WEBVTT

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Welcome to mid Rats with Salm from
Commander Salamander, an Eagle one from Eagle

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Speak at Seer Shore your home for
a discussion of national security issues and all

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things maritime. And good day everybody, and we're glad to have you on

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board for another addition of mid Rats. And if you are with us live,

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I would like to extend an invitation
to you to scroll down to the

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bottom of the show page. That's
where you will find the chat room,

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and that is the perfect place if
during the course of the show you have

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some observations you want to share,
are some questions that you would like for

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us to direct to our guests,
that's the perfect place to be there.

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We already already have Stephen and Paul
there standing a fort at the quarter deck

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ready to greet you, and anyway, feel free to jump in with the

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conversation. And as always, if
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That way, we will be ready
for you at a time it's more

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convenient to your schedule. And on
today's show, what we're going to look

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at is the aircraft carrier, everybody's
favorite thing to argue about. We've talked

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about it a lot here on mid
Rats because it is really the supercarrier at

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least, it's a unique capability that
our Navy has enjoyed unquestioned dominance at for

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my lifetime, and I'm not a
spring chicken. Been longer than that.

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It's been almost a century. But
it's not so much like all weapon systems,

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and this is kind of one of
the core of what we're talking about.

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It's not so much the ship,
it's the what are you trying to

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do as a navy? What as
the fancy kids like to say, what

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effects are you trying to do?
How are you trying to push forward national

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policy at sea? The carrier,
like all weapon systems, it's a tool.

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So what we're going to look at
today, we're going to look at

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the aircraft carrier in the fleet structure
that is built around it, the challenges,

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the opportunities to compromise. And our
guest today is going to be Jeff

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Vendenegel, commander a United States Navy, and as a reference point today we're

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going to be looking at his book
titled Questioning the Carrier Opportunities and Fleet Design

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for the US Navy. You can
find a link on the show page.

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And Jeff is joining us today as
an author to discuss the issues related to

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his book, and he does not
necessarily represent the US Navy or any other

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organizations he may be associated with.
Jeff, Welcome to mid rats, Thanks

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lot for having me, gentlemen,
glad to be here. Well, I

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appreciate you taking some time out of
your day, and it's great having authors

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on because it always has a real
easy opening question for me. And I

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just want to point out to the
listeners if they haven't had a chance to

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look at your book yet, it's
a very digestible two hundred and twenty eight

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pages. But this is and you
know, Bravozula, it's you for doing

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this for people that are reading this, especially those that either are are new

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to the game or trying to get
up to speed. It has sixty eight

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pages of notes and indexes. So
if people really get interested or does the

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I didn't think about it that way, and they see that footnote, you're

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giving them the opportunity to really expand
their knowledge base. And with that kind

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of ball tied up for you.
Tell us about your book? What's it

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about? Great? You make an
interesting point about the index in the notes,

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right, So nothing in there is
from my personal experience, from my

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expertise. Right, It is from
a lot of smart people from throughout naval

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history up till today that have written
on this subject, and I tried to

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learn from them and incorporate their thoughts
in this book. But in simplest term,

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the book argues that the age of
the large nuclear powered aircraft carrier is

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coming to an end, not because
of its vulnerabilities, but because there are

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now better ways to design the fleet
to accomplish the Navy's missions. Now,

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make no mistake, Like you talked
about the large nuclear powered aircraft carrier,

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it is the most powerful warship in
all naval history. No single ship can

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match its president's value in peace time, and no single ship can match its

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flexibility and its firepower and wartime.
However, I believe we need to.

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I believe we need the most powerful
fleet possible, not the most powerful ship

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possible. And I believe a fleet
so centralized and so dependent on eleven ships

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is not as capable as one that
embraces some modern opportun in fleet design.

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The carrier's flaws. They are growing, but they are not new. Carriers

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have always been expensive, they've always
been somewhat vulnerable, they have always featured

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in arrowing, will range much shorter
than that of land based aircraft, and

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they have always centralized a great deal
of power onto a single ship. And

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for more than seventy years, the
US Navy accepted those flaws because the ship's

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many benefits outweighed those flaws and there
was simply there's no better alternative. That

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is no longer true today. The
advent of missiles means that every ship in

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the fleet can use the error's premier
weapon, instead of them being limited only

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to large capital ships, as was
true for most of naval history. Modern

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networks enable fleets to accurately share more
information, faster and over longer distances than

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at any point in naval history,
and I think, taken together, that

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means fleets can now diversify their kill
chains to unprecedented degrees. I think advances

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in scouting and communications and weapons technology
enable those opportunities, and they allow for

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a four structure that performs the carrier
centric fleets functions more effectively using a Navy

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consistently of more platforms with less total
risk and within the same long term budget.

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Now, obviously, like I said
before, that I did not identify

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these opportunities. The Navy has known
about them for decades, and the Navy

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has made great progress capitalizing on them. Much of the Navy's work in this

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in these areas have already improved our
fleet. However, I do not believe

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we can fully capitalize on those opportunities
while remaining within the confines of the same

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rough force structure that we have had
for decades, with most platforms and most

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operations focused on the CBN, the
large nuclear powered aircraft carrier. We will

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have improvements, but those improvements will
be incremental, not fundamental, and I

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believe we'll need to achieve every possible
improvement to be ready for the sea control

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mission against the People's Liberation Army.
Navy, Well, let's talk a little

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bit about you. You describe a
force which would change the structure of the

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Navy as we see at today,
and part of that was that many more

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you've listened to a whole bunch of
ships like like the the Steel class corvettes

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and the and the Constellation class frigates
and and some changes I gathered to the

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to the DDGs. We currently have
talk a little bit about that what what

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I know, it's not a structure
that necessarily is the one you perceived being

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one down the road, but it's
an interesting concept talking a little bit about

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about how these things would mesh in
the way you view it. Sure,

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I think a lot of my work
centered on this quote from Admiral Nimitz and

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when he was talking about aircraft carrier
obsolescence at the at the end of the

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Second World War and people were trying
to argue, hey, there's nuclear weapons

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now, those surface ships, including
carriers are obsolete, and Nimitt said,

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what determines the obsolete of a weapon
is not the fact that it can be

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destroyed, but that can be replaced
by another weapon that performs its functions more

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effectively. And so that is the
Uh, That's what I'm getting at with

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this hypothetical fleet. What I know
came the name is the flex fleet,

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right. That is the point of
the flex feet is not to be this

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perfect structure that we're gonna you know, we're gonna go up and start building,

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is purely to try and meet imitsi's
standard to show that we we have

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a great fleet. UH, the
carrier centric fleet is extremely powerful, but

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we can do even better than that
if we're able to move past the confines

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of the carrier centric fleet. And
so identified some opportunities that I think are

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out there for us, UH,
breaking the age of the missile and networking

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our fleet and from those two diversifying
our kill chains. And so those are

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sort of the abstract opportunities, and
from there are trying to translate into a

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a hypothetical fleet, a realistic four
structure that we could actually go up and

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build that is technically realistic, financially
realistic, operation realistic. So in that

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fleet based on the ground rules,
Like I said, technologically realistic, right

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is not lots of technologies that are
decades away. It minimizes the number of

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new classes of ship. And it
does that to make it politically realistic,

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and it uses the same long term
shipbuilding budget. And I started with the

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Navy's battle Force inventory goals for twenty
forty nine, the last year of the

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twenty twenty thirty years shipbuilding plan,
and I made changes to shift it to

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more of a structure like the new
Navy fighting machine, which is a four

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structure proposed by Captain Wayne Hughes at
the Naval Postgraduate School so and to get

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down the details. It adds missile
corvettes and missile arsenal ships to improve our

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ability to do sea control and contested
power projection. It starts shifting naval aviation

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to light carriers to to improve their
geographic spread and platform numbers. It builds

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more Constellation class frigates than the Navy's
current plan to increase the number of platforms

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and missiles we'd have in the fleet. And it increases the size of the

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combat logistics force to supply that in
large fleet. And then it pays for

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that by canceling the remainder of the
four class, reducing the number of planned

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new construction Arli Berken follow on ddg's
the DDG X, and then cancels plans

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for the conventionally armed Columbia class SSGN
as a surface fleet in the Flex fleet

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contract would have a lot to would
have significantly increased numbers of missile cells.

