Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander an Eagle one from Eagle Speak
at Sea or Shore your home for a discussion of national security issues in all
things maritime. And welcome onboard everybody, and I hope that you had a
great July fourth weekend. And now that we're plowing in to the to the
heat of summer, we're back and we're alive. And for those getting the
podcast, we're popping back up into your feet again and this is a great
opportunity to come out of the heat. And I think unfortunately my illustrious co
hosts had escaped to higher elevations, but now he's down in the fever swamped
load lands. But it's been a couple of weeks, Eagle one. Great
to talk to you again. Yeah, thanks for it was I was at
altitude but it wasn't any cooler. It was really hot, and we came
down here and I thought, that's actually cooler down here than it wasn't there.
But it's still hot and miserable, so you know, it's summertime.
Yeah, that's the pricary pay for not living in in made no offense,
Claude, It's just too damn cold up there. But that's okay. But
like all good Southerners are before air conditioning, and we keep our traditions.
Um, you want to kind of find low impact activities just so you don't
die of heat stroke. I mean, I made the mistake last week of
not following that advice. But uh. And in the in the pre show,
just for the listeners to know, we're gonna we're gonna take a little
side trip here. UM, my co host brought up the topic that one
of the best ways, whether you got HVAC or not, to avoid the
heat is to find a good book. And over the course of years,
we've interviewed a lot of authors here, both fiction non fiction, UM,
most of them involving the military or the UM and the career of arms,
so to speak. Uh. And I think that's a great topic. So
we have all the news of the day, um that we could chat about
on the other end. But and we're gonna catch up from some of the
things we have started on the pre show. And I immediately went to um
some some of my recent acquisition that I haven't got my forty hour day to
be able to read. But my co host brought up the fact that you
know, it's not just you know, history and non fiction, but there's
also some great fiction out there, so whether you're a listener or not.
So I figured we just kick off the show for one minute or sixty minutes
and let's just let's just talk about some books. Some of the things that
we're thinking about are some of the things that we've gotten, and how we're
going to kind of grab some books to avoid the heat. You know,
Mark, you mentioned some great ideas of some some book recommendations, but also
kind of a philosophical bent that I thought was really interesting. Yeah, I
don't remember the philosophical event, but you know, learning about how people think
and why they make the decisions they do, I think it's really important.
So a lot of these books that I like are written by Guy's reformer CEOs
and many of the books of either squadrons or ships, and many of the
books are our fictions. Some of them are based on real life events and
they've substituted characters in from from uh from real life. So you know,
when I'm reading or listening to UH some books by a retired Navy Cafainet Pt.
Dudman, who is a former CEO of a destroyer, but he's more
of my vintage. So the destroyers were not that he commanded. We're not
or served on. We're not the uh, the modern miracle of electronic innovation
that the current ones are. But you know, he's got a situation where
a destroyer CEOs in in the battles of the Solomons in the slot, and
the guy's got to decide, uh, where should I be fighting this ship?
And you know the doctrine those days was the CEO is always on the
bridge and you can run the battle from there. But what the advent of
radar? Uh, he realizes that that day is going to die, that
he can't get the picture he could if he was in combat information center.
And and so you knows, as you see this change nowadays, the command
commanders of ships are are they're supposed to be in combat. They're supposed to
be where they can see the big screens and see the big picture and hear
from the sonar people. But think what an innovation that simple amount of technology,
What we diday think is simple radar and sonar had on the on the
waist. The approach to battle was made. So the attacks of World War
two, if you read about the battles in the in the in the slot
against the Japanese and the effects of the long lances torpedoes and when they when
the radar caught on and the people who were smart enough got the idea of
how to use it to our advantage and really turned the course in the war
against the Japanese navy and that type of night action and helped us move move
the battle forward. So if you start thinking about fiction and you see see
what this character is going through, and lord knows, I was on a
on an old destroyer. My CEO had to go to that decision and ended
up looking at and actually went in to see I see leaving the officer of
the deck uh to to make sure we weren't going to run into anything.
But you know, that was a that was a big decision for these for
these officers who have to balance what the doctrine says with what the reality is
of the situation. So I think that's important to see how a simple thing
like that can change the way we view the world. And I think fiction
is a great way to put that forward. That's exactly the philosophy I was
looking for, and and just the you know, there's a couple of authors
just to give everybody a preview that you know sometimes this summer. It really
depends upon their publisher and when they began the big push. We have a
reporter, John Dunlevy, has a book coming out. I'll remember the title
here in a little bit. And a prior guest, Seth Folsom from his
he just recently left active duty last year. We've had him on before.
Nothing here worth dying for the story of Task Force Lyon that went after Isis
and Northern Iraq and rolled that up. Just a great piece of nonfiction.
And I think that's the key, is not only if you're trying to understand
what is happening today, but to try to get a handle on what options
we may come in the future, whether as an individual or nation. Studying
the past, our in based upon the past, or even the recent future.
It's great because it makes makes you think. I remember the young junior
officer. I ask people, you know, what should I read? And
I was told biographies, biographies, biographies. I forget the exact phrase.
I had one of my professors mentioned to me, he said, don't go
for autobiographies. He had a clever turn of phrase about autobiographies, He said,
biographies are good if you want to learn how people think and also get
for especially if you can read more than one on somebody you really find interesting.
Is a good biographer won't just give you the the fuzzy view of the
individual, but the complicated view of the individual where even great people and great
leaders may have faults or may have weaknesses, but that doesn't attract from their
greatness, which I think is it's helpful if you're working with or for somebody
who isn't perfect, that you accept that and you look for the larger,
the larger plus or minus of an individual, the role that they play.
