Welcome to mid Rats with Foul from Commander Salamander and the Eagle One from Eagles
Speak at Sea or Shore your home for a discussion of national security issues in
all things maritime. And good afternoon, everybody. I hope you remember to
springboard. It's a lot easier nowadays because everything goes forward an hour automatically.
We are, of course live, and if you're with us live, I
already see a couple of folks have already taken us up on the invitation.
Go ahead and scroll down to the bottom of the show page. That's where
you will find the chat room. We'll be launchoring that during the course of
the show, and if you have some observations you would like to share,
or even a question or topic that you would like for my co host and
I to chat about in the course of the next hour, that's a perfect
place to put it. Because we are open mic, open lines, open
chat room, and of course open phones, and if you would like to,
you can look up at the top of the show page that has our
studio number, and you're even free to call in because we will be keeping
an eye on that. Besides that, we're going to take charge and have
our little melee format and just bounce all over the place as we deem fit
and my co host is tanned, rested, and ready after traveling the Eastern
Seaboard. Good afternoon, Mark, Great to talk to you. Hey,
sl good to talk to you. We got a rainy day here in North
Carolina, and driving an the rain is always fun and delightful. Well,
hopefully this would be a more relaxing the experience than driving in the rain.
Yeah, down down in the Free State of Florida. We just had a
plain, old beautiful day, bright, bright blue skies, about seventy degrees.
Can't complain about it at all, um, and life was good in
springtime. We've got no reason to complain. We during the pre show for
our friends and out in California, be careful what you ask for. You
were in some participation, you got it. We were chatting a little bit
about the Tahoe area, where we both spent a little bit of time.
And when you when you measure, you're still in meters are yards. That's
usually not a good thing. But I think the droughts done for our friends
in California. Yeah, when I was a kid, we lived in in
the Central Valley at Castle Air Force Base and we used to drive around and
you know, the flood flooding wasn't that uncommon back in those days. And
we probably need the word droughts. But yeah, when they talk about dams
bursting, and uh, what counties anyone one of the count of my Monterey
area, and people haven't evacuated houses, you know, so they got they
got water, they got tons of snow. Hopefully this will recharge boast of
if they've if they've kept any reservoirs, this will recharge the reservoirs they need
to keep going forward and allow us to have delightful things like California almonds and
all that good stuff. It's an opportunity to excel for their hum state officials
and their politicians and everything else. And um, I guess that's a strange
lead in, but not really. Um. Again, during the pre show
for our listeners, we have one of our melee formats. We both throw
our cards on the ground and see if they overlap where we wanted to talk
about today, and we kind of wandered in to a topic that's kind of
fundamental. If you're in the national security arena, whether you're wearing a uniform
or you're on the civilian side, because it's something that we either execute or
we experience or both on an almost daily basis. And I think it applies
not just to the military or government service, but absolutely applies in the civilian
sector and in a way even in your own family. And they're often used
interchangeably, or you will see where one is best used the other one is,
and that is management during leadership. I remember as a jo for those
that are going to have an eye twitch what I mentioned it. Remember the
mid nineties, everybody got decided that they wanted to get with Demming and his
total quality management. Of course, the didn't want to use management in the
military, so they just changed the word total quality leadership. That you oppose
one of the reasons why it didn't last very long. But that argument's been
going on for a long time as far as their characteristics and their utility and
win their most appropriate and um, you know, leadership versus management. Um,
what do you think mark is? Are they? Are they both useful?
And in the military context, should you have one and more than the
other? Um? Where do people get them confused? I mean when I
when I throw that out there, what's something that comes to mind. Yeah,
they're they're both essential and they're and they are they are tied together if
you have a good organization. And let me let me preface it by saying,
I used to teach these leadership and management seminar back in the dark ages.
Um So, I mean one of the things I always am impressed with
is when you go to an organization and they have and this is we used
to write these. Remember the days we used to write mission statements, and
you had you were supposed to get a clear idea of what your primary the
job of your company was, what you were trying to do with whatever organization
you had. And then you would have you have mission, and you'd have
a vision statement which is supposed to tell you how we're going to get there.
And then you had this had the what I consider the other part where
the values. So and every time I saw an organization that had problems,
it seemed to me they would sometimes get their values mixed up with what their
primary mission was. So if your primary mission, let's take the United States
and NABY primary mission is to provide the naval component for national defense, and
your your mission is to make sure you have the assets and the equipment,
and you made the argument and you've gotten the people and you were leading them
so that they understand their job is as we as we start every day.
Your job that day is to make sure that we're ready to go to war
and you will protect the United States and its constitution and its people. Okay,
so you know, I mean that's my mission statement for the Navy.
Maybe maybe the Navy has another mission statement. But then you tie into that,
you know, vision how we're going to get there, Yeah, yeah,
And then you tie it that that your values and your values are we're
gonna you know, that's where you get to the we're going to treat people
and in such and such a way, we're going to treat people equally.
