the Roosevelt in twenty twenty with the Covid kerfuffle,
and he emerged from the both of those events unscathed. Obviously, he was
promoted up, but he had two things that he commented on that I kind
of wanted to talk about. One was some questioning that he got from specifically
Representative Gallagher about our inventory of weapons, something that we've talked about, you
know, for years here, but we've talked about it a few times in
the context of the lessons that the Russia Ukrainian War is trying to tap everybody
on the shoulder about about what you buy in peace versus what you need at
war if you're going to go more in seventy two hours. And the second
issue had to do with a very strange comment that he said in response to
a question by the Lusio Pennsylvania representative. I'll get his name right during the
Breakwell get my sheet. But I got actually a little fancy here, and
I got an audio clip that I wanted to bring up, and then we
can talk about the first issue, and i'd ask everybody as they listen.
The video is a little better because you can get a little bit of facial
tells from Admiral Aquilino, but you can also hear the audio as well.
This is an exchange. Representative Gallagher had brought up some of the war games
that they were going to be doing and some of the lessons that they had
specifically about inventory and are the depth or lack there of our magazine there a
little bit of talk about war gaming, but it's a comment towards the end
that I want everybody to kind of focus. One thing quickly becomes apparent.
We go Winchester on critical weapon systems, we run out of long range fires.
In particular, I would be curious to get your view on that.
What worried you about the stockpiles of long range fires that we have west of
the International Dateline, and what do you think is our best way to start
replenishing our stockpiles to make sure that you have what you need in theater prior
to the shooting starting. So thanks Connorshman. First, let me just make
sure I want to make sure how you know I look at wargames right.
Wargaming is a learning objective, So when people talk about hey, who won,
who lost, wargaming is not about that. It's about learning and understanding
vulnerabilities, strengths and helps you go forward and figure out how to adjust in
what you might need. So when you go into this event, I hope
they're looking at it in the same way with regard to the Munician's piece,
again, I like to talk in a classified setting over the specific issues.
That said, I'm not too worried as it applies to our ability to deter
and then deliver effective contingency operations if required. You're not too worried, I
am. I am not worried. What I would like is the acceleration of
those things identified in the budget, and then in my twelve and fifty four
report, I've made those requirements. You know, also can key in on
Representative Gallagher's tone. He's a little bit incredulous, and I think for good
reasons that we've discussed here and others have talked about, and there's kind of
a meta issue here besides this specific issue. It's first of all, nobody
who's knowledgeable with this issue believes that, and I don't think people think that.
Admiral Aquilino believes that, and I think what we're seeing and you know,
this is an issue that it's hard when you get at that level.
Back at the end of March, Chairman Joint Chief fact General Millie in an
interview over a defense one a lot of people wrote about it. At the
time, he wanted everybody to lower the rhetoric on China. I don't know
if this is Aquilino taking marching orders, are interpreting that he needs to solt
sell China and specifically whether we need to be worried about China. That's part
of lowering the rhetoric. There's a problem, and you know, maybe we
talk about recruiting and has something to do with that. With the credibility the
military, that we don't have much capital left to be going up there and
saying things, it just do not reflect reality. I do not know a
serious person who quote is not worried unquote, And we know what we need
in Congress is the one that's going to cut the checks. So if we
have our senior leaders in uniform for apps going too far and aligning themselves with
the political message of the day, that's for the people who wear civilian outfits
to do. You know, Congress again is going to look at people in
uniform is being handmaids to the politicians that happened to being in the executive branch.
If they want to downplay that, and if you're not saying that you're
worried, then why should Congress give us any more money to build Tea lamps
like wealth. What are we building one hundred and seventeen next year? That's
that's almost one third of a nineteen ninety eight desert fox strike on Iraq.
That's that's keeping a production line open. We can't talk about how we need
to be serious if we're not going to talk serious. I found tell me
what I'm missing here. But in his tone, I could almost tell that
Aqualino he really just doesn't believe it. He just feels it for whatever reason
he has to believe it. Yeah, I think his initial response is the
key. Though, you know, I'm not too worried. I don't know,
you know, I don't know what would you know, make him worry?
But you know, in his position, he can't say, oh,
yeah, you know, we've got enough stuff to last an hour and a
half. You know what, what does that tell anybody who's who's uh will
need to test us? You know you I think he has to be asked
in This is part of the problem of being his position, I think is
he probably had to be really careful not to say, yeah, we're screwed.
I mean, I would prefer that, you know, I'm sure in
private and all the other things he knows, but I don't think that it
woves any of these senior officials about to say, uh yeah, we just
we're really screwed up in the past and I'm just gonna take us ten years
to catch up. You know, we need to be you have to put
a more positive spin on it to that to be in his position. I
think. So the position is I'm not too worried, and if you give
me all the money and the stuff that they gave you on my list,
then I'll be a lot less worried. But I think one thing, I
just think, I think that's a challenge. I think, and again,
you're not being paranoided. People are trying to get you, and you know.