I think it's also very interesting to see where leaders are just plain old individuals
are faced in a situation where they have no great answers or they have no
great options, but they have to pick one and you and how you have
to live with that, because I think we've all seen our lives people,
and regardless of whether you're a military officer or a mailman or something in between,
that often you have to make a decision at the moment, or you
make a decision and error, or you're just a human being and thinking that
you're the only person that's ever come into that situation. Can wear a lot
on a person's soul, can wear their feelings of themselves a little thin,
and can paralyze them. But if you read a lot and you're able to
get a little better perspective on even you know, great men and women and
some of their mistakes, shortcomings, or how they came around them, it
can really help you in your everyday life. And especially if you're a leader
and you've got people that you're responsible for. When you make yourself better and
you have a little more confidence, a little more forgiving of yourself, those
people rely on the decisions you make, so it's better for everybody down the
chain. And it's it's it's we talk about books a lot, and it's
really easy to get caught up in the immediate dopamine hit of social media and
stuff. But yeah, when it's ninety eight degrees outside with ninety percent humidity,
and you've got a chair that's right under event, and you have a
little book next to you, it's a it's a great way to not create
much internal heat, but to really build up you're in your mind some great
perspective in a way, it could be therapeutic. Yeah, I think the
ability to place yourself in some uh, the position of somebody who's got to
confront one of those decisions. And I think if you read the the uh
Patrick O'Brien novels, that you know, the Audrey matter in books, the
the Dewey Landam books, the Alan Lurie series, Uh, you know Claude's
Barabies, uh, Connor Stark books. You know, these are people are
constantly in situations where they have to think of a solution to a problem that
exists. And and of course with the age of sale, you had a
little more time to deal with it. The nice amount reading some of them
are the more contemporary fiction, the Kine Mutiny, Herman Wild books or in
Remembrance uh there. You know, there are a lot of books fictional or
not, about how you know, the the how we fought World War two
and not always necessarily in the in the psychology, what goes on when you're
under fire and your your ship is headed into into a dangerous situation. You
know, how do you address that? And it's it's it's it's really you
know, good to get that and brand to practice in your own mind.
And this is what we were taught as Jo's was you know, if you're
out here on one watching, it's boring. And a lot of time being
on watch is boring, you know. I think of situations where you know,
what if this happened? What would you do? If? You know?
Those those what if situations are what makes for great fiction. And the
solutions and the creative ways people come up to solve the problem are the are
the the should be the focus of Well, I think a lot of shipboard
conversations or squadron conversations about you know, and and and I don't since I
was never a naval aviator myself, I've got a couple of close ones to
me. But you know, is that discussed in the ready room? You
know, here's the situation, How would you deal with this? I mean,
I think that's part of the training. I think that's part of what
top gun is supposed to help you do. Send aviators back to each other
people how to think. It's through those situations. But you know, the
the wardroom discussion of tactics and all that, that's you know, that's really
where the training goes. We have all these work colleges and academies and stuff,
but the essential part ought to be out there. And I think our
friend just was reading his book and I had to remember this. Um,
it'll come to me another another rotorhead who has a book called Like the Naval
Mind, Growing the Naval Mind, Improving the Naval Mind. You know what
I'm talking about. Oh, yeah, I can't put it off my head.
Yeah, I gotta hear somewhere. We'll make everybody wait for my brain
to work. Well, well, while you're picking that up, I just
remember Jerry Dunlevy and James Hanson's book that's coming out pretty soon. It's it's
what a lot of us have been waiting for, and we talked about here.
It's Kabul, the untold story, Biden fiasco, and the American warriors
who fought to the end. You know, maybe talk later on. I
had all my list of things maybe to talk about. Was the Department of
States data delt right, fourth July, fourth weekend. But yeah, I
think Jerry and James book UM coming out when it is a couple of years
after UM September and August of twenty twenty one. I think it's going to
be first in a whole series of books that are going to be be looking
at that story, which I think the we would have seen more about it
if the Russia Ukrainian War didn't kick off. Yeah, you know, I
think that that's the other context is a lot of times things don't make any
sense unless you have the historical background to know. Yeah, thank you,
Chris DD Armstrong book Improving the Naval Mind or whatever it is, just you
know, it's a really good good way to talk, you know, think
about He has suggestions and items in there for people to take to their their
ready rooms, in their and their wardrooms, and and let's you know,
let's talk about these this article and some of them from proceedings further from other
places. You know. That's that's a great idea. And I wish more
ships that I've served on had had done that. And uh, in fact,
I regret that I didn't do more of that when I was a SEO
of of some units that it could have used some training like that. But
that's that's that's the kind of thing. And you know, all the all
the books I've got all these books here that China's Law, to see the
Freedom's Forge. You know, they're all background into how difficult it is to
get a country ready to go to war, and uh, and what we're
dealing with when somebody wants to impose it, there will on on a on
a world that isn't quite ready for it. And and I'm in a lot
of these books I pick up because we've talked to people on the show.
So somebody mentioned John Layman's book Uh Oceans uh Ventured and I, okay,
well that's available on kindall. So now I've got that on my list.
I got I got too much stuff to read here, but uh, you
know, and then that led me somewhere else to the Korean air warn.