We're going to treat people, uh fairly, We're gonna we're gonna make sure
that our people have the tools they need to do the job. And where
you get into the DEMI side of it, because TQM really involves getting part
of the DEMI missionists make sure your workers have the tools they needed to do
as a job right and and so you know, you want to make sure
you have the best equipment that the that the people know how to you,
and that it fulfills the functions you see when you come up with your mission
of defending the country. So I think they're tied very closely together. The
leadership involves making sure you have your vision, your your mission clearly stated,
and you don't mix up the the vision and the and the U values to
the extent that they you let them override your primary mission. So sometimes you're
going to say, I can't take care of my people because the mission is
such that I've got to We're gonna have to make some sacrifices that we're gonna
have to send people in harms away. And if you ever have seen the
John Wayne movie and uh they were expendable. You've got these pt boats and
and they literally were uh expendable. They were they were there too. They
were not capable of surviving. Well, that you know that is if your
if your value is I can't let any of my people die, you've got
a problem. If your mission is sometimes you have to send your essuch,
you have to sometimes send your people into harm's way. That makes sense,
it does. But there's a reason why people can spend almost an entire semester
studying this. I've always find that a lot of the conflict comes from it's
in the same neighborhood as making sure you know the difference between what is legal,
what is ethical, and one is moral. And you have a mission
and the old phrase that sometimes is used incorrectly, but that's not who we
are or the American way of doing things is if you have a mission,
and inside every mission, do you have restraints and constraints, constraints or things
externally that can prevent you from doing things like the polar ice cap will stop
your hydropol of working. You know, that's that's that's a constraint. Restraint
is something that you impose yourself on what you're going to do. And I
think you can make a condition a conditional relationship, if not a direct one,
betraying restraints and values how they inform each other. There's values, of
course, can be subjective, but sometimes they are codified into rules of engagement,
our national caveats what you will or will not do. But your values
can restrain your mission. I remember a conversation we had back in the late
double Zeros with a guy who officially defined himself as a retired Ukrainian major general.
He really was a retired Soviet major general. He was the J two
in Afghanistan in the middle late nineteen eighties, and overall the NATO's side of
the house, we were telling them what we were planning to do. This
is right before mccarnan took over, and he made a comment roughly yet,
this is very similar to what we did, except we would have done other
things to try to were I think we were talking about the Ring Road.
They said, yeah, we would pretty much. We would mind these valleys
and then we would bomb the villages on the mountain side. And that caused
a few people to laugh, some people to just stare into the distance.
But that's a value system that restrained the mission that we are trying to accomplish.
Because the Soviets had a different set of values and NATO had a distinctly
different set of values. They both ultimately resulted in defeat for both powers.
But I think that's one way to look at values and how that can influence
your mission as part of your constraints. And of course that can change really
fast when there is a change in leadership, where you can get a different
set of commander's intent or a different direction and guidance and sometimes those can be
mechanical economic logistics, but sometimes they're based on values. We will no longer
do this, we will do that. It's in many ways it's it's inside
our control. And I think we saw in people rightfully are still discussing this.
Is it used to be that America pride itself, that least not officially
to do what some people would define as torture. And I remember before nine
to eleven there was actually some great discussions, one of which was about the
World War Two. German Luftwaffe's best interrogator never laid a hand on anybody and
got the most information out of the American and British aviators. That external things
can change a value system such that it can change how you restrain how you're
going to try to conduct a mission. If your Intel Forces mission is to
find out where senior leaders are, the values are going to restrain what they
are allowed to do or not to do. And external stressors can cause people
and organizations to rather rapidly change their value system such that a few years earlier,
if you had said that down in Guantanamo Bay would be policy to water
board and do a variety of things to people we had captured, people wouldn't
think it had been as easy as it actually turned out to be. And
I think it's a hard topic because then you go is that good or bad?
What depends upon your point of view, your system of morality. And
then as you go up to change is an ethical issue i e. You
are breaking regulations or is a legal issue? Where he's now a professor at
UC Berkeley Law, I believe Yao or Yo I forget his name, he
was the guy who changed, found a way to change what was allowed or
not allowed in Guantanamo. I think that whole, that whole spectrum and how
it informs both directions is a fascinating and ongoing topic. And you can even
it internal to an organization, I know and Afghanistan or any type of coalition
evolution. If you have a certain mission come up, you have some nations
that can come with you, and some people say I'm sorry, I can't
simply because their nation won't allow you to the argument about what was considered counter
terrorism versus other missions was always a big argument, and it had to do
with that spectrum from legal to ethical to moral values. I can't really it
might come to my mind in a second. But we almost need doctor Kerr
and Shanks get Paula in here to talk about what's the difference between values and
morality, because I believe there is a different definitional issue. But how that
practically execute itself. I think it's a little harder to define. Yeah,
I think that's a real challenge. I mean, you look back at the
you know, there's a there's a national morality, so that when the stories
break about my lie say or um, which was the attack on a village
in Vietnam where uh, Lieutenant Kelly let his platoon or a company wherever he
had go crazy and they killed a bunch of people that should have killed stopped
by a by the way as much as possible by a warrant officer who landed
his helicopter and h told him to stop. He finally, by the way,
I got recognized for his h his actions for that, and uh you
know, awarded some some metal for that. But that was national that it
was a national value that was broken by by this this group in Vietnam.