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And then in one of the subsequent
chapters, I try and compare the Navy's

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planned fleet of twenty forty nine.
In this hypothetical flex fleet and in the

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Navy's various mission areas, and I
think in a lot of mission areas,

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this hypothetical fleet could outperform the Navy's
twenty forty nine fleet. Right that it

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has something like forty two percent more
warships, eighty six percent more missile launching

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surface ships, twenty nine hundred additional
missile cells. But again, flex fleet,

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far from a great solution, has
lots of problems, lots of unanswered

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questions. I just think it gets
to name. It's the standard of can

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we do even better than our current
carrier centric force? And if so,

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then there's a lot of much smarter
people out there with a lot of great

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ideas for gamble. Captain Klin at
the Naval Postgraduate School and his colleagues,

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or Dmitri, you, Philipoff and
his colleagues at SIMPSAK, or lots of

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people within the Navy or the Center
for Naval Analyses, right, all have

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lots of great ideas which I don't
think we can fully capitalize whils staying within

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the confines of the Carr centric model. I think a great thing about your

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book is, as you would expect
a nuclear trained submarine office, or you've

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done the math is if people want
to grab hold of, like your flex

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fleet design, you gay, okay, I've done the math. Here's the

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numbers. If you want to argue
that you know, ten percent this whey

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that way, we can do that. But I thought it was also good

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because a little habit of mine.
We've all no reason to name names here,

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but we've all read some people's theories
of what the future fleet will be

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and your eyes rolled the back of
your head because they just, you know,

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wave away technology risk, program risk
and stuff like that. And I

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like the twenty forty nine data point
because twenty forty nine may seem like a

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long time in the future for folks, but it's really not. Twenty forty

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nine is to today what nineteen ninety
one is to today. It's the same

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time difference. And when you look
at plus or minus a couple of years

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from that nineteen ninety nine, that
is where the thought processes came forward to

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what we saw in the first decade
of the century, the often discussed age

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of transformation that begat lcs CG x
DDG one thousand, et cetera, and

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so forth, that you know,
kind of waved away a lot of the

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technology and the program risks. But
what you've done is I've liked how you've

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put firm boundaries on here, is
technology technologically realistic, financially feasible, and

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only incorporate a real new A lot
of you're doing here, they're not They're

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not revolutionary, they're not transformational.
They don't require an obtainingum or pixie dust.

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It's all either existing systems. Are
you know Mod two or Mod three

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programs that we have coming across h
the transom here. Talk for a little

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bit about how you you when you're
trying to intellectualize twenty forty nine. What

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are those those hard barriers you say
you see? What are those? It's

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all known unknowns. Do you think
could shape things one way or another inside

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the next few years? Great?
Thanks? Yeah, I mean you hit

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on the head. There's lots of
technologies already out there that I mean,

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again the Navy's taking advantage of and
we have available now because of the Navy's

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hard work. But for this,
I think of Eugenie Eli Right, So

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something like nineteen ten, he gets
in his biplane and he takes off from

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the cruiser Birmingham, right, And
so it's just like rickety Wooden ramp in

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this rickety biplane. But he takes
off and it's the first time that an

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aircraft has ever launched from a warship
in naval history, right, incredible accomplishment.

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Did the Navy immediately restructure it's forced, you know, it's the fleet

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around the aircraft payer. No.
And was that because of you know,

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obstructionism or anything like that. No, because it was because it takes a

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very long time to develop the technologies
that are necessary to change the UNI.

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This Navy, this huge organization with
thousands of people and ships and everything like

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that. And so just because Eli
was able to launch an aircraft from a

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warship doesn't mean that the Navy was
ready to transform its fleet structure. It

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took a long time of experimenting and
testing and working and all sorts of stuff

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to get the Navy ready. And
then when a mission came along that required

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naval aviation and that aircraft carrier,
the Navy was for the most part ready

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because of the work of people like
Eli and Admiral William Moffatt and other pioneers

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like that. And so I think
we're in a similar sort of era today

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in that there's lots of these technologies
that I talk about in the book.

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They've been around for decades before I
was born, right, missiles and network

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communications and things along those lines,
and lots of people have written about them,

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and the Navy has done lots and
lots of work on them. We

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haven't restructured the fleet to fully take
advantage of those opportunities, not because of

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obstructionism or people are stuck in the
paths or anything like that. It's just

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because it takes a very long time
to develop those technologies to make them robust

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enough to change the fleet structure,
which again is a massive thing, and

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like you talked about, yeah,
twenty forty nine, that's a long ways

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away, but in shipbuilding world,
that's I mean, that's tomorrow, And

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it takes a long time to build
a ship and to change a fleet structure.

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And I just think with some of
these technologies that we have, and

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because of the hard work of the
Navy that we you know, we're in

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a position now because of all that
work, to start moving away from the

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care centric fleet. Yeah, I
think that somewhere you're the concern you have,

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and I think you make a really
good if I were a if you

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were an associate in a law firm, and I'm a lawyer, so I

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could say these kinds of things you're
associated law firm, I would really be

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impressed with the brief. The brief
you've laid out here. I mean,

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this is a really good argument you've
made, and it's very logical. It

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makes a lot of sense, and
you base it on the sound concept that

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are the potential enemies we face want
to get deeply into the aerial denial area

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denial, and they've been able to
push the carrier back. And then due

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to other changes we've made, we've
limited the range of the aircraft on the

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that are on the carriers. So
the further back we get pushed, the

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arsenal that that makes a carrier work
can't really play in the game anymore.

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So talk a little bit about about
the the arguments that you make that that

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why this flexileet with more ships,
more dispersal networking works better than than the

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than the I think it's four percent
of the navy that occupies forty percent of

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our naval personnel. Let's see that
we have now great well, So I

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think, like I said at the
Big Game, right, the CBN is

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the most powerful ship in the fleet
if it can operate as designed, and

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for many many years, because we
control the seeds, it could operate as

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designed. And so it went off
and did great things for the navy,

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and they did great things for the
nation and from Libya, you know,

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Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, i
Raq, all over the place. Aircraft

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carrier has done great things. And
that's because it excels at presence missions right

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and permissive power projection. On the
presence factor, right, there is no

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ship that can make headlines like an
aircraft carrier does. And for permissive power

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projection right, no fleet structure,
including this hypothetical one that I talk about,

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no structure is going to match the
carrier's ability to generate sorties from uncontested

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sees. However, and so if
we think those are the missions that we're

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going to focus on going forward,
presence missions and per missive power projection,

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that would be a very reasonable conclusion. It's what we've done for a long

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time. It's what we've done well
for a long time. However, I

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think if we need to focus on
sea control and contested power projection against the

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peer adversaries such as the People's Liberation
Army, Navy. Then I think different

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structures can do that even better and
so, and part of it is because

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we live in the age of the
missile so much. I just think,

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yeah, So, throughout naval history
there's close relationshipie in physics and the errors

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capital ship or sorry the sorry,
let me back up. There's been a

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close relationship between the era's capital ship
and the weapon that it carried, just

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based on physics. So only huge
multideck ships align like HMS Victory could physically

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carry dozens of cannon, and only
huge battleships like USS Missouri could physically carry

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sixteen inch guns, and only huge
aircraft carriers like USS four can physically launch

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dozens of thirty fives. And so
as a result of that relationship, most

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of the fleet could not use the
era's premier weapon. They smaller ship still

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did lots of important things, but
they generally could not carry sixteen inch guns

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or dozens of that thirty fives or
anything like that. However, I think

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the missile changes that relationship. It
means every single ship in the fleet,

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plus aircraft and unmanned vessels or submarines
or support vessels or a figure ships or

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even trucks can carry the error's premier
weapon. And that is an incredible opportunity

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today for fleets. And that is
I think more than anything, what gives

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this flex fleet contractor the edge over
the carrier centric fleet is that instead of

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most fleet operations having to flow through
the CVN, and with a lot of

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the fleet supporting the CVN, now
every almost every single platform in the fleet

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can use the ra's premier weapon.
It can deliver its own attacks. Now,

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obviously larger ships are still more cable
in smaller ships, but but no

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longer it's it's suicidal for a small
ship to fight against the large ship.