But there his mention of deter I think is important because the Deputy Secretary
Defense Hicks. She and others like her have been pushing for years that the
best way to address the threat from China is to convince them that we'll defeat
them in seventy two hours. And when you have that construct in that mindset,
okay, okay, what can we throw at him and send me two
hours? That's what we need to have. The Russians thought they would take
Kiev inside of seventy two hours you always have to do. And what he's
right about war games, Um, they're they're teaching opportunities and they ask good
questions. And one of the things about war games is you challenge assumptions.
So, Okay, this assumption that we planned on is now invalid. How
do we respond to that? What's our our branch branch plan if this does
not work? So at the seventyo hour mark, really okay, Now,
what are you going to do if all you've done has been focused on de
train by trying to look how scary you are, which it's contrary to Chinese
history that goes back thousands of years. Um. They make the Russians look
sensitive about casualties. They're very tough, they can absorb a lot even with
their demographics they have four times of population that we do. Um. And
talking what we've learned in Ukraine about the fact that we have no Stinger production
line, it's going to take a while to bring it back on board.
We're sending as much artillery ammunition other weapons of high mars that we're spending,
and people need to be careful about looking at the Taiwan conflict if it comes
to pass in isolation saying it's only going to take place in Taiwan. It
is where some people that I respect have kind of been caught in this trap
where they will say, well, the Battle of Taiwan, if it gets
to the point you're worried about high Mars or something like that, then it's
over. Oh no, that's not true. You can't predict it like that.
And also you cannot assume that a conflict in Taiwan is going to be
isolated to Taiwan. There are very few occurrences in world history where two major
hours got into a scrap over a lesser power and it did not metastasize into
other areas. And you know, everybody here can pick whatever other flashpoint on
the Chinese border it might leak over to. And that's what we need to
be thinking about. So I think that I might say Aqualino is lying.
I'm saying saying, though, that his response requires the validation and the air
tightness of a few very very brittle assumptions that, should it fall through,
could be very dangerous for our nation, especially if that is used to not
purchase what we need to be purchased in order to be ready. Again,
it's it's it's I think it's another lost opportunity where we could have advocated for
additional high demand, low density hasset out there that we're going to need.
Yeah. Again, I just I think that those questions make good political theater.
Uh. And I don't see how he could answer it, Um,
you know, as honestly as as you and I might wish that sometimes people
would be honest in that position. But you know, he's he's got he's
got political and diplomatic responsibilities that I think kind of forces force him into these
um odd responses. You know. Yeah, I'm not too worried. We
have enough to deter deter what you know, I mean, um, and
how long do you expect deterrence to last? If you know, if if
you know, are the Chinese trying to build us an overwhelming force that that
that there is no deterrence possible that we can't we know that they're going to
be able to accomplish whatever it is they choose. You know, I think
there's somebody. I think it's just a problem for the senior leadership. And
we've seen what happens sometimes when our senior leaders, both civilian and military,
get a little too candidate sometimes and it causes as many problems, if not
more problems than if if they just kind of put the best face they can
on the situation they're in and move along while hoping that Congress gives them the
money to meet some of the needs that have have been identified in other ways.
And at other times, Yeah, I think you're right. We felt
a little example of that where he's trying to he's in a difficult spot because
in the background, and again I reserve the right to be wrong here,
I think the argument is being overplayed on both sides about we can't give aid
to Ukraine without critically undermining any ability to help Taiwan defend themselves. Well as
as Lincoln said, one war at a time, there's a war that we're
engaged in. It's a proxy fight. Everybody should be on board with that.
Now we are having the Ukrainians minimize the Russian military. They didn't start
the fight, but we can help them continue it. And Aquilino was also
over at the Senate and Senator Ernst asked him, quote, has our support
to Ukraine depleted any munitions needed for Taiwan? Unquote? That was kind of
a setup question. He's kind of in a corner, and Adam Aquilino replied,
quote not at this time, unquote. It's been a great follow up
question. Okay, at what time does it? If you're looking at what
we're sending from High Mars Javelin Stinger's Patriots harpoons, now the ground launched small
diameter bomb, which which is a it's a sexy little thing, and of
course all the one fifty five. Of course it's making an impact. But
I think he's he's worked with his messaging people to go, well, you
can't say that, because then they're going to say, so do we need
to stop giving aid to Taiwan? So they're trying to they're trying to put
him in a corner to be used for political purposes. So I think I
think you have a point that he's kind of in a no win situation,
but that doesn't stop people outside like us and people who have larger microphones from
perhaps pointing out some of these shortfalls and in the argument it's being made,
well, I think a lot of it depends too and whether he's you know,
we talk about a lot of stuff. The war in Ukraine is a
is a land war, it is there are you know, Riverine considerations.