And the other one was the treement of the prisoners at at the Abu Grab
prison. You know, that is again a national morality and This is when
the newspapers and the news services do a service for us as they raise these
things, say this is this is something you know that your your people did.
Are you happy with this? And you know obviously uh no, nobody
was telling these people to do the stuff they did. They just they did
it and it was wrong by the standards of the nation. Now has has
you know, the more complicated issue, I'm sure we really do need to
get a professor on to discuss. This is when you when your morality changes.
When when when groups of people um can can justify actions burning down police
stations on the basis that to them, immoral things happen in those stations and
therefore they have the right to take action against it. You know what,
what lines are you drawing? But I think you know that we can get
down with the weeds on this and probably shouldn't because my point was really that,
you know the focus of an organization like the Navy, and the Navy
says our mission is to recruit, train, equipment, organized over combat,
reading and evil forces to win conflicts and ors while managed to security, deterrence,
the sustained forward presence. That's fine, that's a mission and our values
are honor, courage, and commitment. You know, uh, those are
great, But what are you doing if your values are those you know,
what are you doing about the issue of somebody that a seal chief petty officers
say, who who does something that in many people's eyes is horrendous or you
know, or you're not treating all your all your people equally. You know,
what are we what are we doing with those values? But can we
let those discussions and those problems bubble up to the point where they begin to
dominate and control roll the leadership that should be devoting itself to the fulfilling its
main mission, which is uh national security and and having ready naval forces.
And I think that's the that's where we see the rubs sometimes when when people
on blog no one shall be named, of course, who point out that,
you know, we're letting our ships rust Well, now we see the
navy leadership saying we don't want rusty ships, right, So so that has
an effect. Somebody has said, yeah, that's a good point, and
it's my job as a leader to make sure that our people have the tools
and the time and the equipment they need to help straighten that out. That
I mean that isn't that what we want from our from our leaders and our
managers. You know, the management side of it is all that tools and
equipment and and and time for your people to fix that problem. So I
think they're as we were discussing before. I think they're they're very closely related.
And the the moral issues are also and value issues are also tied in
there. The question is how we bounced those things back and forth and which
which value becomes a priority over other value and how going to and share something
that we did in the pre show because I think he made a really good
point about it. Is when I was looking at the maritime side of the
house, is we're trying to look at management versus leadership. I think good
people can can argue the specifics of what he's doing. However, General Burger,
the coming out of the Marine Corps in the last especially eighteen months,
I think the time fly that might have been longer in pursuit of his EA
BO concept. He's been out there within his restraints and constraints and his job
responsibilities to move the conversation, move policies, move equipment training towards what he
thinks the Marine Corps should focus on to accomplish the mission in westpac you know,
driving that conversation, making it very clear what your priorities are and what
you want to focus on. I think that at the highest level, if
you have good people, you tell them what your intent is and where you
want to be and will help get you there. But I thought he's done
a real good job at that, Whereas I mentioned that a lot of what
we see from the Chief Naval Operations, Admiral Guilday, I think is more
along the management side of the house. And you made a very good point
that and I don't have a really good grasp of how this goes in the
Army and the Air Force. One church very somewhere that you know General Burger
being embedded inside the Navy umbrella, he's got a little more time to invest
in what he's doing. Whereas as Cno that trained man and equipped for the
entire US Navy, and I believe we have this number right. If not,
we got we got John Conrad over in the in the chat room.
We are blessed to have him joined with the usual suspects. You may correct
us the wrong, but I think it was op NAV when you include all
their shipyards has eighty thousand employees. There's a lot of management that has to
do to lead an organization like that, So perhaps inside of his roles and
responsibilities in that position, that is what you want him to be, more
of a manager than a leader. Of course, that begs the question who's
going to do the Burger version on the Navy side of the house. Maybe
that's a institutional design challenge, and other cnos perhaps have done the mix differently,
for better or worse. It also depends upon what you allocate to your
subordinates. But I think if you look at Guilda's background, and this isn't
a negative thing because everybody has your strengths and weaknesses, I think he comes
from more of the managerial vice a leadership background, So I think maybe he's
playing to his strengths in that regard. But I think when you get up
really really high up like that, depending upon the mix of people that you
have working for you, you can delegate certain areas too, and what your
specialty is that perhaps it's okay to be at a variety of different points along
that leadership to management spectrum. Yeah, I mean, you know, Eisenhower
as a manager, a lot of people think and you know it was.
Was he a combat leader? I don't. I don't think so. But
he certainly managed a coalition that he needed to manage. And I have great
feral guilde. You know, if you look at the structure of the Navy,
he's got all these semi autonomous groups working that are there, that are
you know, so you've got NAVC I think as a group that has an
eighty thousand civilian employees. Um, you know you've got you've got your submarine
community, You've got your aviation community, got the surface community, You've got
the Special Operations Forces, you've got uh you've got you know, the supply
corps, you've got gental, you know everything that the whole the whole range
of stuff that that would seemingly be under his umbrella. And and who's coordinating.