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Because we live in the age and
the missile and those missiles are They're inexpensive,

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they're technically simple to operate, they
don't require local air and maritime superiority.

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They be launching large numbers without tactical
human financial risk of demand aircraft.

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They have a huge payoffice successful little
downside if they fail, and they're exceedingly

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difficult to defend against because the attacker
has advantaged in physics, numbers, and

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time. And so if you add
that with our ability to network the fleet

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and thus diversify our kill chains,
I think that gives us a great opportunity,

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right, we can design a fleet
built around both small and large large

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platforms that all have the ability to
close the kill chain independently or cooperatively.

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That fleet has more platforms, launching
more weapons from more vectors, more domains,

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and that all makes it hard for
the enemy to defend against attacks and

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raises the chances that we'll complete at
least one kill chain to destroy the target.

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I like how you emphasize a fair
bit something that can get lost in

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a lot of these conversations because there's
so many factors involved here. But it's

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it's the question that you asked early
on in your book. It's, quote,

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what is the most effective way to
damage the enemy? Unquote? And

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you just mentioned your answer to Mark's
question about the age of the missile,

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And it's interesting how in you know, here we are in twenty twenty four

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trying to get people to focus on
that ultimate question. You know, what

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is quote outgoing and incoming the most
effective weapon to use? Because if you

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want to say, when was the
age of the missiles coming out party?

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When I was in diapers back in
nineteen sixty seven at the hands of the

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Egyptians, which is a much longer
timeline than the timeline from throwing a string

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bag off the end of a cruiser
to the Battle of Midway. So this

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isn't something that has happened overnight,
but it's been that that slow evolution of

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both defense and all fence. And
one of the things you've also done the

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math on that really kind of got
my attention and got me focused on that.

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It has to do with the fact
that, you know, some things

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that haven't changed is the size of
the Earth, the nature of the surface

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of the Earth. But what has
changed is our technology, and when you

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look at surveillance, reconnaissance intelligence,
that the change and the ability for even

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second tier or third tier adversary adversaries
have a better awareness of what's on the

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planet. That that kind of has
worked in conjunction with the hard math that

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missiles represent. Absolutely. I think
one of the historically the carriers best offense

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and one of its greatest attributes has
been its ability to remain unlocated and you

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know, it's mobile, it can
move, so it's difficult for the enemy

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to track it. I think its
ability to stay hidden just like any other

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large surface ship today is more difficult
than at any point throughout naval history.

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Right, just trends in scouting and
communications makes it exceptionally difficult to keep a

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large platform, you know, as
large as recognizable as a nuclear power aircraft

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care makes it very very difficult,
difficult to keep that hidden for any appreciable

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amount of time. And so obviously
that affects all surface ships, not just

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cbns, but it's especially problematic for
the CBN because it's you know, it's

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so recognizable and its signature is so
huge. And then also its loss would

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be I mean it would be catastrophic. Right, Lots of ships we can

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lose and would be painful but would
not fundamentally alter the the power or the

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structure of the United States Navy.
But losing a ship of twelve billion dollars

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that recommends that represents the might of
the American Navy and of the country.

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They would have unmatched catastrops. They
would have unmatched financial and diplomatic and operational

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impacts. And all that comes down
to, you know, like you're talking

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about scouting and how difficult it is
to remain hidden at on the surface of

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the sea today. I mean,
if the Japanese could find carriers in using

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nineteen forties technology. And if the
Argentinians could find surface the surface fleet using

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nineteen eighties technology, then surely our
adversaries can do likely do it today using

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all those same tools, plus satellite
networks and advanced sensors and communications and cyber

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attacks and things along those lines.
Just makes it very, very difficult to

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keep something like that hidden for so
long. And like we know from Captain

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Hughes, if it can be found, that can lead to attacking effectively first,

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and that's the key to to tact
the CETSI yeah, I'm going to

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say the spirit of Wayne Hughes is
alive and well. In your book one

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of one of the one of the
one of my uh you're kind of talking.

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It's part of the book you talk
about some of the obstacles to something

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like the flex fleet being developed because
for years guys like Hughes and and Sabrowski

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and other people have have said,
we don't need the huge carrier, we

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need to diversify, we need we
need to think differently. And the resistance,

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uh sometimes of the large corporations.
I think your example that that Huntingdon

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Industries, whoever, the big shipyard
in Norfolk that makes their carriers. But

330
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there was a great quote that you
had about the uh from from Barnie Rubble

331
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that it doesn't seem reasonable presumed that
the strategic future the United States hinges on

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a few thousand shipyard workers in Virginia. I mean, the way you the

333
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way the book is structured, we
would have to produce a lot of the

334
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corvettes and more frigates, and then
these missile vessels, which I think we

335
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had to talk about down here a
little bit, to the big brass missile

336
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boats. I mean, I like
the concept. I'm a big fan of

337
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missile barges of nothing else, but
to talk a little bit about how the

338
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money would be shifted away from some
of the larger entities. And this is

339
00:27:33.480 --> 00:27:37.960
to appease that the shipyard workers.
So these guys would still have work,

340
00:27:37.000 --> 00:27:41.920
it would just be a different kind
of work. Definitely. Yeah, I

341
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think I think this change would need
to come from within the Navy, but

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that to accomplish it, we would
have to earn the buy in from lots

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of key organizations, including industry,
right, and so I mean that's part

344
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of the reason why I think the
Marine Corps Force designed twenty thirty has been

345
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successful because it wasn't just the marine, right, they went out and they

346
00:28:00.440 --> 00:28:07.279
earned buy in from all the numerous
constituencies that had some sort of part to

347
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play, and to shift past the
carrier centric fleet, right, that would

348
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be even that would be infinitely more
difficult than Force Design twenty thirty, which

349
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is already you know, an impressive
thing that they pulled off. And and

350
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so if we're going to do this, like I said, I think the

351
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Navy would need to lead that shift
just because of how complex and how difficult

352
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and how long this will take,
and that you know, the million factors

353
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that will go into such a shift. But then that, but then the

354
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Navy will certainly need to earn buy
in from constituencies such as hi I,

355
00:28:40.119 --> 00:28:41.200
right, because you know, like
you said, right, it's not like,

356
00:28:41.799 --> 00:28:45.720
uh, it's not like we can
afford as the nation to just say,

357
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oh, well, you know,
we're not gonna use hi I anymore

358
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and we're just gonna move on or
anything like that. Right, they are.

359
00:28:49.880 --> 00:28:56.000
Clearly we need shipyards building ships.
I'm just saying that we should shift

360
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what types of ships we build.
And so obviously there's a future for a

361
00:29:00.480 --> 00:29:04.640
building you know, aircraft, carres
or submarines and whatever else we choose to

362
00:29:04.680 --> 00:29:11.759
build. But I just think shifting
away from the CV and and aligning incentives

363
00:29:11.799 --> 00:29:15.200
for all the constituencies, that's going
to the important part for the Navy to

364
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:18.079
earn that sort of buying as we
go forward. I'd also say for like

365
00:29:18.160 --> 00:29:23.759
Catain Hughes and amal Sterbrowski and those
you know, obviously distinguished gentlemen that made

366
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these cases well well before I did
much better than I ever could. I

367
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think part of the challenge that they
face was that they were writing, you

368
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know, thirty years ago when we
did not have a credible adversary at sea.

369
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I think Captain Hendricks has talked about
this, how fleet design is a

370
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function of both technology and the mission
of the fleet, and so you know,

371
00:29:45.880 --> 00:29:51.440
we probably have the technology to evolve
the fleet thirty years ago when people

372
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like Captain Hughes and amial Sebrowskian and
such were making these arguments. However,

373
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I don't think we had the mission
at the time, right. And so

374
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there's the Cold War had just ended, and the Chinese Navy was an obsolete

375
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coastal force, and so we control
the seas, and so we probably focused

376
00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:15.839
our attention to power projection from uncontested
seas. But now, because of the

377
00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:18.799
hard work of the Navy developing those
technologies, and because we now have the

378
00:30:18.799 --> 00:30:22.599
People's Liberation Army Navy to face off
against, I think we have both the

379
00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:27.680
technology and the mission to start evolving
the fleet. Well, let's look a

380
00:30:27.759 --> 00:30:33.039
little bit at the People's Republic of
China's navy, because you're exactly right.