I go, well, yeah, that's probably pretty important thing because we did
fight a war there, we I probably know more about that. So we
had you know, they're one thing least another end up doing a lot of
a lot of reading. Some of it is Germaine directly to what you're talking
about, and some of it is is are thinking about, and some of
is um uh maybe not as directly related, but it's sortaly it's sort of
like, if you read this is good, this is going to often the
Navy Con. When when we've had David Webber at the Navy Con a few
years ago, you know, I'm reading his books and I'm going, well,
he took this directly from the American uh so he's got the Safe Old
series, and the Safe Old series has this planet with out of nowhere where
they the people have gone to hide. But the book is based on the
transition from sail from from uh. I mean, it's my hand, it's
it is my hand in the science fiction scheme of things, and it's it's
it's really wonderfully well done. And then we've we've we've discussed before this concept
of these of these spaceships with what I've called him by a blog and stuff
missile barges. You know, I mean, it's a concept that ought to
work anyway, you can't go wrong by reading this. You can read hind
lines, some of the hind lines books that involve the you know, I
mean everybody recommends Starship Troopers, but there are other ones out there that are
designed to help you think about how how things ought to work. And then
all that led to, well, if you're going to read books this summer,
and I see everybody's given us great lists here in the in the chat
room. Um, you know, then what about movies that are fun?
I mean just good, good, solid movies to watch. And I thought,
well, okay, let's put down a list. What have I watched
so far this summer? And well, I watched Gee in Harm's Way,
They were Expendable, Away, All Boats, Greyhound, The Bridges of Toco
Ree. I mean, The Bridge of Toco re Is is a great film
and a great book Destination Tokyo. Um what is that? Uh? I
don't remember. I can't read my own writing anymore, you know, Top
Gun, Top Guns, whatever the second movie is. And now I was
looking at going, oh, you know, well that great funny movie hot
Shots. That's that's kind of a fun That's a fun one. So uh
you know, they're just I think we have all kinds of stuff that we
we can you can do in the summer to get yourself out of the eat
and have a good time. Not to mention books. I just there's another
one. Stephen Kuntz when he before he went completely loony about flying saucers.
You know, any of the guy who wrote The Flight of the Intruder and
yeah and all that, so you know there and there's always the sand pebbles,
uh you know, and and there are any number of books on the
on the China Fleet era. Uh. We've mentioned them on our on the
on the show before. But you know, if you're dealing with China,
part of what you have to understand is get in the background. What there's
some good books on the Opium War war and the effect that head on China,
and I think those are you know, a good background understandable at what
excuse they used to be the way they are and what you know to how
they've their revenge against the culture that took away their great their great empire.
You know one thing that UM and I I try and I have like um
uh seths fulsome books I've I've read all my all my I've had UM and
I do read a fair number, mostly because I get them from the library
for free. But yeah, that's one thing that you know, getting books,
uh can can get expensive real fast. And I would offer anybody on
the line. I'm making assumptions here, but if you don't have a library
card, UH, you should get one for your local library. Also MWR
you can get books through them too as well. But you be surprised the
really if you're a listener to mid Rats, you think a certain way the
amount of good books that you can get on audiobook are also your Kendall ebooks
from the library. You just have to read them in a timely manner before
the electrons to suck it away. Depend upon which library you use, but
that's another way that you can get those books that cost you nothing but the
effort of getting a library card. And another thing if you're in the A
lot of people in the Navy, either through in Asked Jacksonville or at Mayport,
are familiar with and the most I know there's a I can't remember it
in Norfolk what it's called, but pretty much any town has second hand bookstores
that are pretty extensive. In Northeast Florida, it's Shamlin's book Mine. And
you know, when we decided that we were going to talk of books,
I was, you know, I felt like a kid at Christmas again.
It's like, oh, I canna show everybody my presence. But you can
go over there and you can get if you know, what are we going
to do in the future. Everything kind of cycles and repeats. There are
some great minds, and for instance, I got there's a whole series of
these, but I just picked up this one, and I think what I'll
do is on the show page, I'll put up links so people on the
podcast, and maybe if I have enough room on Spreaker's text, I'll put
a link to as many of the things that we talk about here for folks
to look at. But John Hopkins University of Press in nineteen seventy four,
and I can't pronounce his name correctly, Edward what lutt Wak. You can
google him. He's a pretty big head. It's a little thin little book
that next time I'm at a second bookstore, I want to see what the
other ones. But they had studies in International Affairs. Number twenty three was
The Political Uses of Seapower. It's a RiPP born seventy four page hardcover that
I'm going to take care of next time. The rain interferes afin ability to
mow the art. But I think I mentioned this once, if those in
mid rats or online or something. But there is a series of books that
was put out at the opening of World War Two, and I had the
copy from nineteen forty one by some guy who I really don't recognize, with
the last name of Baldwin. But what the citizens should know about the Navy?
And as I've done the usual I just want to read a page for
the middle. This has all sorts of stuff that it's a shame we don't
have some modern way of doing this, but I guess in some ways,
you know, that's what we do on mid At and what they do at
Simsek, and we're on the Rocks and other locations online where people are talking
about trying to enhance awareness. Really neat book. And I want to credit
either salmor Cogliano or John Conrad, one of the two, but they mission
this book by retired Admiral Henry Eccles. And this improment is from let's see,
this is nineteen fifty nine. It's a first edition. But this is
Logistics in the National Defense, and I'll tell you it's there's not much that
changes about sticking stuff in a hall, of getting at west and hoping that
your supplying income incoming is greater than your expenditures outgoing. And this is one
of those things I think when I get through reading, I'm gonna beat my
head against the wall for about twenty minutes. And you're talking about the bridges
of Toker. Read this. I forgot it. May have Lessio may have
recommended this to me a while ago, but it was right up there on
the shelf and I had to get it. And it's from nineteen forty two
Random House sue as the Singapore by the Cecil Brown's story quote grim Warfare in
the Desert and the money jungles, the sinking of Repulse and Prince of Wales
to follow Singapores in the last day of the Indias into Australia today. So
the war at least for the Commonwealth was only halfway done, and they had
already he had already pushed out this book that's got some great, great maps,
and it's almost six hundred pages long. And a lot of these used
bookstores, some of them will have a military section, other ones will have
a history section. Somebody them will have a military history section. He kind
of it's kind of like sifting for gold. But I got off the whole
stack of stuff that I've picked up over the course of the last few years,
mouncing into this place. There is now closed, But back in the
nineteen nineties there was a hole in the wall used bookstore in Saint Augustine.