Somebody's got to coordinate all these leads because you know that the sub folks
are going, well, we're the most important force, and you know the
the aviation guys, we're the most important for us. And you know it
is it is the Department of Defense writ a little smaller in the Department of
the Navy. And uh to I think you really do need to have both
leadership and management skills to to kind of get this to work. And uh,
you know that the question is who um you know, if you're looking
at it from from where we want to be and and you know, every
now and then we see like I think they just called a halt to building
the some of the m FIBs for a while. Uh, you know,
what are we doing? Somebody has to ask that question, what are we
doing? And how does this? How is this affecting our mission? I
think that happens, and that is a leadership job. Uh you know,
where are we on? And here's where you get to the leadersion. Where
are we on the on meeting our goals? And can I get all can
all of you competing entities inside the house? Uh agree that we need to
really have a discussion about which is the most you know, one of the
most vital things we need right now to when the when the American public calls
on us to do our job, that we don't go oh uh ge uh.
You know, only a third of our m FIBs are ready to sail.
So you know who's whose Whose problem is that? Is that surface?
Guys? Is that the NAFC, folks, is it is it? You
know, where does that come from? And how do we fix this?
So when they went to the aviation guys, and because the F eighteens weren't
operating at very high level, you know, that was a major effort and
kind of embarrasses they had to put all that work into getting a the F
eighteen community so that it was what I think capable for other than wherever the
loan number was before that. John Conrad gave us the facts here. It's
like Nasty is eighty six thousand, Navre is forty thousand submariners. I'm sure
they have quite a bit interesting data point though US Coastguard writ large just forty
thousand. It's the Navy is an absolute, huge, huge organization. And
yeah, speaking of the you know on the submarine side of the house,
kind of switching gears for a little bit. Um. I guess some of
the big news in the last week is everybody's anticipating. I assume the Australian
Prime Minister is coming to San Diego as well. I don't know, I
didn't see that in the articles I read, but I know the British Prime
Minister is going to San Diego to meet with President Biden about the Aucus submarine
announcement. And from what we've heard initially, and this is the argument that
I've made before that I don't see why other people made because I'm wrong that
other people haven't really seen this. But the initial plan that's leaked so far
is that Australia, in order to get them up on step faster, they'll
get five US Virginia class submarines, and while they have our work on a
modified version of the British Stute class submarine as a sin are, I think
is what they're talking about. Both of the concerns go back to something we've
talked about quite a bit here and has to do with our incredibly fragile,
thin and underresourced industrial sector for submarines. And the pushback for a lot of
people who don't like it is they don't want to see what few US submarines
we have because we just can't put the switch and build another one for him.
So it logically is going to come out of US production lines. That
they don't like that because that stops US from building our submarine fleet faster.
I don't that makes sense. I think if you don't look beyond a very
blinkered left and right. In the larger sense, when you look at any
major conflict of last century, plus the UK and have fought with us,
and if anything happens in the West Pack, probably the only European nation that
will help us in any regard will be the British. The French might help
a little bit on the periphery to protect their self interest in their economic zones
of influence and southern and southeastern Pacific, but I don't think we can rely
on them. And as a result, those five Virginias they may be flying
a different flag, but they'll be in the fight the same way the US
are. And there's a greater gain to be had by helping make Australia,
which is not a large nation. It's roughly the size of the Netherlands and
Belgium the Benelux if you made a nation out of them, they're a medium
power at best, but they've got a huge continent, huge resources. You
can't beat their geography, and more importantly, when you include the UK,
that's three of the five eyes. New Zealand and Canada will be a rounding
error any Pacific war. So anything we can do to make Australia and the
UK closer to us. That's as important to Japan Philippines. I would I
would love to see if doing more stuff with Indonesia. And as a side
issue, having had dinners for months on end with Australians and couple, they
have a very interesting relationship with Malaysia, which is no small creature. They
both also have even you could argue, if not more, at least equal
to influence in Singapore. So there's just a lot of game there that I
think, if nothing else, if people want to go into by warble because
they're missing five submarine command slot because we can't build faster, well maybe that's
a great opportunity to make a larger discussion about our industrial base when it comes
to nuclear power. Yeah, and you know we're talking about leadership. I
will commend the the the Biden administration, UH, and the and the Navy
for getting getting this thing, rolling this this this UH. This is good
leadership. This is what we want. If you're going to lead the free
world and in a China, then by golly got to lead it. And
the way you lead it is by saying we're willing to share our toys so
that so that the correct the sea lanes will remain open. And those are
sea lanes benefit everyone. And by the way, China, including your dirt
bags, you ungrateful dirtbag. So this is this is this is this is
great. This is leadership and and you know, I think we this is
one of those cases of situations where the faster the better. Uh. You
know, I've suggested at one point that we take a couple of hubs and
and uh let's you know, let's drag them on down there went and but