381
00:30:33.079 --> 00:30:41.359
You know, when we go back
again Tone ninety nine and the world especially

382
00:30:41.279 --> 00:30:47.839
contested at sea, and we're still
in the light post Cold War era,

383
00:30:48.720 --> 00:30:52.440
things are very different here in twenty
twenty four. So when you look at

384
00:30:52.559 --> 00:30:57.839
the People's Republic of China and her
navy, what do you see about their

385
00:30:57.880 --> 00:31:04.400
fleet design, what they've invested in. Yes, I think they I think

386
00:31:04.440 --> 00:31:07.359
there's a lot of you know,
do D reporting everything along those lines of

387
00:31:07.559 --> 00:31:12.640
that they are focused on WARTC and
thinking and opposing fleet. I mean Captain

388
00:31:12.960 --> 00:31:17.519
Finnell had that. I mean he
had that quote at US and I West

389
00:31:17.559 --> 00:31:21.920
about ten years ago, and at
the time it was sort of shocking that

390
00:31:21.960 --> 00:31:26.200
he said of it. Now I
think wildly accepted that that is the People's

391
00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:30.759
Liberation Army Navy, right, they're
they're clearly focused on winning control of the

392
00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:34.200
Western Pacific. And again, you
can read any sort of like the annual

393
00:31:34.279 --> 00:31:40.240
d D Report to Congress on the
on the the Chinese fleet and read about

394
00:31:40.279 --> 00:31:45.640
their prolific use of missiles and how
I mean every single essentially every single platform,

395
00:31:45.680 --> 00:31:49.039
aircraft, et cetera in their fleet
has very capable anti ship cruise missiles.

396
00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:53.200
I think of the Falklands were right, and so in that war,

397
00:31:53.279 --> 00:32:00.680
the Argentinians had just seven exists anti
ship cruise missiles and with those seven missiles,

398
00:32:01.240 --> 00:32:07.880
they think two Royal Navy ships and
they cause significant damage to a third.

399
00:32:08.680 --> 00:32:15.519
So today a single Chinese Hube missile
craft has more anti ship cruise missiles

400
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:20.960
than the Argentinians had or used in
the entire war. And uh right,

401
00:32:21.000 --> 00:32:25.960
the Chinese Navy has reportedly thousands of
them. So it's just the again,

402
00:32:27.119 --> 00:32:30.160
just more evidence that we live in
the age of the missile and that we

403
00:32:30.200 --> 00:32:35.400
need to do everything possible to capitalize
on that because obviously our adversaries are doing

404
00:32:35.440 --> 00:32:40.200
the same. Yeah. I thought
it was interesting when you when you got

405
00:32:40.240 --> 00:32:45.000
into the discussion of the of the
subsurf, I mean, the threats to

406
00:32:45.119 --> 00:32:51.240
the character then, and certainly the
subsurface threats submarines and miz are key to

407
00:32:51.279 --> 00:32:57.279
those. But at one point you
discussed the effect of having so many anti

408
00:32:57.279 --> 00:33:02.359
ship cruise missiles on the submarines where
you could put ten submarines uh out of

409
00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:07.880
the range of art detection. But
all they need is a is A is

410
00:33:07.920 --> 00:33:10.519
a targeting queue, and they can
they can, they can launch a lot

411
00:33:10.519 --> 00:33:16.200
of anti ship cruise missiles at a
carrier and UH and and and go from

412
00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:20.519
there. Talk talk a little bit
about that that kind of threat and what

413
00:33:20.519 --> 00:33:24.279
what that means in terms of of
what we have to do try and protect

414
00:33:24.279 --> 00:33:28.839
the carriers, which I think is
as your book points up pretty well,

415
00:33:28.920 --> 00:33:31.440
is is it's not quite a hopeless
task, but it's pretty gard close to

416
00:33:31.519 --> 00:33:38.759
it. Sure, I would recommend
your listeners go to the China Maritime Studies

417
00:33:38.799 --> 00:33:44.079
Institute at the Naval Work Hallege Train
and they've done lots of great work studying

418
00:33:44.119 --> 00:33:49.359
the the Chinese submarine fleet. And
I mean one of the things they've talked

419
00:33:49.359 --> 00:33:54.599
about is exactly what you're you're getting
out of the use of how Chinese submarines

420
00:33:54.920 --> 00:34:00.079
are in many ways anti surface platforms
and that instead of you know, trying

421
00:34:00.079 --> 00:34:05.160
to them, trying to drive around
and develop their tactics and get close for

422
00:34:05.200 --> 00:34:08.360
torpedo shots and everything like that.
They're essentially like a floating mine with an

423
00:34:08.480 --> 00:34:14.360
anti ship cruise missiles that they can
stay off in wherever they you know,

424
00:34:14.440 --> 00:34:17.159
whatever area they can find, and
then when they get queuing from somewhere else,

425
00:34:17.519 --> 00:34:22.920
launch their missiles. I think I
really try to learn the lessons of

426
00:34:23.159 --> 00:34:28.440
naval history, right because any sort
of fleet designer is going to you know,

427
00:34:28.480 --> 00:34:31.840
we always we use all available tools, war games and exercises and intel

428
00:34:31.880 --> 00:34:36.440
analyzes and things along those lines,
and they're all valuable tools, but I

429
00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:40.760
don't think anything matches the value of
naval combat and learning from that. However,

430
00:34:40.800 --> 00:34:45.320
there's very little naval combat above the
seas to learn from, and there's

431
00:34:45.039 --> 00:34:49.480
you know, there's significantly less beneath
the seas. There's the I think the

432
00:34:49.519 --> 00:34:55.039
only three times a summarine has engaged
in combat other than launching tomahawks since World

433
00:34:55.039 --> 00:35:00.440
War Two is the Indo a Pakistan
War of nineteen seventy one, Pons War

434
00:35:00.440 --> 00:35:04.360
of nineteen eighty two, and the
North Korean thinking of a South Korean corvette

435
00:35:04.360 --> 00:35:07.159
in twenty ten. And so you
know, it makes it very difficult to

436
00:35:07.320 --> 00:35:13.800
learn the lessons of naval history to
understand the impact that submarines will have today

437
00:35:13.840 --> 00:35:17.239
on the aircraft carrier or any sort
of surface ship. But I would again

438
00:35:17.320 --> 00:35:22.199
go back to the Falklands War.
Right there, a single nuclear powered submarine,

439
00:35:22.239 --> 00:35:27.079
the HMS Conqueror, launched a single
Savo and sank a single ship.

440
00:35:27.119 --> 00:35:34.440
The HMS Sorry that Ara General Belgrano
and the Argentinians withdrew their entire fleet to

441
00:35:34.760 --> 00:35:37.159
port out of fear of additional attack. So the one time that we've seen

442
00:35:37.199 --> 00:35:43.840
the nuclear power submarine go into combat, it defeated the entire navy. And

443
00:35:43.920 --> 00:35:50.599
so today our adversars have a lot
more submarines than what the Argentinians had,

444
00:35:50.639 --> 00:35:52.280
which is just you know, one
or two at sea throughout their war,

445
00:35:52.320 --> 00:35:55.920
which even that one or two the
Royal Navy could not find throughout the entire

446
00:35:55.960 --> 00:36:01.360
war and launched something like two hundred
torpedoes at it. Fast forward to stay

447
00:36:01.440 --> 00:36:08.199
right, our officers have much larger
undersea fleets and and so it just I

448
00:36:08.280 --> 00:36:14.760
think it makes it would make it
very very difficult to generate the perfect defense

449
00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:19.480
that we need for a priceless ship. The aircraft carrier. I think the

450
00:36:19.599 --> 00:36:24.119
aircraft carrier's defense above the seas and
beneath the seas is very very good,

451
00:36:24.199 --> 00:36:29.280
right is the best defender surface ship
in the world. But I don't think

452
00:36:29.320 --> 00:36:32.039
that defense is still good enough for
a ship that we cannot lose, that

453
00:36:32.119 --> 00:36:37.280
we must protect because of how important
and how valuable it is, and in

454
00:36:37.320 --> 00:36:40.400
the era of capable submarines, I
just think that would be a very difficult

455
00:36:40.480 --> 00:36:44.639
task. Now. To be clear, you know, I am a sum

456
00:36:44.639 --> 00:36:47.760
ariner, so I am not arguing
that, like you know, surface sheep

457
00:36:49.000 --> 00:36:52.639
surface ships are suddenly obsolete or anything
like that. I think there's many of

458
00:36:52.679 --> 00:36:58.400
the Navy's missions that submarines can't do
or can't do as effectively as surface ships.