There is the Black Sea stuff, but it is essentially a land war and
the weapons you use for that are different than the weapons I believe if there's
an engagement involving Taiwan or uh in China in any of that area out there,
those are it's going to be that isn't that isn't wasn't a long line
from um in Harm's way. It's a it's a mother loving navy war.
I mean it is that is a navy war. Do we are we seriously
contemplating engaging in the land war Asia? And are we going to invade China
if they invade Taiwan? I just don't uh, you know, I'm I'm
trying to wrap my mind around, uh, why people are upset about equipment
that uh is suitable for land war stuff when we really need to be focusing
on the fact that's going to be a navy war. It's going to be
a Navy and Marine Corps war. Of the Marine Corps have their their distribution
system the way they want to have it. But and you know the other
powers out there, the Japanese and the and the UH, Australians and all,
you know, they're I don't think they're looking at that. Gosh,
we've we've got to be ready to send troops into Shanghai or whatever it's called
down to h to protect what we've got. I mean, we're trying to
keep, as I perceive it, we're trying to keep China from doing something
really stupid and causing a lot of harm to assist him, because they're they
they you know, they've got a mindset that their way is the way,
and and they want everybody to conformed to their standard. Well, good gosh,
judging by the number of misrepresentations of law and fact they make every day,
I'm not sure they would be really happy with the world like that.
But uh, you know, I think it's a navy thing, and I
think that that is the focus that Malaquilino is. If I were to guess
what he's thinking, and this is pure speculation on my part, is Look,
you know, I've got ships. They may not be all the ships
I need. They may not be as as somebody in the chat room says,
not enough tubes. Lee says that not enough tubes to shoot from.
But he's got what he's got, you know, And and if if we
don't strip the forces from the Mediterranean and from the other areas where involve avolved
in then uh, and we can do that, you know, we can
get more tubes out there, but there is it is a question of time
because it is mentioned many times. It's a big ocean, and it takes
a long time to get there. And I think somebody else, I mean,
we're talking about the sustainment and stuff. You know, people keep telling
me, well, we don't have enough escorts to get the ships, the
sustainment forces flowing to to to that region. And and I've argued before,
I'll continue to do this. I don't think that the Chinese are going to
go out of their turf and try and interdict a bunch of shipping from the
west coast the US to Hawaii or from Hawaii, uh sort of New York
wam, you know. I mean, there's there's two thousand miles of ocean
in there. But they've got to come a long way to get to that
point. And then they've got to uh evade our various systems for detecting them,
and then they've got to put up with our marine patrol aircraft systems,
the other equipment we have to make their life miserable, I think, and
I don't think I have any air power that's going to go out that direction
either, So I think the escortship issue kind of we don't need that in
the initial phase from the US to Hawaii, and then the question is we'll
how about Hawaii on and that's a little tougher, but there is some point
where you can draw a circle in the ocean gain you know, this is
this is the air we begin to start to worry about that, and again,
uh, you know, we got these longer range MPAs that can be
out there for a while at thousand miles P eight I think is that at
four hours is kind of their thing. But the distance between uh, you
know, like Wake and Guam and Guam and and Awake in Hawaii, it's
enough that you could you could you can run aircraft from both directions to support
and escort any uh sustainment shipping. And that's not to say that we have
enough tankers and other assets we would need. But I just think we worry
too much about sometimes about the the the or two model of the ESCORG and
stuff that we're not in World War two. Now we've got a whole different
or whole different mess we need to be planning with, and we need to
be thinking about modern equipment. You know, unmanned escort vessels UH, you
know high high altitude electric big gliders, remember the gostomer condor or where everything
is. You know, things that can stay up forever. You know,
we got all kinds of assets we can throw on the path out there to
detect bad guys, to who would interfere with us trying to sustain our forces.
The real issues of course, are you know, guamas vulnerable? How
far out you have to go? Do you go to wake, do you
try and revitalize? Are we going to try and maintain some kind of presence
and on the far reaches of the Hawaiian Islands down and down and Johnson A
Toll and all these other places that they're out there. I mean, we've
got enough issues to be looking at uh and where we can place pace our
versus if we really had to do it. But I don't. I don't
think escorting the initial escorting those sustainment ships is a key issue right now.