yeah, they're still active. We don't. You know, it's not a
it is not a it's a net loss to US Navy. It's not a
net loss to the Allied to the Allied course that we need and we need,
you know, we need to think a little bigger in this case,
because the area we're talking about out there in the in the far reaches of
the Pacific from Washington, DC, that it's like a zillion miles and might
as well be on the moon. But uh, you know, that's a
that's a huge area, and we need all the friends there we can get,
and we need all the equipment out there we can get you over the
comments section, Uh, Peter k my favorite uh New York Greek American whose
last name I can never pronounity allowed to keep me again. He brought up
a good point that what I mentioned was really phase two and phase three of
the operation. Phase one we believe UM is going to be US Virginia class
submarines basing out of Australia in some capacity here or not, which opens the
door to in the smart world mixed cruise. So as the Australians wait for
their own, they already are building up a cadre of officer and enlisted experience
in the Virginia class. And boy, you talk, you talk about easy
billets to fill. Okay, who was to get its the PCs get overseas
credit for Australia. You'll have no problem filling those billets. You'll be able
to do be very competitive. So I'm a little envious of our of our
submarine sailors who might have an opportunity tocation in Australia. There are worse places
to be UM. But that that again makes said. And I like how
you tied it into leadership, because there's personal leadership and there's national leadership,
and UM, I think for those that are moving this in the direction it
is. We've both individually on mid Rats, we've been critical of decisions that
have been made in a variety of areas, but I agree with you in
this particular case. And there's always room to screw it up. But this
is turning into a really good news story about UM national leadership with friends and
partners doing something where the collective effort is going to be much greater than some
of its individual parts. Yes, I know the French are a little grumpy
about it, but if I was an Australian, I would have a lot
more confidence in being able to get to a statisfactory conclusion with the with the
British and Americans, and I would the French, just not just for economic
size, but also for cultural reasons and historical reasons. It's it's we'll see
how it plays out. But so far, bravo Zulu to the folks that
are moving the ball down the road here. So far it's looking really good.
Yeah, I think it's I think it's excellent. I think also the
you know, I keep thinking we're we are embrace it with Japan, and
you know they have these excellent uh they have an excellent submarine force themselves.
And they're not nukes, but they're there. They are excellent boats. And
uh, you know, I think it's my my suggestion for helping for them,
helping us is to buy some of their flying boats, which we could
could really and we've already discussed that on other occasions. But you know,
let's let's really be partners and and uh and and let's do this right,
so, uh, partner. Certain part of leaderships. Part of leadership is
mutual respect. Um, you have to respect your your friends, your allies,
your partners, your subordinates, those that are weaker than you as much
as stronger than you. And I, like I said, we've gone down
this rabbit hole again. But it did, it did trigger me. But
I think it goes back to our discussion we started with about leadership. Is
sometimes you the deal breaker to do something or not do something, or something
that moves it from a forty percent yes to fifty one percent yes. Is
to step back and go this is an opportunity to demonstrate and to help build
the bonds that connect us. Um, it's a little bit of respect,
it's a little bit of acknowledgement, and goodness knows, the US Navy and
our friends on the Coast Guard really could use that capability, especially in the
Western Pacific. And I feel shocked at naw there. I guess if it
doesn't have an afterburner, they're not going to advocate for it. But if
anybody's seen how many sharks there are in the Western Pacific, you don't want
to float around and there for days on enduntil you die a thirst. You
want you want something to can come pick you up out of range of helicopters
and ships. But that would be a great sign of respect and acknowledgement of
the fact they do buy a lot of American kit If we got a few
dozen of those assets that should the balloon go up, they will not be
under employed. Yeah. And speaking of respect, I think it's the other
the other group that we have not always treated well but which we really need
to embraces, the Philippines. And uh, I mean we've we've had a
long relationship with them. It hasn't always been uh as friendly as we would
like. We left under kind of a cloud. But but you know we
need as as John Conrad has pointed out, and good for you, John,
U. The Philippine Marriors comprise a huge percentage of civilian marrors around the
world, and they're they're really good at what they do, and we need
to to help the Philippines allow us to help those marriners and uh and and
work with them to to to make sure that our country understands how important those
marriers are to us and why we really need to embrace the our relationshship with
the Philippines as as fermonial as we can. Yeah, they're they're great.
I mean, there's there's been, you know, political issues that have made
things a little rough on a nation and nation basis on occasion, depending upon
the personality and the winds. But as an individual and as a people,
the Filipinos are just such great mariners. They're great sailors, and they're great
Americans. There's a huge Filipino American community here in town. It's such a
national partnership that really did it didn't die on the vine, but it really
faded. And I don't know where you could draw the line at, but
I know your generation who were Jo's at the tail end of the Vietnam War.
I mean, you remember what a huge presence Filipino Americans and Philippine nationals
had and especially in the US Navy and on naval bases. And I saw
the tail end of that when I was a JO in the nineteen nineties.