459
00:36:59.159 --> 00:37:02.039
But I just think centralizing so much
of the fleet fire apart on eleven

460
00:37:02.119 --> 00:37:08.800
ships is inadvisable when we have to
face modern underseat threats. I do like

461
00:37:08.920 --> 00:37:15.079
how you it almost almost pre empty
by a fan of comment, was he's

462
00:37:15.119 --> 00:37:17.519
just making the stuff out of your
Head's like, no, here's Here's reference

463
00:37:17.719 --> 00:37:22.679
is a through f from history,
which found because you only have in your

464
00:37:22.760 --> 00:37:28.320
right there there are limited, limited
points of reference for modern naval warfare.

465
00:37:28.400 --> 00:37:31.880
But there are clear trends that you
can see. And I liked what you

466
00:37:31.960 --> 00:37:37.079
brought up about the Royal Navy and
the Falcon Islands. I know most of

467
00:37:37.119 --> 00:37:39.960
it is still on the high side, but for for those for those that's

468
00:37:39.960 --> 00:37:45.880
still I have access to zippernet.
If you have the ability to see the

469
00:37:45.880 --> 00:37:52.000
classified briefing on the ASW weapon usage
of the Royal Navy. It it'll sober

470
00:37:52.039 --> 00:37:57.639
you up real fast about what people
will drop on what they think is a

471
00:37:57.679 --> 00:38:04.119
submarine. It's I think that goes
with Mark's comment about this is a great

472
00:38:04.320 --> 00:38:07.079
a great scary story if you read
it a certain way. But I wanted

473
00:38:07.119 --> 00:38:12.679
to speaking of history learning lessons,
I've want to You can't see the future,

474
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:17.039
obviously, but congrat from page fourteen, name dropping to Houthi's because there's

475
00:38:17.079 --> 00:38:22.840
the book's come out. We've ossibly
had a few months a very real world

476
00:38:22.920 --> 00:38:29.280
experience about what are our ships can
do and perhaps what our allies can't do

477
00:38:29.800 --> 00:38:36.960
against anti ship cruise missile even probably
again I'm just guessing here generation zero or

478
00:38:37.000 --> 00:38:44.360
generation one anti ship ballistic missiles and
even a new twist of the sub sonic

479
00:38:44.519 --> 00:38:51.719
flying lawnmower variety of anti ship drones
that we've seen off of Houthie controlled Yemen.

480
00:38:52.480 --> 00:38:55.000
Kind of what are some of your
quick look lessons that you've seen so

481
00:38:55.199 --> 00:39:00.440
far and how does that bounce off
of some of the research what you did

482
00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:05.719
for your book. Yeah, great
point. Well, like I said,

483
00:39:05.800 --> 00:39:09.199
right, I think there's numerous resources
we can use to prepare for future combat,

484
00:39:09.239 --> 00:39:14.320
but that naval history is the most
important of them. And so that's

485
00:39:14.320 --> 00:39:19.360
what makes the actions and the Red
Sea so interesting and so important to learn

486
00:39:19.400 --> 00:39:23.199
from. I don't think that there
are any wildly new lessons here, but

487
00:39:23.320 --> 00:39:29.159
reinforcements of lessons we've already learned throughout
naval history. And none of this is

488
00:39:29.199 --> 00:39:32.119
the comment or judgment on what we've
done so far and opinion on what I

489
00:39:32.159 --> 00:39:35.239
think we should be doing or anything
like that. Right, that's not my

490
00:39:35.320 --> 00:39:37.599
place, it's not my purpose here. It's just my attempts to understand the

491
00:39:37.679 --> 00:39:42.760
lessons of naval history. And obviously
this is very recent naval history. So

492
00:39:44.239 --> 00:39:46.920
firstly, I think this whole series
event shows the value of the Navy right

493
00:39:46.960 --> 00:39:51.119
throughout its history. It's been very
difficult for the Navy to convey to the

494
00:39:51.119 --> 00:39:55.800
public the vital functions it performs in
peace time functions that the other services largely

495
00:39:55.920 --> 00:40:00.559
cannot do. I mean the Navy
enavals, trade shows, flag Grisher's allies,

496
00:40:00.599 --> 00:40:07.480
the tourist adversaries, all from powerful
and flexible platforms, that they arrived

497
00:40:07.519 --> 00:40:10.639
quickly on station with minimal support if
they're not there already, and whether that

498
00:40:10.760 --> 00:40:15.440
was Ford and hirsch Rich group quickly
arriving off Israel after Hamas's attack or the

499
00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:21.079
fleet's defense are shipping against attacks.
I mean, I think the Navy has

500
00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:23.760
excelled in its peace time rule in
a way that is more visible and more

501
00:40:23.840 --> 00:40:30.000
understandable to the American public than normal
day to day operations. Right, it's

502
00:40:30.000 --> 00:40:32.519
difficult to explain to the average citizen
why they should care about the writings of

503
00:40:32.519 --> 00:40:37.920
Alfred A. Mahan, But it's
easy for that average citizen to understand that

504
00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:43.239
the Huthis are attacking the ships delivering
his Amazon products and that those deliveries are

505
00:40:43.239 --> 00:40:45.519
now going to be slower and more
expensive, but that the US navyes that

506
00:40:45.679 --> 00:40:52.119
see protecting those citizens' deliveries. I
think, with a secretary defense needed a

507
00:40:52.159 --> 00:40:54.360
powerful deterrent force. On short notes, he did not turn to the Army

508
00:40:54.400 --> 00:40:58.199
Air Force. Right, very capable
and pressive forces, but they have huge

509
00:40:58.280 --> 00:41:01.239
logistics trains would take weeks or months
to arrive. Right, he ordered the

510
00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:07.559
fleet to the Eastern Mediterranean instead of
weeks of planning and packing and talking and

511
00:41:07.639 --> 00:41:12.199
moving in shipping, it just took
a few Young's helmsman to shift a few

512
00:41:12.280 --> 00:41:16.599
rudders and reposition the fleet to where
the President needed. I think second,

513
00:41:19.119 --> 00:41:22.480
I think the last few months showed
yet again the value of the aircraft carrier.

514
00:41:22.559 --> 00:41:24.639
Right. Like I said before,
there's no shit that can match its

515
00:41:24.679 --> 00:41:29.679
to turn value or ability to protect
power from uncontested sees, the exact two

516
00:41:29.719 --> 00:41:31.840
missions that are called for in the
region right now, where there's powerful air

517
00:41:31.960 --> 00:41:37.239
wing, unmatched endurance and logistics.
Right, it was immediately ready to deter

518
00:41:37.320 --> 00:41:43.320
additional attacks on Israel and launch strikes
on our adversaries. And I think third,

519
00:41:43.360 --> 00:41:46.079
the Houthis attack on shipping and our
fleet reinforced that we live in the

520
00:41:46.119 --> 00:41:52.840
age of the missile and that tactically
offense dominates at sea. Right, I

521
00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:54.760
think we like you talked about the
you know, I think we agree the

522
00:41:54.800 --> 00:42:00.800
Houthis rebels living in the desert are
not the most technical, technologically advanced,

523
00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:05.199
or capable adversary and navy as they
have faced. But despite those advantages,

524
00:42:05.320 --> 00:42:08.559
right, they have had a huge
impact on global trade and US Navy operations.