You can almost see a threat gradient is the closer you get to UM and
to come a real estarts changing when you get west of Guam. But it
even starts to starts to tick up when you get the Guam and you know
you made you made a comment about, you know, sustainment and our ability
to uh keep the fight going west of the International Dayline. And I think
that was another opportunity that in a different exchange. I don't have the audio
for this one I look for. I couldn't find it, uh that I
talked about briefly at the beginning with the representative Deluzio of Pennsylvania. He asked
Aquilina, quote, where is our sea lift capacity relative to the PRC,
And Aquilino responded, in part, we have a distinct advantage over the PRC
in numbers, in capability. To me, that is telling the person that
gives you money, you don't need to give me any more money traditional sea
lift. I know of no serious person who believes, especially with the interior
lines that China operates under west of Guam, do we have any distinct advantage
over the Chinese in a conflict inside the first island chain when it comes to
sustainment and sea lift. Maybe if you're looking strictly at gray holes, or
maybe you're looking at global sustainment that's fine, But when you're talking about getting
close to China, they're merchant fleet there there maritime militia. They've just they
had so much of the waterway they're flooded with their ships. I don't know
what point he was making there, but I don't think it was constructive for
those that are trying to get additional sea lift and additional auxiliaries to support the
fleet west of the International to eight one. I can't. I was trying
to think of that that same after I heard that quote, I went,
well, how in the world do you come to that conclusion? And I
think you hit on part of the entertry. Was it that he sees I
think somewhere that he's got his own. If China's got these short what what'd
you call it? The interior lines of communication, he's saying, he's saying
the same thing I've got. I've got some kind of short interior line of
communication here. If Guam holes, if U Saipan can be used, if
mog or Tinian can be used, if if the Australia can be used,
you know we're not having to It's not always the the eight thousand mile UH
line. Now, you know, all the all the MSc guys and everybody
understands the stuff goes, well, yeah, but we're where those other ships
gonna you know that get the stuff to those places going to come from and
that that is the question that bothers me and I don't I'm not sure that
that is well thought out by our planners sometimes that they don't remember that during
the durn World War two, that that part of the Japanese effort was to
if they could seize the Solomons, if they could succeed in that, they
could cut off Australia from US pretty pretty well. So, uh, you
know, I know other people have studied World War Two and they understand that
things how used to be, how tough things used to be. But if
we're talking big tankers coming out of out of out of night Aligeria, out
of out of Texas, they're going to come around the uh, the the
end of Africa and charged through the Indian Ocean and get to get to some
of our allies. I'm really curious as to have what you know, again,
not having seen the end, I hope I never do see the op
plans for this. I just I know somebody's got to be thinking about this,
and I don't understand what exactly what his statement was meant to convey that.
Maybe he thinks he's got an interior lines of communication that work for him
to although and I should have said this earlier. Closure of the Red Hill
facility in Hawaii, and I don't think we've replaced that facility with with the
the tanker out there to take the place of that of that structure. I'm
really struggling with how we're going to sustain our forces forward, trying to do
it the way that lets less. Some genius has come up with a much
faster and proder approach tonight. And I'm looking at right now. Yeah,
the you know, technology has changed and things he advanced, et cetera,
and so forth. But uh, yeah, I can see Admiral rick Over
laughing in the background. Um, we have a conventionally powered fleet. You've
got to keep them fueled, you've got to keep them topped off, and
you've got to get weapons forward. I guess if you don't have any weapons,
if you don't have a very deep magazine depth and you have no ability
to reload it, see, then I guess you don't need the sustainment ships.
To take them west because everybody's got to back to San Diego. A
little sarcastic, but hey, we actually have a caller. So, um,
Harry code six five one h you're you're live on mid Rats. Do
you have a question or were you just listening? And I embarrassed you just
listening for now? Okay, Yeah we have that sometimes, but thanks for
calling in anyway. Okay, so we didn't have a question. We just
had a listener. But that's okay. See, we do actually check if
people call in. I did you know one of my little little pet things
that the Navy and We've had some fun conversations over it that I've been kind
of watching and you can go there's a couple of places you actually see the
video of it. But the I think the utility and the use of riverine
forces that I love to talk about, we're seeing playing under playing out this
weekend. I kind of grinned a bit when the announcement came out. For
for those not familiar in the and it's lower reaches than near its estuary,
the dnepro. It's a big river. It's like the Mississippi River between I
don't know, Memphis in New Orleans and it's it's wide, it's big,
and it has some pretty big reservoirs up river as well. It's not it's
not a creek by any straight it's not the potonac Um. It's it's a
big river. But the Ukrainians have done a quote amphibious operation unquote where you
know the old phrase, you do an amphibious operation with the ships you have,
not the ships you wish you have. And there's been a little bit
of a video posted and what they're doing, and from a distance they look
like seven to ten meter ribs. Some of them actually look like commercial boats
loaded with with light infantry, crossing the river from the Ukrainian hell to the
Russian side. And basically they're just pulling up the docks, some people's houses
and unloading what they can carry. But that it's just a little snapshot of
and we've been given them. Some of are left over are discarded river craft
as we decomission that again. But it does go again that if you have
the ability to move forces by sea, it complicates your enemies calculus on how
they're going to defend. They just can't assume that that moat's going to last
and when they're concentrating the forces someplace else, it provides opportunities. I saw
a couple of reports that the Russians had to retreat back to a few miles
inland, to another smaller river that just looks you know, maybe fifty two
hundred yards wide vice a half mile wide. So that was just really interesting
to see how that plays out. But I'm hoping more video will will come
up. And again one of those things that I hope smart people are looking
at the lessons that the Ukrainian war is reminding us of, because I think
that that plays into it as well. You can raise a lot of havoc
on your enemy's plans and they can't consider the uh, the maritime approaches,
even if their fresh water is to be insecure. Yeah, I think,
um, I think Washington is something about the Delaware River. Christmas Eve.