UM it's not as much of a presence, especially once our younger sailors now
that at once did. It would be really interesting to see if we can
rekindle that partnership that we would You're not going to see you recruiting stations propping
up again, but especially if we were able to find a way to better
integrate their civilian mariners, that that partnership could be rekindled. But they definitely
UM as a nationality and ethnicity, however you want to look at it,
they did used to be a much larger presence in our navy. They still
are because you look at multigenerational service in the Navy, that definitely is in
UM in that community. Yeah, and I'll tell you the shipyard in Civic
Bay was a fantastic facility. I mean, you could get stuff done there
and and and that would be hard to have got done it and any shipyard
in the world. This guys were, I mean just great workers, highly
skilled at what they did. And I've always wondered why when we forced to
close down that shipyard. We didn't try and export as many of those invite
as many of those workers as we could to some of the other shipyards because
we were they were they were just extraordinarily So you know, like when it
was the Midway got run into by a freighter and had a bunch of damage
to it like an elevator, and uh, I think it's whole port side
got tamed pretty well. You know, they took it back into Subic and
within a few weeks they had that ship back on the line. So uh,
it's just it's just that that was a great loss. We lost Pacific
Bay, uh Naval Shipyard and the other facilities there. And uh, I
would hope that won't we won't let that opportunity. If we get a chance
to have a great relationship with us with the Philippines again, that would be
wonderful. But you know a lot of something, sir, go ahead,
go ahead, please, I was I was going to shift. You know,
we were talking about headlines to that that so much of our our leadership
is driven by by things that appear in the paper. And you're you're pointing
out that that when you when you look at at some of the other,
uh, other countries press that they have a whole different way of looking at
the world than than than our media does. So why don't you talk about
that little bit? Because I thought it was it was interesting we're talking about
earlier. Sure, I mean I I may pay a subscriber to the Washington
Post, um, mostly because this opposition of research for me. Uh,
there there's a there's a certain reality. Um, Washington Post and the New
York Times are a huge influence in our national conversation. UM, lesser extent
to Wall Street Journal. You don't have to like it, you just have
to recognize it. So if you want to know what a lot of decision
makers and policymakers are looking at, you've you've got to read two out of
the three of those organizations newspapers, New York Times, Washington Posts, and
Wall Street Journals. UM. Just to placate myself, I my sacrifice to
all is I do not pay for New York Times, but I do pay
for full access to Washington Post, Wall Street Journal. And uh yeah,
because I want to know what people are that are making these decisions are are
reading. And when you look at the Washington Post, you pull it up,
they're talking about Silicon Valley Bank because a certain socioeconomic group all their friends
are get it. There's there's an interesting discussion about Arctic protections of an oil
project, not really military. Um they want to talk about how important callous
areas. Give me a break murder. In the final four there's a little
bit of discussion about the nuclear sub deal with with Australia, mostly about Admiral
Richardson being paid, which, by the way, if I was Australia,
I pay him too. That's just because he's a cno. But he's a
nuke. If you've got to get a program up and running, talk to
somebody who's running. He's a reactors guy. I have no problem with him.
I don't think it's cash out. And of course the usual stuff talking
about pop culture. Now when you go over to France twenty four they're English
side of the house, you get a very different equation dominating not just above
the fold. That uses up fourth fists of the page is about the Chmut
offensive in Ukraine. It talks about Italy season, migrants in the Mediterranean,
and if you do look at the Washington Post, there is a small article
about people die in at sea trying to get to San Diego by sea.
And of course if you go over to the BBC every day there's an article
about their lack of enforcement of the channel. Something we could do an entire
show just on that, which I think we have in the past. But
it talks about Israel, it talks about a little bit of the problem with
the snow in California. But there's three articles on China, there's more about
Ukraine. This it's just a much more of an international focus. Now.
The argument could be will Francis on the continent exist and so forth? In
twenty twenty three, the Atlantic is a ditch the way time travels and aircraft
travels. You know, heck, if you if you follow on Twitter live
tracker, we had a B fifty two today. It flew from the US,
entered the Baltic Sea, went right up to Russian airspace. Kind of
funny. Somebody made the comment about they they blew their exhausted into Russian airspace,
which it was pretty tight, and then it flew over the Baltic Republics,
went down the Soilhoste Gap and then proceeded onto the Balkans. There's a
lot of there's no reason why what I derisively called the Imperial Capitals newspaper record
should should so ill inform people about the world. When a medium power like
France, you go look at their website and it's much more international focused.
It's the Washington Post is one of the first places to complain. You know.
They do these like National Geographic in nineteen fifty five going into the Amazon
to look at tribes and occasionally send a report order to West Virginia or Alabama
to go look at their nation. They like to talk about the ignorance of
the American people and how shortsighted we are. Well, they need to heal
myself. If we have a lot of people in their primary readership, who
if they rely on the Washington Times, not the Washington Time, have Fortia
slip Washington Post to inform the world form, Yeah, they're going to be
ignorant. It's just it's very frustrating to me the difference that the newspaper record
in our capital is versus other peoples whose nations arguably don't have but a fraction
of the international influence ours do. And ignorant populace, ignorant decision makers and
ignorance and lawmakers does not make for a good policy. So yeah, I
kind of live on a little bit of a rant there. How do you
fix it? I don't know. I'm not in the media business. Yeah,
but you know how to fix it? I mean, bezos, he
owns the Washington Post and his leadership should be you know, to if he
wants to influence public opinion. Let's just let's assume that that. Let's go
back to the you know, the the purposes of papers as they used to
as they used to work before they became you know, one paper per town.