I was there for a romantic weekend with my wife and yeah, ladies,
you're lucky didn't marry me. On this romantic weekend, I found an English
translation of Mussolini's treaties from the nineteen twenties, which I don't think many were
made, but I have a copy of Mussolini's what was it titled The Impact
of Fascism on History from the nineteen twenty So it was a romantic weekend for
me. But you can find them almost anywhere, and especially in historical towns,
whether you find yourself and I don't know bat Maine or up there in
Monterey, any town that's been there for a while. I'm sure in San
Diego because a lot of people in these estate sales, they'll clear out the
libraries and you have a lot of retired I know in DC there are spell
as well, but they're picked clean pretty fast. You have these retired people
who their their kids, are their heirs or whoever. They don't care about
the library, and so they'll get rid of their books by the pound.
And there are some really incredible opportunities there, but you've got to go to
these bookstore and pick through them. But that's kind of fun anyway. The
smell or the use bookstore, I don't know what the smell is, but
I don't have allergy, so it doesn't bother me. But that's a great
way to lose happen afternoon, to get books that can take up weeks of
your time in a good way. Yeah, I would recommend that the Naval
Astituite has a thirteen book series called The Studies and Naval History and Seapower.
And you know, I've got have been three of these books I've been currently
reading. But you know, the titles are A Ceaseless Watch, Australia's third
party Naval Defense Emil Johnis, became in the Triumph of Naval Airpower, Kirchill's
Phony War Studies and Folly, A Study and Folly and Frustration Cossack, which
is the story of the of the the the man who actually managed the organization
of Operation Overlord the D Day Invasion, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Morgan. And
then there's the you know, the emergence of American amphibious warfare, rise and
fall of French seapower, genesis of the Grand Fleet, the Admiralty, Germany
Home Fleet, Learning War, evolution of the Fighting Doctor in the Navy eight
nineteen forty five. I mean, you know, we were talking about how
important is to remember we are learning. The Navy is a learning organization and
even if you get stuck as behind tradition, then you have to wait for
somebody like um to come along and turn to blind eye to people who are
being dune. So that's not always you know, working their benefit, but
it helps everybody else anyway, my hand, Corbett. Uh, there's a
whole list in the USNI web page. I highly recommend you take a look
at that. It includes, you know, books by U boat commanders,
Victory without Peace, the US and the European Waters in nineteen nineteen, nineteen
twenty four, and then a little Study of Worships. So if most of
these as as salis, and many of these are available on the on the
DoD library system which you can go through nowadays through Libby and sometimes your local
library can get inter library loans from your note nearby colleges and universities, and
a lot of these books are available there. But gosh, I've got the
you know, the sit here hard copies of the Abandoned Notion, which is
about the decline of the US maritime World Operation in Sweep, which is about
the mine operation d mine operation after after Vietnam, China and Russia. China
and Russia, their their their great game thing. Somebody sent us years ago
to I was supposed to review it. I guess at some point Health and
the Heavens about the u USS laughy unsung Heroes once again about the merchant Mariners.
That's a US Naval Institute book, by the way. And then I
just bought Folwell's Rules the Nautical Road because I'm gonna Rusty and some of that
stuff. So I got a little yeah, I want to everybody will know
when it comes out, well, it might not get published. If not,
I want to ask him if I can publish it. But a friend
of the show who remained nameless is submitted an article for publication. You talk
about Rules of the Road, and when I first thought, I was pissed
off. Why was that pissed off? Because I didn't think of it.