525
00:42:08.639 --> 00:42:13.159
And a huge reason for that is
because they've been able to use missiles

526
00:42:13.159 --> 00:42:16.639
which again cheap, easy to operate, don't require much infrastructure to use,

527
00:42:17.199 --> 00:42:22.159
don't require error or maritime superiority,
and have a little downside if they fail.

528
00:42:23.000 --> 00:42:29.519
And then on the other side,
defending against those missiles requires constant divigilance

529
00:42:29.559 --> 00:42:34.320
twenty four to seven, requires advanced
censors, very capable interceptors. And then

530
00:42:34.599 --> 00:42:37.000
whereas the attacker only needs one missile
to get through, the defender has to

531
00:42:37.639 --> 00:42:45.159
interceptor avoid every single incoming shot,
meaning the attacker always has the advantage at

532
00:42:45.239 --> 00:42:49.360
sea. So I think all those
sorts of factors informed the conclusions of my

533
00:42:49.400 --> 00:42:52.079
book. Right, the defense is
very very good. It is the best

534
00:42:52.079 --> 00:42:55.440
defended surface ship in the world.
However, in the age of the missile,

535
00:42:55.719 --> 00:43:00.480
with the advantage always on the attacker
side, with modern trends and scouting

536
00:43:00.559 --> 00:43:06.039
weapons technology, and with a very
capable adversary, now, I do not

537
00:43:06.119 --> 00:43:08.480
think that we should plan for a
perfect defense for such a priceless shift,

538
00:43:09.239 --> 00:43:14.239
And I think my final takeaway from
the action of the Red Sea is that

539
00:43:14.320 --> 00:43:20.480
it again demonstrates the carrier's utility for
permissive power projection, but offers little evidence

540
00:43:20.519 --> 00:43:23.800
of its sea control or contested power
production capabilities. Right, we already know

541
00:43:23.840 --> 00:43:28.960
that the carrier excels have been on
area strike see Korea, Vietnam, Iraq,

542
00:43:29.000 --> 00:43:31.719
Afghanistan, etc. Right, that
just reinforces what we already know.

543
00:43:32.360 --> 00:43:36.840
I think, however, some people
have tried to make the argument that this

544
00:43:36.960 --> 00:43:40.280
shows the carrier is still the premier
fighting unit C. But the Huthis do

545
00:43:40.320 --> 00:43:43.760
not have a navy and they do
not have an air force, And I

546
00:43:43.760 --> 00:43:49.960
don't think we should confuse the carrier's
great success against that irregular force as evidence

547
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:54.320
of the platforms, sea control or
contested power production capabilities against the PLA N

548
00:43:54.519 --> 00:44:01.920
or another adversary. Yeah, I
think the actually, in terms of your

549
00:44:01.920 --> 00:44:07.400
book, it's the d d gs
and the whatever, the the International,

550
00:44:07.559 --> 00:44:16.480
the French and Italian UH and the
Brits in their in their constellation type frigates

551
00:44:16.519 --> 00:44:21.639
sort of ships UH that are that
are doing a lot of the load of

552
00:44:21.679 --> 00:44:25.079
shooting down these things as they're as
they're the Hoothies are tossing out as they're

553
00:44:25.119 --> 00:44:29.360
on the way. The carrier has
been used to trying to It reminds me

554
00:44:29.400 --> 00:44:32.440
of the scud hunts during desert storm. You know, they shoot, they

555
00:44:32.639 --> 00:44:38.719
they move and and then you're either
blasting empty sand or you're you're if they

556
00:44:38.840 --> 00:44:42.960
if the people are smart, they're
shooting these things from mosques and other places

557
00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:46.000
where if they get hit, they
they can can go complain about things.

558
00:44:46.039 --> 00:44:51.440
But I think you're the lesson is
well made. I mean the shore based

559
00:44:51.880 --> 00:44:57.400
UH group with the with modern technology, which is in this case fairly simple

560
00:44:57.440 --> 00:45:05.480
missiles or as Sal says, the
uh the uh uh rice Krispy box drones.

561
00:45:06.800 --> 00:45:07.800
You know they can do They can
do a lot of damage, and

562
00:45:07.840 --> 00:45:10.760
they can do it fairly far out
at sea. We've seen in the Black

563
00:45:10.840 --> 00:45:21.239
Sea the Ukrainians using uh these uh
remote uh uh semi submersible units taking out

564
00:45:21.360 --> 00:45:24.440
big chunks of the Russian Navy.
So I think there's a lot to be

565
00:45:24.519 --> 00:45:30.320
concerned about if you're if you're worried
about a giant aircraft carrier, and I

566
00:45:30.320 --> 00:45:37.320
think your your book happily points out
that it's smaller uh dare we stay at

567
00:45:37.599 --> 00:45:42.800
more expendable ships that that may be
the way of the future. Helped fight

568
00:45:42.840 --> 00:45:45.119
this kind of thing. Yep,
I think, I mean every one of

569
00:45:45.119 --> 00:45:50.000
those ships is less survival than a
CBN, right, make no mistake.

570
00:45:51.159 --> 00:45:54.519
But Ameral Sabrowski had this great quote
that I really liked about. It is,

571
00:45:54.599 --> 00:46:00.719
you know, fleet survivability, not
platform survivability, that matters. And

572
00:46:00.760 --> 00:46:04.920
so I think this large distributed fleet
that the Navy is already identifying, and

573
00:46:04.960 --> 00:46:07.840
I think in many ways working towards
I think that is a more survivable option

574
00:46:08.360 --> 00:46:15.280
than one centered on eleven ships,
that that we must protect. A couple

575
00:46:15.320 --> 00:46:19.679
of items that you talk about in
about the middle of your book, that

576
00:46:20.199 --> 00:46:22.840
you know, if you want to
watch somebody get to flop sweat real fast,

577
00:46:23.440 --> 00:46:30.760
when especially if you're all a surpose
fleet, if talk about unlocated submarine

578
00:46:30.079 --> 00:46:35.920
are all of a sudden you find
yourself in a minefield. Again, these

579
00:46:35.920 --> 00:46:38.840
are threats that have been with us
for a century, but especially at the

580
00:46:38.920 --> 00:46:44.639
end of the Cold War, and
I really look at mine warfare in this

581
00:46:44.760 --> 00:46:50.480
regard, but also anti submarine warfare
is there's been a lot of assumptions about

582
00:46:50.960 --> 00:46:53.320
what can be done from the air
and on the surface to try to counter

583
00:46:53.800 --> 00:46:57.719
both of these threats. So when
you're looking at, you know, a

584
00:46:57.719 --> 00:47:02.679
proposed fleet for twenty forty, mine, what are some of the critical capabilities

585
00:47:02.679 --> 00:47:08.800
of vulnerabilities that you see from these
two old scourges of the skimmers. That's

586
00:47:08.920 --> 00:47:15.639
uh, your unknown submarine and your
minds. Sure yeah so uh, but

587
00:47:16.039 --> 00:47:19.880
I forget who I actually quote in
the book. But you know, ASW

588
00:47:20.159 --> 00:47:23.920
it is a team sport, right, it requires lots of platforms searching for

589
00:47:24.760 --> 00:47:30.679
a submarine. And so we have
chosen as a navy to build exquisite platforms.

590
00:47:30.719 --> 00:47:35.599
And you know that's obviously an understandable
decision, and those are great ships.