There used to be a lots of papers. Uh. You know,
he wants to influence public opinion, Well, he were good and influence being
public opinion if he would help educate the public about the issues that are you
know why the issues are so so important now he you know, people say,
well, nobody pays attention to you know, people do pay attention to
what is presented to him if it's presented to him an interesting way. So
if if the issues of that the the national issues of what happens when you
drain the petroleum strategic patroleum reserve? What does that do to uh A our
strategic position in the world. You know, those types of issues that need
to be explored in depth. I don't see that kind of coverage except it
seems to me on somebody's sub stack post or on the occasional blog. I
don't know where those stories go if they're if they're not being covered in in
what should be our national media. As you say, and you know,
they Washing Post and the New York Times pride themselves on their leadership, but
their issues are all um are not necessarily in tune with the people who would
who would read them if they were actually interested, instead of presenting some some
what is the word insular view of of of what is important. So you
know, I appreciate there are people who have a lot of different opinions about
transgenderism, but I don't think that in the great scheme of things, it's
important. But it's you know, it's not as vital as gosh, as
our navy Air Force big enough? Are they big enough to deal with this?
Uh? This a threat from China? And can you present that realistically?
So so folks on both sides could argue the issue, you know,
you know, I don't want the paper to represent only my view. I
want the issues to be brought out so that we can have a public debate
about this stuff instead of well, you know, I read in the Washington
Post, so that's all I have to know where I heard it on NPR.
That's all I have to know. Are you know the whole function of
our society, the whole way we set up our setate no House, was
to allow debate and have these national issues raised. And they're not helped by
by these at myopic media pieces. In a classic example of that, I'll
just beat up on the Washington Post because we all need hobbies. But anybody
can do that. They can go over I don't know if you have to
be a paid subscriber to do this or not, but if you do,
just you just go over there and hit their search button. And a lot
of them we talked today about China. We haven't used the T word,
not trans Taiwan. Ultimately, it's all about Taiwan. So you know,
go ahead and he searched Taiwan and one, two, three, four or
five six things come up on my iPad when you do that. Of over
the last six days, so basic average, one one a day, one
a day. Something about Taiwan leaks on to the Washington Post. Of those,
two of them actually tie into a conversation we had last week. Washington
Post listens to mid Rats. I guess it talks about the outer islands on
Taiwan. Somebody cut their cables so they didn't have internet. So a couple
of islands off Taiwan had their cables cut under the water and they lost their
internet. So mark one up for mid Rats, you know. I although
if we should take credit of it four, but why not. Besides that,
there's an article which I okay, good on them from a couple of
days ago about speaker McCarthy not going to visit Taiwan but instead we'll meet him
in California. Taiwan is one of four things mentioned at a hearing up the
Hill, and the other two are about baseball. It we talked about the
Philippines before and talk about back to the future. A guy I served with
who was a year group ahead of mean great individual. His father. I
think I'm getting this right. His father was in the US Air Force,
met his wife when he was stationed in the had to be early early sixties
in Taiwan. His mom was originally from Taiwan, and there used to be
quite the military president in Taiwan, and that's, you know, something that
I don't know who's going to break the seal on that where more and more
Americans go there to exercise, maybe to be stationed at some point. There
was a survey that's been going on in Taiwan. The graph that I saw
went back to nineteen ninety four and it talks about independence, and it's a
pretty pretty interesting one where they say, do you want independence now? Do
you want to maintain the status quo work towards independence? Do you want to
join with China now? Do you want to maintain the status quo and then
eventually join China or do you just want to maintain the status quo? And
they got a couple of other things on it, and it's interesting how it
has tracked the national mood in Taiwan. And when you look at unification with
mainland China either immediately are eventually with a status quo. Since nineteen ninety four,
those two combined have gone from twenty percent down to six percent. And
inversely, those that say I want independence now or I want to maintain the
status quo but work towards independence has gone from ten to thirty percent. The
status quo hasn't changed that much. From forty eight percent to fifty seven percent
want the status quo, and to consider, the status quo is pretty much
independent of mainland China. So that's eighty seven percent of the Taiwanese don't want
to have anything to do with China. So does that change? It takes
two to tango. But if this whole thing revolves around keeping the People's Republic
of China but from having ownership and the largest aircraft carrier athwart Japan's sea lines
of communication, then when do we take the next step in our partnership?
And should we take that next step of the partnership. I think that's an
open question. I can argue both sides. But when you're looking, just
like we had to wait politically for the environment to be right in the Philippines
for us to move closer to each other, hopefully this time with a more
respect respectful and equitable relationship, when will that card in Taiwan be pulled?
Because the Taiwanese are in a way very similar to the Singaporees um. They
are their own distinct culture, but they're Western adjacent just like the Japanese or
Western adjacent UM they're turnkey and being able to work closely together. I guess
the argument is is is the risk worth the reward or the other way around.