I was like, come on, and as far as I know, nobody
else has written about it. But and I've made some snarky comments because that's
just kind of my role in the ecosystem comma. However, irrespective of my
snarky comments, he identified a a gap in the Rules of the Road,
and you know Red over, Red Captain is dead. Everybody has their lights
in their day shapes and what those mean. You know, do we really
have what we need in the in the era of let me use the term
of the day, uncrewed surface vessels that can really advertise the fact because it's
some of these things are obviously they don't have any people on them, but
when you're talking, they're really large ones. And if a couple of the
theories play out over the course of the next few decades, there's going to
be more and more of them going from point A to point B that are
own crude. You know, how do you identify to somebody who might be
coming up on Channel sixteen and trying to talk to that three hundred and twenty
five foot merchant vessel next to them that they're not sure whether there's anybody on
board or not. How do you have signals like that? But yeah,
the rules of the road. I think it is something everybody could brush up
on, especially if you were on the water over July fourth weekend like I
was. It was crazy. I don't think I'm ever going on the water
another major holiday again makes me itchy, But I also liked the observation that
you made a little bit earlier came back in my mind about the missile barges
and a lot of the stuff in a series of fiction books that you and
you read it, you go, hey, this is my hand, or
hey this is they're just put it you know, it's it's Mahan in space
or whatever. But by reading these books, one thing that it really gets
ingrained into you is one of the things that really was ingrained at me at
an early age. And the more I read, the more I go,
Yep, there's another example. Yep, there's another example. It's not that
there is anything new under the sun. There is, there's some great things,
there's some really exciting things, But generally speaking, no. The first
of all, people are the same. People's motivations are the same. They
may vary from culture to culture, and the clothes they wear might be slightly
different, their longevity might be different. But people are people, human weaknesses,
you know, fallen whatever. Those patterns repeat themselves. But also geography
doesn't change, and intake and exhaust doesn't change. And how you can respond
to unexpected circumstances or to hedge against the unexpected, other people have done it
and have done it really, really, really well, and whether you're reading
the fiction, you can point it out. But when you start reading up
in the past, when you have a pretty important whether it's a politician or
a think think tank person or somebody in Congress, or an influential writer or
speaker, our educator, when they're talking about something that is just breaking news
or is happening today, or you know its just recently come up, it
gives you a chance to hear things it have already been spoken before, and
challenges people have already experienced. And it it really I think empowers the listener
as other people start to come up with their original ideas. And I just
realized my coach has to step out for a minute. And for those that
are with us live, if you're not in the chat room, I'd go
there because as we've been talking about certain books here over in the chat room,
guys are really starting to roll in with some other other items. I've
started writing down early on some of the books that we talked, talked we're
talking about, so I could add it to the show page. I don't
know whether I want to be able to do that, because we have really
talked a lot about it. Someday, I think we might have to do
a discussion about other podcasts that are out there as well. But I think
in the summertime there's there's something about a book, especially if you have one
in your hand, that can really be a different experience than either listening to
something, whether it's a book or it's a podcast or something else. And
the hard copies are the better, I think, if for no other reasons,
you can pack it and move it. I full out to the West
Coast a while ago, and I'll be flying out there again in a couple
of months. Well the mountains, not quite the West Coast. And it's
funny I had I had a book that a matter of fact, I pull
had another chapter to go me reading three books at one time. That was
written in the nineteen twenties about the war in Ukraine between the Russian Whites,
the Germans, the Reds, the indigenous, for lack of a better phrase,
Ukrainian forces in the back and forth. It's it's all the interplays and
the locations are just what we're looking at today. But I'm reading that book
and as everybody else is up on the phone scroll and I caught the caught
the eye of a gentleman probably in his mid thirties who's read a book too.
We just kind of gave each other a little little head nod about,
oh, you read a book too. We were like the only people who
actually had had books, so that was a nice little retro thing. But
I also do like to read on that iPad. And I guess I'm not
sure when my co host will come back, but I've talked about all the
books that I wanted to talk in and we don't have a caller, so
um, let's just go ahead. I mentioned, oh you're back. I
was just about to go into the news of the day, so ut going
to the news to day. I'm sorry I had to leave. My my
neighbor did me a big favor of the weekend, and I wanted to give
my bottle of wine before he before he left for he's going. So that's
a good name of my poy. I was just I'll just mention into him
that one of the fun things about a book. So when I was traveling
to the West Coast last I was sitting there, everybody's everybody's on their phone
or on their iPads or on their laptop two and work and I was going
through the book. I still have a chapter the left to finish. UM
and I caught the eye with another traveler across the way. We got into
the little head Dog to each other because we're the words reading books with everybody
else's electric. So there's a little bit of a retro thing with a book
too that you can't get with anything else. Yeah. I read a lot
on the on the iPad and sometimes on my phone, but yeah, I've
got these heavy things weigh me down. Yeah. I also I subscribe to
too many magazines, so when I travel, I get the two months worth
of magazine I haven't read, and my pack gets lighter as the as the
day goes forward because I read throw it in Recycling, read throw it in
Recycling. But yeah, it is, and I think, uh, you
know, i've been talking to it too. Done. Let me for a
while about it, waiting for an opportunity to um talk to him about his
book that Jerry, that Jerry did with James Hampson about Kyle bull Is.
I think the time is pretty good because I don't know if you had a
chance to look at, if not the document, but at least some of
the commentary of the State Department report on the Fall of Afghanistan that they accidentally,
I'm sure dumped right on the uh the friday before the July fourth weekend.
I'm scanning it now as a matter of fact, so do you you'll
tell me all about it. What's the executive what's the executive summary? Well,
the executive summary is well, if you want, two, folks,
you can find it just google um after action review on again dan h January
twenty twenty to August twenty twenty one. And you know, just some of
the notes that I took while while reading it. Let me scroll back here.
Everybody can hear my my paper being suffers. Yeah, that's uh,
that's here we go. Um. You know it's interesting. One of my
one of my favorite favorite people, Victoria Coats, after she got through reading
it, she had she had a comment that I think is it was pretty
spot on if the State Department was shifting the blame to the DoD and basically
no one wanted to be left holding the bag. That's what I got reading
it from the Department of State. And first of all, I give I
give the State Department credit. You know, the first person to tell the
story is going to drive the narrative, and so they got out in front
and they're gonna make their excuses and that's just all fine and Danny. But
what I wanted to point everybody too, if you if you haven't pulled it
up, um, for those that are catching the podcast, I'll definitely have
this link on the show. Pat I've got the link here. Yeah,
if you go to page eleven, it's not that long. It's not that
long ago a document really twenty four pages. Yeah. The the whole thing
is it's kind of making excuses like like, nobody, we didn't have enough
people, we didn't have enough time. You know, my feet hurt.
Now it's all sorts of series. But embedded in that though, are some
some pretty pretty good points. For instance, points one, seven, nine,
and twenty eight and I've got to move my microphone a little bit to
make this happen. But if you look at point one, it's the decision
of President trop the President Biden to end the military mission in Afghanistan had serious
consequences for the viability of Afghan government and their security. The decisions are beyond
the scope of this review, but the AAR found items from both administrations that
were insufficient senior level consideration of worst case scenarios and how quickly those might follow.