I think I think he kind of something, you know, he kind of
surprised some people. You know, I don't know why we have to keep
warning these these these lessons, but there's you know that there's a difference between
the forces that do what the Ukrainians are doing by gun across is the Nieper
there and and what the Navy Riverine forces were doing like in Vietnam and interact
the interdiction of of UH in Vietnam, the interdiction of the viet Vietcong and
North Vietnamese bad guys and UH and interact the same thing, trying interdict people
using the waterways for um had purposes as far as our side went. But
you know that I look at the was a movie the bridget Ramagan when they're
trying to get hold the one bridge, and uh, you know, then
there's all these other places where there were loading troops, army guys into army
boats and trying to go across these rivers to capture the other side in World
War Two. I mean, it's you know, I think it's a it's
a different it is. I hate to keep throwing things at the land.
That's a land worth thing, but that is a land worth thing as opposed
to you know, the the the Blue Water Navy certainly, and the and
the inshore undersea world in the liberals. So uh there, it's cool that
they're doing that, and I'm glad that we gave them the assets, if
that's what it is that they're using to do that. But I don't right
now. I wouldn't see a mission and I understand why the Navy get rid
of some of this stuff despite the fact that it was really cool. Uh
you know, what's what's the mission that you foresee in the future for a
forest like that? And where would we use it? And that's how you
look at yeah, exactly. Well, you know, you look at thee
you look at the globe, you look at any type of place that has
a major riverine type environment. You know, people said we would never need
it again, and we decommissioned. I think our last reserved rivery unit was
in California in the late nineties. And when we invaded into the Iraq in
two thousand and three, you had the Tigers and Euphrates River that we had
no ability to securely project power on until our army guys creatively acquisitioned a few
fishing boats, and we're able to help secure dams, help interdict um some
of our opponents who are using the waterways as are always used as a way
to transport things, you can. I've heard people make the argument that there's
there's no job for these small ships in a conflict with China. It depends
on where that conflict goes, you just don't know. There are too many
places in the world that have an nearshore environment that either we are our partner
nations will need that capability turnkey and ready to go, otherwise we'll have to
recreate it again. I think we're very bad where the next conflict will go.
So all we can do is look at a map and when you have
major river systems in places, we will probably be in a conflict and we
either going to have that capability or we'll just have to vision on the fly.
And based upon our experience in Iraq, we developed a good group of
a nice bit of kit with a lot of flexibility. And now we're getting
rid of it again. And I can see the argument. I can actually
make the argument if you want to pay me to do it. But I
don't think at the end of the day, getting rid of that capability is
going to be worth the price of needing it again. I think in the
last two hundred years are major conflicts. What do we not need that?
In? Maybe World War One we didn't need it, in we definitely needed
it. World War two we use it in Korea to a lesser extent.
Definitely in Vietnam definitely in Iraq, had no use support in Afghanistan for obvious
reasons. But Spanish American War absolutely, US Civil War, Oh my gosh,
huge, huge play. So it's I just think it's it's an interesting
discuss some point. And I know that the Ukrainians can't get enough of their
of their small ships because they've they've gotten religion on it as well from a
couple of things that I've read. Yeah, you know, if I look
at the river systems in Europe, I don't know why I was trying to
look at this up the other day. We're trying to find it. Well,
gosh do they do who's got the river patrol boat stuff that they would
need to go down the Danube and all these other fairly large river systems.
And I donn't think anybody in Europe maintains a river ene force of the kind
we had because I guess, you know, well, we're all we're all
the EU now, we don't need this sort of thing. But you know,
uh I would I wouldn't be looking at that, and I don't I
don't know if they have, you know, police patrol boats they think are
adequate or what. But yeah, I think that maybe our European allies will
wake up a little bit to things that could be an issue for and that
having some kind of river forest might be to their benefit. And and you
know, I'm not I'm not against the obviously against the small ships. I
think we need tons of them, and I think especially around the Philippines and
they and the other archipelagoes out in the in the near the South Finessee or
the or the West Philippine Sea as I like to call it. Um You
know, those are those are really valuable assets, just like that the PT
boats UH in World War two were an asset, and that in those very
waters and down on the Solomons and and other places where they could interdict Japanese
barges and all kinds of stuff and do a lot of damage at reasonably low
cost, for low low risk to a crew of what they have five or
six guys on those things. Anyway, Well, I've got great news for
you, um as you might be aware. I troll the Austrian and German
military YouTube channels. They put out some good kit, some good stuff,
and of course my Germans not what it used to be. So I do
the auto translate into English, which does a really good job in translating.