That's a I mean, it's a it's a complicated issue that again,
you know, we we there may be discussions being held in the in the
halls of Congress and it's maybe them we're been closed session or whatever. But
you know, with somebody has got to step up and and and and lead
instead of the we've got. We've given so many mixed messages just I can
just think in the last few months, I mean, the messages of of
the Speaker of the House going to visit, the messages of oh yeah,
well world defend them. Oh way, I didn't you know the President mistated
when he said that. I mean, uh, there is a there is
a certain um quality, I guess of keeping an ambivalent policy if you can.
But I'm not sure that that. Sometimes you just have to say,
yeah, we're you know, we're gonna we'll do what we have to do.
And uh so you just you just you don't don't do anything silly.
China so well, they had a wonderful, free and fair election. So
Chairman g I always told I mispronounced that he's been reelected with was it one
hundred percent or ninety eight point seven percent? I don't know what it is,
but it's it's a miracle. He and Putin need to get together as
the only massively re elected to politicians in the face of the planet, one
of the Kim except for the Kim current Kim and Korea North Korea Today's present
quick not again. Maybe it's just me. I don't know, but one
of the least persuasive pushbacks I've heard about US support for Ukraine has been that
it's driving Russia and China closer together. I'm sorry, they're already in bed
with each other. I mean, dragon bear is not a new concept there,
you know, b r C the countries Russia and China is in there.
India doesn't much like them, and Brazil is the nation of the future,
has been and always will be. But isn't of course, China and
Russia are going to be closer together. They're international pariahs, and I mean
does China besides maybe Near and mar which I still prefer to call Burma,
but I've been informed I'm not allowed to do that. Maybe as a friend
or OHI maybe Cambodia. I don't know. But China doesn't have any friends
because she's not very friendly. Again, it goes back to that mutual respect
thing that comes with the leadership in the international community that they're not too good
at. At the Munich Conference, supposedly, I only saw two articles about
it. But the Chinese did not make friends at the Munich Security Conference.
But I don't think they feel like they need to make friends, um,
which which is unfortunate, but that's okay. It plays to our advantage.
But yeah, I'm not I'm not too worried about any type of Chinese Russian
partnership. It's already there. Yeah, I agree, And you know,
China, the only the only difficulty I see is a China Russian I have
to decide who is the center of the universe and and who should be countowing
to whom so um, you know, China. China's view of the world
is is is thousands of years old, and regardless of whether they call themselves
a communist country or whatever you know, it is it is. We are
the we are the Middle Kingdom. Everybody owes us some kind of obessience.
That's the right word. Anyway, uh, whatever the right word is.
They want they want to the old ways back. And we have run on
our mouth for another whole hour. My gosh, amazing how that works.
We had a we had a real active chat room because I don't like to
read the chat room while I talk because I already have a hard enough time
speaking English as it is. So we had a real active chat room today.
So that was great. I appreciate all of y'all. Way and end,
it did steal a couple of your ideas. And it has been another
quick hour, and I guess we'll let everybody get on with your day.
Yeah. I apologize for those of you who are headed to the selection show
for the NCAAF ncable a March Madness stuff, because I know you've started six
man. After all, the high prior won't be nothing to be known until
six thirty. But I don't have a For some reason, that chat does
not work for me. I'm gonna have to to look into why that's not
working. So I apologize for not being in there because I usually get a
lot of greats from the people who do show up. So anyway, everybody
gonna have a great day. We're gonna we're gonna have a guest again.
One we do. We have a couple of guests lined up that have had
to shift to the right for reasons that you'll find out when we when we
have them as our guests. And unfortunately, and this will be a topic
we'll do an other time the well, I'm not going to say that.
Um, it can be a challenge for some individuals to be able to come
on and speak and talk about even relatively benign topics because there is there are
some restraints to constraints. So I'd go out there for those that are in
positions of leadership and management, my two cents is one of the best ways
you can show respect and you can show trust and confidence in your junior personnel,
especially in the NaSTA security space. Let them get out there and write,
let them get out there and speak, let them come out and be
part of the discourse. Well, whatever fear you have, it's it's unfounded.
We have great individuals with great ideas that really can contribute to the conversation
that aren't in a place to do that. We've talked about this for over
a decade here on mid Rats, but just an opportunity to remind because from
what I've seen incidentally, that aperture are starting to tighten again where they don't
want people to get out there. And there's just a few people who are
in different areas that have a leadership to understand that. So if you're on
the fence with somebody, trust your subordinates to go out there and be a
conversation. Nine percent chance they're going to make you proud, and they're going
to make our services look great because when they get out there and speak on
topics, are right on topics, the American public will feel better about the
people who they trusted their securities. And that's my soapbox. And until next
time, I hope everybody has a great Navy day. I will see you
soon. Cheers Mamma money, having Patty a king like my lonely want to
marry me and not believed that all your being to blame my love family to
old messy faulting your the team. It's a long way. It's a long
way. It's a long way to I don't by godly well, let's talk.
Well, it's a long long way to get my Ron. It's but my heart