591
00:47:36.079 --> 00:47:40.519
The unintended consequence of that is we
have a smaller you know, we

592
00:47:40.559 --> 00:47:44.679
have fewer ships than what we would
like. We do not have a huge

593
00:47:44.719 --> 00:47:50.719
fleet inventor because because we chose those
exquisite ships, and so I think to

594
00:47:51.159 --> 00:47:55.519
effectively do anti submarine warfare, you
need lots of platform searching. So that's

595
00:47:55.559 --> 00:47:59.039
what I tried to do in this
in the flex fleet contract, right,

596
00:47:59.079 --> 00:48:02.159
So uh, increase the number of
consolation class forgets that we're playing on building,

597
00:48:02.360 --> 00:48:08.199
and then adding more, adding some
ASW caability to some of these core

598
00:48:08.280 --> 00:48:15.079
vettes and just spreading the field as
much as possible to find some merge threats

599
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:21.239
before they're able to attack us.
And then also that it's much of the

600
00:48:21.280 --> 00:48:23.920
flex fleet structure sort of acknowledges that
we are going to take losses, and

601
00:48:23.960 --> 00:48:28.920
so it tries to prepare for that
eventuality, and it does that by spreading

602
00:48:28.920 --> 00:48:32.400
out the capabilities to more ships.
And so when those summarines do have an

603
00:48:32.400 --> 00:48:37.440
impact and they do sink a ship, it is not catastrophic and it is

604
00:48:37.519 --> 00:48:40.519
not fundamentally changed the power of that
fleet. It is still painful and it

605
00:48:40.559 --> 00:48:45.559
still has the impact, but the
fleet overall can continue to fight. I

606
00:48:45.559 --> 00:48:50.639
think if anything overall when trying to
get across in this book is that the

607
00:48:50.679 --> 00:48:53.199
fleet metrics matter. Right, So
there is no ship that's going to compete

608
00:48:53.239 --> 00:48:58.199
with a fore class, and there's
no class to ship that's going to complete

609
00:48:58.480 --> 00:49:00.239
compete with a fore class. Right. It is is very very powerful,

610
00:49:00.800 --> 00:49:05.719
and nothing on a one to one
comparison is going to beat it. But

611
00:49:05.760 --> 00:49:09.360
I think there are fleet structures that
can compete with the carrier centric model UH,

612
00:49:09.400 --> 00:49:14.400
and they can do even better than
our already impressive fleet in our various

613
00:49:14.440 --> 00:49:16.960
mission areas, including anti summary and
warfare as you talked about, or in

614
00:49:17.119 --> 00:49:21.239
minds as well. Right, so
no one wants to talk about minds.

615
00:49:21.400 --> 00:49:23.280
Uh, they're boring. I don't
want to talk about minds. But they're

616
00:49:23.320 --> 00:49:25.840
they're going to have a huge you
know, they could have a huge impact

617
00:49:27.159 --> 00:49:30.880
because again they're they're cheap, they're
easy. And then, uh, if

618
00:49:30.880 --> 00:49:34.800
you have a very very powerful ship
and then you've lost it to just a

619
00:49:34.800 --> 00:49:39.000
few minds, I mean that that
is that's a painful day. Yeah,

620
00:49:39.400 --> 00:49:44.559
I want to go back to the
the cond I think a really excellent point

621
00:49:44.559 --> 00:49:50.440
you made in the book about these
uh you call them the brass missile ships,

622
00:49:51.119 --> 00:49:53.599
and and the effect of those is
you would load up a ship with

623
00:49:53.599 --> 00:49:59.559
with a lot of the vertical Laune
cells and it would it would expend those

624
00:50:00.320 --> 00:50:06.840
aiming at things, picked up my
DGGs and other assets, and but when

625
00:50:06.880 --> 00:50:09.840
they empty, they would just go
back and reload and another one would take

626
00:50:09.840 --> 00:50:15.239
their place. Talk a little bit
about that concept and why why that's a

627
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:20.599
benefit to the navy and be able
to keep as front line ships on the

628
00:50:20.639 --> 00:50:23.320
line rather than how to go back
there are yep, yep. So the

629
00:50:23.599 --> 00:50:28.719
idea is again trying to keep things
technologically simple. And so I know,

630
00:50:29.119 --> 00:50:32.679
you know, the Navy's working very
very hard on figuring out how to reload

631
00:50:32.760 --> 00:50:37.440
VLS at C and I have no
doubt that we will get there. But

632
00:50:37.519 --> 00:50:38.719
I try to go the simple route
instead of trying to figure out how to

633
00:50:38.800 --> 00:50:43.480
do that at THEE, I just
said, let's just replace the entire VLS

634
00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:49.679
bank. And so if you're going
to if a DDG shoots all of its

635
00:50:49.760 --> 00:50:52.880
missiles and has to go back to
port, that is painful for the fleet,

636
00:50:52.920 --> 00:50:55.480
right because DDG is very very capable, and we lose all sorts of

637
00:50:57.119 --> 00:51:00.119
capabilities, right, and oli Burke
is much more than just its missile cells,

638
00:51:00.199 --> 00:51:04.840
right, great radar and sonar and
command control and all sorts of things

639
00:51:04.880 --> 00:51:08.320
like that. And so but it's
you know this arsenal shit that we're talking

640
00:51:08.320 --> 00:51:12.000
about, and that can be a
merchant ship or I mean, we have

641
00:51:12.079 --> 00:51:15.400
some unmanned platforms that are working toward
that. When that ship leaves, well

642
00:51:15.480 --> 00:51:19.920
we really just lose its empty missile
cells, so it's not a big impact.

643
00:51:20.000 --> 00:51:22.719
And so that lets more capable ships
like DDGs stay at sea and do

644
00:51:22.920 --> 00:51:28.519
great things, and then you can
just cycle out these much cheaper ships that

645
00:51:28.639 --> 00:51:37.199
are really just just AMO ships.
And so again that lets the Navy's most

646
00:51:37.280 --> 00:51:42.719
capable platforms do what they do best
and keep all the ddg's many impressive capabilities

647
00:51:42.760 --> 00:51:45.679
at sea and then but at the
same time gets a lot more missiles into

648
00:51:45.719 --> 00:51:52.440
the fleet. A lot of issues. I have a little little diddy alleys

649
00:51:52.679 --> 00:51:58.599
try to I try to say to
people who who kind of get fidgety when

650
00:51:58.599 --> 00:52:00.800
you talk about change, is like, hey, I understand, change is

651
00:52:00.920 --> 00:52:05.719
different. Different is scary, scary
as bad, So let's not do anything

652
00:52:05.800 --> 00:52:14.599
different. And when you look at
our wonderfully complex acquisition system that we've imposed

653
00:52:14.639 --> 00:52:20.239
on ourselves and our two year election
cycles, those are the two things that

654
00:52:20.440 --> 00:52:23.280
really popped on my mind. On
a quote that you have, and I'm

655
00:52:23.320 --> 00:52:27.440
going to steal this and use it
for future use, Jeff, so please

656
00:52:27.519 --> 00:52:30.599
please don't sue me for it,
but I'll do a look, I'll quote

657
00:52:30.639 --> 00:52:35.239
you to yourself for the listeners who
haven't gotten to page seventy yet. Quote

658
00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:45.719
changing a baseball team are any fleet
structure can be difficult and temporarily expensive unquote.

659
00:52:45.039 --> 00:52:50.159
And that second part, the temporarily
expensive, I don't think we have

660
00:52:50.320 --> 00:52:55.679
the muscle memory we being the navy
side, or really any military side of

661
00:52:55.760 --> 00:53:00.880
the equation. Our senior leadership on
the civilian, the milit terry side,

662
00:53:00.920 --> 00:53:08.559
and even the navalist influencers out in
the civilian sectors have good muscle memory on

663
00:53:08.719 --> 00:53:16.079
how to discuss about temporarily expensive especially
inside of a palm cycle, to get

664
00:53:16.400 --> 00:53:22.239
gains at year five, six seven. Because there's also a history of people

665
00:53:22.360 --> 00:53:28.360
over promising and under delivery about savings. What are some of the ideas that

666
00:53:28.480 --> 00:53:31.000
you have, besides some of the
hard math that you'd have demonstrated your book,

667
00:53:31.719 --> 00:53:37.440
that could could help people to start
to do that message about how change

668
00:53:37.559 --> 00:53:43.239
does have some initial costs but that
investment really pays off down the road,

669
00:53:43.320 --> 00:53:50.000
because that's a hard cell. Definitely. Yeah, there are many problems with

670
00:53:50.119 --> 00:53:52.719
my book that people could point out
and they would be right, And one

671
00:53:52.760 --> 00:53:55.800
of them is that I don't really
delve into details of like short term you

672
00:53:55.840 --> 00:54:00.239
know what you're talking about, short
term how to get small wins and start

673
00:54:00.320 --> 00:54:01.440
shit this evolution. Right, I
say, well, here we are,

674
00:54:01.559 --> 00:54:05.320
and thirty years ago or thirty years
from now, this is where we should

675
00:54:05.360 --> 00:54:08.840
be, and someone smarter than me, let's figure out the middle. But

676
00:54:09.320 --> 00:54:12.599
a lot of it is, you
know, maybe similar to what the Marine

677
00:54:12.639 --> 00:54:15.840
Corps did right they before they you
know, it's not like we're just kind

678
00:54:15.840 --> 00:54:17.079
of now, it's like, hey, we're done building carriers. The end

679
00:54:17.280 --> 00:54:21.719
right A ton would have to change
and that means we would have to think

680
00:54:21.760 --> 00:54:24.440
about a lot of this before we
started doing something like that. And I

681
00:54:24.440 --> 00:54:27.800
don't know, like I said earlier
in the show, I think it would

682
00:54:27.800 --> 00:54:30.400
be more you know, lots of
organizations are needed, we have to earn

683
00:54:30.480 --> 00:54:32.840
their buy in, But I think
the Navy would have to lead that.