And about a year ago, I think it was they Austrians put out a
little video. They do have riverine assault craft and they were showing one of
their exercises and they use it kind of like what the Ukrainians are doing a
lot of and what was done a lot in Vietnam, where you have special
operations forces, you need to insert somewhere or you need to extract somebody come
up river, makes a big noise, breaks things, inserts or takes people
and then returns back across the water with you know, just lightly armored but
heavily armed assault those crafts. So I know at least the Austrians on the
Danube had that capability. They actually used to have they called it a navy,
but they decommissioned it and the army took over the responsibilities. But I
think a lot of it just has to do the fact that they're all in
the EU. Um, you know, maybe the Serbians still have something significant,
but there's a rudiment free capability there. Yeah, that's good to hear.
I mean I was. I always have fun when I go to Austria
because I trained. What's the Austrian navy. When when did they last have
a navy? I guess when they hit you know, so I didn't find
any riverine patrol boats in the Austrian navy. But obviously I wasn't reading and
my germanist non existent, so I wasn't reading about them. What's their army
army was up to? So well, if you talked to a northern German,
Austrian isn't real German anyway, so I don't know that it would help
you. Here. Here's here's something else that I wanted to talk about today
simply because I found the numbers interesting and a bit shocking. Is the recruitment
numbers came in, And I'll just go ahead and and put it out there.
The Marines, as the Marines do, they actually got one hundred percent
of the recruiting goal. The Air Force got eighty seven percent of their recruiting
goal. I guess they include Space force with that too. Who knows.
The Army sixty nine percent, and the Usnighty only got sixty percent of their
recruiting goal. And you know, you would think and actually wouldn't think it's
true that all the barriers the services space bringing people in ie you have a
body of seventeen to twenty two year olds. You're going to bring in his
year enlist group plus a few people that are older. You all have.
That challenge is overweight, drug use, criminal record, desire to serve.
That affects everybody equally. So when you have such a disparity from sixty percent
to one hundred percent and say, well, all the Marines are a special
true, and they're smaller, true, but not in the European sense.
Okay, so you know, take out, take out the Marines. Air
Force is pretty big and the army's pretty big, and they're doing significantly better
than the Navy. So I read a couple of replies from Navy Recruiting Command
and it was just boilerplate, pao production squid ink, no pun intended,
doesn't really say anything. But I would really be interested to see behind the
closed door, what is causing or what are the top three to five causal
factors that makes the Air Force get eighty seven percent and the Navy gets sixty
percent. It's just a huge disparity. Well, I think a lot of
it is with media coverage. I mean, how many positive stories have we
seen about the Navy in the last years. I mean, I mean the
Marines. The Marines are always gonna they're gonna appeal to a certain group of
people because of the way they and they're advertising is just terrific. But the
Navy, uh, I'm always reminded of it. You know, joined the
Navy and anyway, it's it's a long time ago, but yeah, I
mean, you know, we've got collisions, we've got nearer collisions, we've
got chips on fire, we've got uh, you know, extended deployments,
we've got uh, you know, I mean the number of problems is lengthy.
The number of positive spin stories is pretty small. So uh, either
our PAOs need to step up and you know, reveal the good the good
stuff. And I'm not talking about the stuff that appeals to the politicians,
but the stuff that would appeal to your average eighteen year old kid who's thinking
about joining that service, you know the it. And it used to be,
you know, we would recruit people because well, we'll give you a
career. You know, you come in, we'll train you to do uh,
this kind of work. I don't think we even advertise that anymore.
Maybe we do, but I don't, you know, I'm not I'm not
sure I see it anywhere so that one of the most positive movie recently is
about the Navy is is uh popgun Maverick? Once again, you know,
we're dealing with a small, very elite group of fighter pilots, and we
don't mention enough about what the cruise in a carrier. Uh see. I
see air ops stuff going on, but you know, not enough credits given
to those those people and what they were doing in support of what what Maverick
and his kids were trying to do. And I think you mentioned something that
I think has a lot to do with it is a lot of what you
see our navy doing, who they're trying to talk to seems to be very
very narrow. It's a narrow net on a narrow group of issues. You
only have a limited pot of if you're a leader, personal capital or if
you're a service institutional capital that you can draw on. So you have to
invest and spend that and you know, very very careful ways, and obviously
we're not doing that well. And our various ways of communicating to young men
and women who might be interested in serving, if we would would be closer
to the Air Force as opposed to being in the background, and you're right,
image matters. We've talked about it for years. Other people have as
well. You know, nobody is going to say I want to I want
to serve on that ship when it's rusting all over the place. Or you
have leaders who say, well, you know, nine months deployments are the
new just because and you have retentions. Evidently the Navy's retention is actually a
little bit better, but that's not reflected. And those who are retaining convincing
other people to come join us, you know, the old hometown recruiters type
of folks where you go back and get and tell the Navy's story. So
we're not talking to the right audience. We're not putting out the right messages
to bring people in, and where what we are doing is not going in
the right direction towards a broad enough audience to bring it in. That has
got to be a very direct conversation we have with ourselves, both our messaging,
our conduct, in our leadership. But I haven't I haven't seen that,
at least in public. Hopefully it's going to be something in private that's
being done. I think that is probably the next two The Naval Operations who
his responsibility is to train man and equip that maybe he can flop that and
focus on personnel and recruiting and doing it in a different way, because I
sixty percent when the US Air Force getting eighty seven percent inner service rivalries aside.