That is I think fair, because I think we've we've talked here over
the course of the last two years. One thing that, for lack of
a professional phrase to describe it, I call the multi layered optimism filter is
you can see that of all the different courses of action that were briefed up
the chain, and I know everybody wants to dump this in the lap of
one person. Ultimately the commander in chief is responsible. But you know,
in a busy world, a leader is really only good as the staff.
That you could see where this was just not necessarily the worst case scenario,
but the most likely scenario kept getting through an optimism filter. Make it when
we're optimistic, take out these problems, takes off the issues, so that
a maying couple of clips from the Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff going
nobody told me, I didn't know. I don't buy it. A lot
of people were warning of it, it just never briefed up. Then he
had Item seven to nine Department placed Embassy Cobble on order departure status at the
end of April. In the wake of President by his decision, but that
did not result in a notable immediate reduction of the embassy's footprint, most of
which involves security and life support, in part because of the need to take
additional roles and responsibilities given the withdrawal of the US Military, trying to roll
the problem to d D and the focus I talked to who are actually on
the ground, the problem was mostly State given their direction and guidance. The
military did what they could do given the square foot and the D and G
they were given, but everywhere they turned when it was trying to get our
people the State Department, Yeah, you kind of cut out on that last
per Oh, sorry about us talking about And then there was item let's see
Item number nine was US military planning for possible UNEO, which is non combatant
evacuation operation had been underway quite some time, but the department participation in NEO
planning process was hindered by the fact that it was unclear who in the department
had the lead, which department had the lead. Coordination with DoD worked better
on the ground in Kyle Bull. That is a long standing problem with the
State Department that I experienced myself. Um working in Afghanistan, and it's and
again it's a whole series of comments. I won't read it, but I
think comment point number twenty eight I kind of agree with as well. But
he is one of the frustratings for me is a lot of it is they're
talking about a lack of capacity. And I did a little research and this
is the State Department owned numbers. Is the US State Department has an overall
number of employees seventy seven thousand, eight hundred and eighty thirteen thousand, six
hundred and thirty seven or Foreign service eleven thousand, seven hundred ninety nine are
civil service. That gives you a total of foreign service and civil service of
twenty five thousand, four hundred and thirty six. They also have forty nine
thousand, nine hundred and seventy three roughly fifty thousand local employees, which I
think are you of the host nation so to speak, employees that they have.
So for every one US person, they have two employees that are local.
But when you look at the foreign service and the civil service that twenty
five forty thirty six. We talk State Department, we think overseas, all
the embassies, all the things we do only eight thousand, nine hundred and
ten are overseas. Sixteen thousand, five hundred and twenty six are domestic employees,
IE, mostly inside the Beltway area. And when you consider the amount
of blood and treasure that we invested in Afghanistan, and all you had to
do is to ask anybody who had done any type of tour there, especially
at a staff level, what was going to happen? The fact that they
were surprised, understaffed to have enough people to do it. If there's not
another data point to the need to do a root and branch restructuring department,
I don't know what it is. And I will grant them the eight thousand,
nine hundred and ten that were already overseas, maybe you could only repurpose
one percent of them, I'll be nice. But the sixteen thousand, five
hundred twenty six domestic employees department state they had no way to tap into that
human resource to make that go better. No, no, I don't accept
it. I think that they they hammered it on point one and everything else
that happened to them after that. You know, when you say that we
didn't know that this rapid decision was going to flow the way it did.
I mean that they were surprised, and surprise is never good to any agency
in government. But to have it happened at the way it happened, you
know, they're left, as you say, they're trying to they're trying to
shift the blame slightly deal D, but d O D didn't know. You
know, we were getting the announcement to get the US out of Afghanistan without,
as they said, sufficient senior level consideration and worst case scenarios and how
quickly they might flow that that says it all. They somebody screwed the pooch
and uh, you know, they left a lot of people in a very
bad place and trying to cover themselves as much as they can. I don't
think they have to. They just have to hammer that that number one point
over and over and over. You know, we we we had insufficient planning
and there was no worst case scenario planning. Boom and I and again,
history hopefully will hopefully won't be fifty years until they declassify the stuff because I
will not be here. Um, history will show eventually what that decision making
process is, and I don't think it's going to look good. On anybody.