To me, that's a red letter underlying emphasis that what we're doing now
we need to stop training time out, recruiting time out, and we need
to do something that works well. If two as an air Force sprout,
I will tell you one of the attractions of the air Force is they don't
go anywhere. Well, you know they have. We did travel a lot,
and we moved a lot, but you know the we did not you
have a fixed base. For the most part. Air Force people are not
gone for six to nine months. I mean they do t wise and all
that stuff, but either generally not gone for eleven month deployments as or ten
month deployments or nine month deployments, and they've uh it always seems to me
that they were a little more I think a little more technical, uh in
their jobs than than some of the positions we have in the Navy or had
in the Navy. So uh that which isn't true. We have you know,
we have we have the eighteen year old kid fixing jet airplanes just like
the Air Force as eighteen year old kids fixing jets as just that he's doing
amount of carrier and under conditions that are different. I always thought, like
an Hunt for Red October, that the real hero of that movie is Jonesy,
the sonar man who detects this this weird noise. He didn't know what
it was, right, I mean that where that starts. So let's play
up the jones He's of of the of the of the fleet. You know
that Again, the stories out there from these these young kids, these flight
deck cruise, the people on the submarines, you know, we those those
are stories that need to get told. And and uh, you know,
we keep focusing on on the the airplane drivers and the occasionally, well we'll
have some movie about swos fighting monsters from outer space on a battleship that hasn't
seen hasn't seen action in a hundred years. But you know, other than
that, we're doing great as far as the recruiting stuff, you know,
is jazz up our message. Not everybody in the nag of Seal. That's
that's fine. We don't need everybody to be a seal, but there are
those people who are doing really important work that we need to just kind of
and then and there must be some some way to do that that that wouldn't
come across as uh uh hooky. But you know, I always love the
Marines because the Marines stand. We know, we get to go do all
this this stuff. Who gets them there? Who? Who? Who takes
the Marines from point A to point B so they can do those those things
that you know, so they can run to the sound of the guns or
whatever their motto is. So uh you know, that's the Navy mission and
that's and we've managed to deliver them successfully for a few hundred years now.
So I need to tell that story. And we and we have a great
story. You know, everybody could sit around and tell ce stories all day.
And we're not telling ce stories. We're talking about other things. We're
not we're not selling ourselves very well, um, either in Congress or in
the public space. So I think it's time to break that down to parade
rest and rebuild it because it's simply not working. And there's some accountability there
too, which I think, Um, you know, we're gonna have a
new CNO in the next year, Yeah, I don't. I don't think
the present CNO is going to do much to change, being that this has
kind of been on his watch. But there'll be an opportunity for the new
CNO, whoever that is. Hopefully that would be one of their folks.
Because if you don't have when you don't have a bit a big enough pool
coming in, you take what you can, which means you're taking in a
lower quality person. That's just the way the math works. If you have
no selectibility, then you're not very selective. So we need to have a
more a larger pool of people who are interested to come in the Navy,
so we can select the people that we want to and we don't have to
start changing standards simply to be able to get people in there. And we'll
have to make other adjustments to to get that number. I just hope the
response isn't Okay, everybody, you're you're now not going to be manned at
eighty percent. You're going to be manned it's sixty. I don't think that's
the answer. We've got to bring the people in to do the job.
Otherwise we know how that works out. In the end, one last stor
on accountability, which I wanted to bring to the listeners. We talked about
a little bit in the pre show. I caught bits and pieces which you
know, Russian podom. I remember back in the Cold War days, the
Soviet Pacific Fleet was kind of the you had the red banner, Northern Fleet
always got all the good stuff. Then the Pacific Fleet, and then the
Baltics Fleet came up third, and maybe the Black Sea was fourth. I
don't know. But the Pacific Fleet commander, let's see if I can get
his name right here, Admiral Sergei Avancas. He's been in the job since
twenty twelve. Well, they had a couple of the media reports that they
had a snap exercise. Nothing's snap in Russia, but maybe they did.
But they had the next use here a few weeks ago. Well, when
it was done, they relieved the commander who'd been in the job for the
last eleven years. I think they're they're sending him off to the Russian equivalent
from what I read of the junior ROTC, and they're going to place them
with the Baltic Sea commander who's only been in the job for a couple of
years. So it's either having learned their lessons of not holding their their senior
officers accountable for readiness, and Ukraine is helping the Russians where you think how
they hold their senior leaders accountable in other places? Are there some palace entry
going on? I don't think it's palace entry because this guy was sent off
to the Pacific Fleet in twenty twelve. There's no power base out there on
the other side of Asia. I just thought that was an interesting story that
kind of bookends a fleet commander who has less instellar performance. Oh it wasn't
our navy, but it was a navy. Yeah, you know, I
want if you threw a readiness exercise and and nobody showed up ready, I
mean, it's the the story. We have the same story when they did
the readiness stuff on our on our uh ready reserve lead or whatever it was.
That that what feul You know, I don't know if we held anybody
account we fire anybody over that. I mean, you know we did.
I think what ten percent of our ships were capable of getting to undersea?
I can't remember the exact figures. Sound mccargniano knows, but you know,
Uh, where is the accountability from for the leaders who are who are you
know, for finding things aren't ready and all that? Whose heads are being
being sent to the junior ROTC billets in kiakak Iowa. I don't know,
but that's how you that's how you get. People started World War Two,
both army and UH and maybe went through a lot of commanders who knew were
probably really good at their jobs in peacetime, but didn't exactly hack it during
the during wartime. And I hate to think we're gonna have to go through
that again down the road, but we'll see maybe how many programs when you're
sorry, Yeah, we probably will. I think you're right, he's just
gonna it's gonna take something like that. I have read a couple of articles
in the last few months we were talking about how you know the Russians as
they do they are a learning institution and maybe this is a maybe I'm giving
them too much credit, that maybe this is a manifestation of a new attitude
they have towards UH, you know, quit quick gun decking your your readiness
reports. We're going to do surprise inspections UH like um and adimiral I once
work for. He took over a command from a guy who used to blow
towards people who kaz rep and his attitude was I want you to kaz rep.
And it took them a long time to change the attitude of people.
It's like, why is it that kaz Repp. Well, we didn't notice
that kaz rep it. So again, it's all about attitude and leadership and
things of that manner. As it always says in this line of business.
Um, well, hey, here's an hour. We always joke that we
have no problem filling up an hour. That's true, and because we can
pontificate with the best of him. And if everybody is sticking with us to
this end, I'll let you know. Next week we're actually going to get
We'll help you get your JPNE signed off. We're going to go joint next
week. We're actually bringing on board definitely a US Army Lieutenant Colonel Matt Errol
and may become some of his co authors. I think a Marine Corps officer
maybe joining us as well. He recently wrote an article you can find over
at I think Modern War Institute is where you can find it. Graveyard of
the command Posts, which I think what he talks about in this article directly
translates to the maritime and the air domain. Really everything it has to do
with one of the lessons that they are taking out of the Russia Ukrainian War,
and that is and anybody who has served in our wars in the last
twenty years know what I'm talking about. Our four deployed command posts have gotten
huge, and they leak electrons all over the place, and we've gotten a
little complacent about how dangerous that can be, and not just to our generals
and our admirals, but for the ability to command forces in the field.
So they've looked at the challenge, look at some of the things that we're
doing, some of the lessons, half a few things. So we're gonna
have them on next week to talk about that if you all wanted to read
up ahead of time. Also, if you're still with us, that tells
me that you're you're a fan of mid rat and you like hearing us talk.
If you haven't already, please go over to iTunes or wherever you get
your your podcasts and give us a five star review, put a couple of
nice comments on there. Don't give us a four star because you're modest reason
why we want to do that, not because we have tender egos, which
we might, but because when you give it a five star review and you
say a couple of things that you like about the show it in their search
engine, it ups us in the national security arena. And if you like
mid Rats, you would want other people to find us as well, and
when they're searching for things involving the Navy or the military, we're more likely
to pop up above the fold, and then they can come enjoy mid Rats
like you do. So that's kind of my altar call for for the day.
You got anything else for us there? Ego one, No, just
thank everybody for being here today. We'll meet them down the road perfect and
we'll see everybody next week. And until then, I hope everybody has a
great Navy day. Cheers like my lonely wants to marry me and long believe
the brand that we can't believe for your being to blame my love faily wove
me silly faulting your the dame. It's a long way to differ, It's
a long way to go, It's a long way to differently. The greenest
gn I know, don't by be God healing. Well, let's talk.
Swell. It's a long long way to DIEP my lam it, but my heart b