There's a lot of wreckoning to be done, and we'll we'll revisit this
topic when when Jerry was here. I just think that that State Department report,
and again I get full credit to the State Department. They're the first
out of the box. Bad on the Secretary Defense and the Joint Chiefs that
they haven't pushed something. I don't think they've pushed out anything. And maybe
I'm wrong, maybe I missed it, which is probably a bad thing too,
if they pushed something out and I haven't seen it yet and we haven't
talked about it. But the State Department there, they got their message out
first, which was when you look at it, internal politics. It was
probably smart on their part. Well yeah, it's always as you said,
it's always good to be first. But they've laid the groundwork for other people
too. If they haven't gotten their reports out yet to go, you know,
we we'd like to note that, you know, we didn't have any
better um information about what was going to happen. We had a little chance
to plan this way it should so I think it'll be interesting to see what
they actually say or has this report becomes more widely known, and I think
there are a lot of people who I think in the public space, not
just on this issue, but on a lot of issues, and I think
Congress is getting a little better than on this. I haven't seen quite enough
out of the think tank world for whatever reason. But I don't really care
what your political persuasion is is when it comes to foreign policy and the image
of our nation. I don't think we can just defer to certain people simply
because they are the Secretary of the State or the Secretary of Defense, or
the director of the CIA, or the Secretary of the Treasury or anything else
that when they through either acts of commission omission are intellectual failure. People need
to call him out. And if it doesn't elicit change in those individuals which
have probably won't, at least will set some boundaries for whoever follows, if
enough people will raise holy hell. You know, I remember back in the
Baba administration one of the things that gave me an eye twitch, because you
know, you and I, as Jo's we kind of saw Asia from two
different ends. You saw Asia from the International Dateline to the coast of Vietnam,
and when I was a young Jo, I saw Asia through the lens
of the Middle East, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, all
that stuff. And one thing that true, whether you're talking about the Southwest
Asian culture or the East Asian culture is image matters. Actions matter where you
are in the messages you send by not just what you do, but your
body, what your conversation points are, it's critically important. And when I
don't know if you had a chance to see while you were enjoying the mountains,
but there's a little bit flashback to that time that and again I guess
maybe we should fire all protocol officers or start hiring protocol officers with different backgrounds
academically our views. But you know, when President Obama bowed to the Saudi
royals, that really was not sending the right message. And then we had
over the weekend the Secretary of the Treasury yelling, and the Chinese media is
making hay out of it. If he had to see her multiple bowels that
she made to her counterpart who did not return the bowel, it never should
have been made to begin with. Just yeah I did catch that. Yeah
she didn't bow all the way to the floor. Now it was it was
like bow, bow, bow, bow, And he's extended in his hand
to shake his hand. I I don't, I don't. I don't understand
the damage that that does to our image in line of all the other things
that are very real with the with the Chinese image. I just don't understand.
And then we have the director of the CIA, who's, to his
credit um hasn't his high profile of some recent ones, but he uh submitted
a lecture at the Ditchley Foundation Lecture at Oxfordshire, which evidently is a big
thing. But I could not believe some of the things that I was reading
that this is what the priority of our CIA has, which again is something
we've talked about here and I wrote about earlier this year that the failures of
the institutions, that people need to not be complacent about our institutions and who
they are. You need to look at what they're saying and doing. But
he in this essay, I'm just going to quote him quote in nineteen ninety
two, and this is when to break from my equipper. Second, this
is when he worked at State. We see a recurrent theme here, and
he's worked for both parties because he was talking about how he worked for when
Baker was Secretary State but he said in nineteen ninety two, I tried as
best I could to sketch the shared global threat of climate change insecurities, especially
the raging HIV AIDS epidemic. I spent much of the last two decades trying
to understand encounter the combustible combination of grievance, ambition, and insecurity that Putin
embodies. The climate crisis possesses today's most clear and present danger unquote. That's
the mindset in the background of the worldview of our CIA director. You and
I were both around in nineteen ninety two and the immediate Cold War era,
and not going into too much details, I'm fully briefbu In Hiva since the
mid eighties in a very personal way. And I don't understand why somebody at
that much of a senior level could take two decades to try and understand the
combination of Greece, ambition and insecurity that Putin has right now, when all
you have to do is going back to the beginning of the show is read
as best as much as you can to try to understand Russian history and just
understand how human minds work. And I don't know. I remember the climate
in nineteen ninety two. It was hot then, it's hot now. I
don't want to get into that, but it's just amazing at this point in
time, in the summer of twenty twenty three, with all the challenges it's
beset not just the United States but its allies, and you have an opportunity
to speak to your peers. And maybe that's why he wrote about what he
did, that these are the topics that the director of the CIA thinks he
needs to be most invested in, and the world needs to be invested in
thinking about you know, I would expect something like this from I don't know,
the head of an NGO or maybe a member of Congress representing certain congressional
districts with an academic background. But you know, people are all relying on
institutions and leaders to constantly do the right thing. You don't have to read
history. You can just read what comes across the news wire in the last
week. Yeah, I think you underestimate vastly, and it's too easy to
do vastly underestimate the influence of the We're All going to Die climate change group
in this particular administration. And you know, whether it's you know, I
do a lot of reading that area, and there are a lot of people
out there questioning the the amount of effort being put in to push this particular
line and UM, but it is something you know, that is very strong,
and people are being chosen for their positions who are who have never spoken
out against UM. Let's not make this the major focus of our all our
efforts. But the people who are saying this is the major focus of all
our efforts, whether they're in defense or in the intelligence business, or you
know, you name the part of government, they're the ones who are who
are getting promoted. And that is you know, I don't think that's a
dirty secret anywhere. I just think that's the way it is. So if
you you know you don't, it is no longer a matter of not saying
anything. Is a matter you have to be outspokenly in favor of these various
things that have been rolled out during especially during this administration, but which begin
in past administrations. UM. So that you know that these things are constantly
in the forefront, whether or not they are based in reality or science,
you know, that is a question which I think we need much more investigation
on, and not just you know, some of the opinions that are expressed
on the next time I see the word hockey stick, for example, I
want to put point people to the to a lot of other books which question
the methodology of the of the hockey stick and the and the people behind it.
So, um, it is a it is a challenging problem, and
we need to get a grip on it by some by more than just political
people and people I don't care if they're intelligence or not. They're you know,
they're not any better informed than than a well read public. And that
is that is one more reason to be reading the the the accounter arguments.
And you not agree with the accounter arguments. You may you may agree with
the with the with this, with this particular outlook that you know, we're
all we're all going to Uh, there's immediate concerned over this climate change,
but uh, you know the the there are other views and they need to
be looked at carefully, and we need to have I think, a real
national conversation about this that isn't driven by what I see essences of religious fervor
and rather than any real science bind it. I think you've fought on there.
There is a religious nature to this, and uh, and in the
show notes, I'll link to that lecture from director Burns, and in it,
I don't know whether it came across the microphone. And I laughed when
he said hockey sticks because he and one of the things you know, we
talk about when you read biographies, when you read about leaders, when you
lead about you know, you're talking about books about certain commanding officers. One
of the things that you see consistently is the important thing for a leader is
to be calmed, regardless of what's happening around you. You have to be
the most calm person on the bridge, on ci in cic or on the
firing line. You've got to be the calmst person there. And he was
hyperbolic. And one of the points he says, and there's this not just
about about climate, but he said, there's a whole series of hockey sticks
out there, and you talk about don't really know too much. There's another
comment that you'll appreciate that somebody who's been online as long as I had,
if not longer, is He also says he was talking about one of the
things they're doing to counter Russian misinformation is to put videos on online like on
Telegram and stuff, and he said, our first video had two and a
half million views in its first week. That's nothing. I mean between mid
rats, between my blog, your blog, our twitter feeds, and just
to be nice are at point five million. Let's roll in Salmercagliano, who
just went over one hundred thousand subscribers on his YouTube channel. Let's throw him
in there. The three of us could do two and a half million views
in a week. That's not a big deal. So he doesn't understand the
CIA director the modern information space. That in itself was just gobsmacking to me.
But you know, that's that's where we are. Well, the audience
is telling us that we've we've gone silent. Well, what do you not
pay for that? Did you not? Did you not pay for that extra
half hour? I did pay for that extra half hour. Unfortunately, Um
arn't I just minimize what I needed? Here? Ah wherever here we go?
We are in theory still recording. So what I must have done is
instead of selecting ninety minutes, I selected sixty minutes live. But we are
still recording. Yeah, yeah, we have extra recording times. So this
is a podcast for those of the podcast. Don't mention anything for those that
are listening, Why sorry about that. That's my fault. I made an
error. I can't do anything right. I blamed the heat. Um,
well, if you want to, it's the hockey stick. Hockey stick,
God, let's say that the stay part. I blame the DoD for me
not selecting ninety bedits. I'll just just work off that. Here's one thing,
one other thing about China. I know we both have a list of
stuff. That's okay. If we can't get a guest for next week,
we'll just pick up where we left off. But um, one thing I
wanted I wanted to bring up because as I was um going down a Chinese
rabbit hole because I uh, one thing I was gonna bring up. Maybe
we can talk about it next time. But the whole Belton Road in China's
uh. Tom Shugart also for those at follow on Twitter, retired m Navy
submarine or captain. Um, he's he's pretty good with the satellite pictures and
stuff. But anyway he noticed it as well. Is that Chinese naval base
that we've talked about on previous shows in Cambodia has been expanded and there right
there is no Chinese naval base in Cambodia. It's a facility exactly well,
there was. As I was googling it, this link came up that I
knew this intrinsically by didn't have the hard numbers here. You know, we
talk about five eyes and so people want to make it six eyes, but
throw in Japan in there. But we talked about the anglosphere. We're talking
we say five eyes. It's the UK, the US, Australia, Canada
and New Zealand. And New Zealand is my opinion of New Zealand is biprocated
because they were there force right after nine to eleven. They've been with us,
including in Vietnam, almost every time. But they're they had an anti
nuclear policy that told us to beat feet, even though they still had at
that time the occasional echo to lurking off their coast. They would expect us
to go after. They have been a little problematic on the stage and they've
definitely been getting closer to the People's Republic of China. And here are the
numbers that I found. In two thousand and eight, they signed a free
trade agreement with the People's Republic of China. Since then, which two thousand
and eight for me, then it seems like yesterday. Exports to China have
increased eightfold, to the point that last year in twenty twenty two, China
surpassed Australia as the largest export mina market. And that's reached the point with
a lot of the economists as the pressure is coming for everybody's d couple like
the Chinese designed, and again you got to get full credit to the Chinese.
They're very good at this. The New Zealand economy isn't diversified enough that
they can dcouple from the PRC right now. They are just so embedded in
Their economy has adjusted so much, and the influence in Wellington from the People's
Republic of China is so great that even though their defense and security experts and
even some of their economists say they want to decouple, their political structure and
a lot of their business interests can't slash. Won't you know? There's a
warning sign for everybody like Germany and energy in Russia is the weak sister or
the five Eyes that on occasion can just trying to compete with New Zealand.
That economic tie in that the PRC has done with one of the members of
the five eyes that I don't know, scary is too much of an alarmist
word. But you know, what's the old cliche. Sometimes you exist in
life simply to be an example to others of what not to do. That's
impressive, that is, and it's well. Um, New Zealand has always
had a slightly more leftist bent than a lot of the h That's hard to
say, since both both Britain and Australia have dabbled that direction quite a bit.
But you know, they they were, but they got into a trend
later on it being more conservative if you will, economically. But I don't
I don't you know, they've I don't know what they see in the world,
but I guess as far as the way they are from everything else except
Australia's Western shore, and even that's pretty far away, they just they just
have their own little spin on things. Yea, and yeah, in a
way you can, you can talk yourself into that they are they are blessed
with geography and all you gotta do is look at the map and see what
that looks like. But anyway we have that that rest of the list,
I guess we'll just have to get to it next time. That's the way
it should work sometimes. Okay, well, hey, we'll catch our times.
And uh sorry to everybody who were with us live and it died at
the top of the hour, but you'll get it on the podcast, and
for everybody else who is with the podcast, we appreciate you. Join us
for another edition of Midrats and until next time, I hope everybody has a
great Navy day. Cheers, read books and blame me holding them. It's
a long way to go, it's a long way to differ many to the
greenest I know. I don't b Becodell. Well, let's talk Swell.
It's a long long way to Dipperland. But my life m