684
00:54:32.960 --> 00:54:38.119
And so just like the Marines did
lots of thinking and experimentating or experimentation and

685
00:54:38.440 --> 00:54:43.039
things along those lines for a force
designed twenty thirty, I think the Navy

686
00:54:43.119 --> 00:54:46.000
would have to do the same before
it committed to shifting away from the carrier

687
00:54:46.079 --> 00:54:50.719
centric fleet. And I think,
you know, obviously Navy has thought about

688
00:54:50.719 --> 00:54:52.039
it for a long time, and
you know, lots of smarter people than

689
00:54:52.079 --> 00:54:55.320
me are already thinking about that and
coming up with ways to slowly move us

690
00:54:55.440 --> 00:55:00.000
in that direction. And you know, you're seeing some of these the smaller

691
00:55:00.280 --> 00:55:05.239
you know, we've got Consolation Class, right, which is it's not a

692
00:55:05.280 --> 00:55:07.920
small ship, but it is a
smaller ship than what we've had in the

693
00:55:07.000 --> 00:55:12.239
past. And then you know,
we've seen advances in hypersonic weapons, and

694
00:55:12.280 --> 00:55:15.239
we've seen advances in some of the
unmanned platforms. I think all those things

695
00:55:15.719 --> 00:55:22.199
give the NATIVS leadership options to go
to if we decide that it is that

696
00:55:22.320 --> 00:55:27.199
we've reached the end of the age
of the CBN. Yeah, I want

697
00:55:27.239 --> 00:55:30.000
to. I want to. We're
getting close to the end. But I

698
00:55:30.039 --> 00:55:35.400
wanted to kind of have you discuss
the the inertia that you foresee and using

699
00:55:35.760 --> 00:55:38.519
using the Marine Corps and General Burger's
vision of where the Marine Corps is going

700
00:55:38.599 --> 00:55:45.480
to move, how does the Navy
overcome well, the various because I shall

701
00:55:45.599 --> 00:55:49.719
shall I say conservative groups that do
not want to change. I think that

702
00:55:49.880 --> 00:55:54.239
this is the best of all possible
world yep. I think I think it

703
00:55:54.239 --> 00:55:58.360
starts with an apera we have.
We can't it can't just be like,

704
00:55:58.400 --> 00:56:00.960
oh, the carriage are vulnerable and
should stop building it, right. We

705
00:56:00.079 --> 00:56:05.440
have to have a better answer,
And like I said, the care centric

706
00:56:05.480 --> 00:56:08.039
fleet is very very good, so
we would have to come up with something

707
00:56:08.159 --> 00:56:12.199
even better if we're going to do
that to earn all those people as buy

708
00:56:12.280 --> 00:56:19.320
ins all those organizations buy in.
I don't. I'm an optimist and that

709
00:56:19.599 --> 00:56:23.320
I don't believe that there's some like
a nefarious group that's gonna, you know,

710
00:56:23.440 --> 00:56:27.000
stop this, Like, yes,
it'll be it'll be extremely difficult,

711
00:56:27.079 --> 00:56:30.960
right, I mean, presidents has
tried to end the carrier and Secretaries of

712
00:56:30.039 --> 00:56:34.960
Defense everything and they have not succated. So yes, I got it.

713
00:56:35.000 --> 00:56:37.719
It'll be very, very difficult,
but we've done it before. Right.

714
00:56:38.239 --> 00:56:43.519
There's a story of obstructionist battleship admirals
leaning up to World War Two and that

715
00:56:43.639 --> 00:56:45.800
they stopped all innovation things like that, but that is a myth. I

716
00:56:45.880 --> 00:56:50.960
mean, in reality, the Navy
made great progress developing the oily aviation because

717
00:56:51.000 --> 00:56:57.280
of UH leaders like Admirals William Moffett
and William Simms and and Eli that we

718
00:56:57.360 --> 00:57:00.960
talked about earlier in the show,
and so you know, they did all

719
00:57:00.079 --> 00:57:05.639
they developed new aircraft in new ways
of fighting, and new training systems,

720
00:57:05.719 --> 00:57:12.239
and so that when a mission came
along that required naval aviation seek control against

721
00:57:12.280 --> 00:57:16.480
the Imperial Japanese Navy, the US
Navy was from the most part ready because

722
00:57:16.519 --> 00:57:22.840
of their pioneering work. And so
I think bottom line rate the Navy's leadership

723
00:57:22.840 --> 00:57:27.000
has done before, and I have
no doubt that whenever they decide that it

724
00:57:27.119 --> 00:57:29.719
is time to shift, that they'd
be able to do again. It would

725
00:57:29.760 --> 00:57:31.800
be very, very difficult, yes, but I think possible and I think

726
00:57:31.920 --> 00:57:37.599
necessary. Well, Jeff, like
Mark said, you know, we're coming

727
00:57:37.639 --> 00:57:43.079
near the end of the hour and
you still got a legit day job.

728
00:57:43.239 --> 00:57:45.639
We're in the uniform, so I
know you're a busy guy. And this

729
00:57:45.880 --> 00:57:52.639
was obviously a heck of a lot
of work and research. Like I started

730
00:57:52.719 --> 00:57:59.599
the show with extensive notes and index. It can help the listener if they

731
00:57:59.639 --> 00:58:04.119
want to dive into a topic or
two a little bit further. But if

732
00:58:04.159 --> 00:58:07.960
our if our listeners want to keep
an eyeball on you on what your what's

733
00:58:08.000 --> 00:58:13.000
your thoughts and what you're focused on, where's a good place for him to

734
00:58:13.079 --> 00:58:15.000
go? And are you working on
anything else? As a follow one?

735
00:58:16.840 --> 00:58:20.920
Uh yeah, to find me,
I mean, it turns out there's not

736
00:58:21.000 --> 00:58:23.119
too many Jeff Vanden angles out there, so be easy enough to find,

737
00:58:23.360 --> 00:58:27.760
you know, all that normal social
media and such. And then as far

738
00:58:27.800 --> 00:58:30.400
as future projects, uh yeah,
I mean I was trying to work on

739
00:58:30.519 --> 00:58:35.800
something, but you know, so
hopefully earn a spot back in proceedings or

740
00:58:36.239 --> 00:58:39.159
simsect or somewhere along those lines in
the future. But but no, thank

741
00:58:39.199 --> 00:58:45.840
you very much gentlemen for having me
on. Well, it's been great,

742
00:58:45.960 --> 00:58:50.360
and you're highly recommend that people read
your book. It is. It is

743
00:58:50.920 --> 00:58:55.159
well laid out, very logical,
and if you care about national defenses and

744
00:58:55.320 --> 00:58:59.960
navy issues, it'll probably scare it
the socks off here and if you play,

745
00:59:02.519 --> 00:59:07.239
yeah, just in time for twenty
twenty four Halloween. If folks haven't

746
00:59:07.239 --> 00:59:08.880
gotten, they can get ready.
But thanks again, Jeff, and really

747
00:59:08.920 --> 00:59:14.199
appreciate you taking time to join us
today. And thank you very much everybody

748
00:59:14.239 --> 00:59:16.559
else for joining us for another audition
of mid Rats. And until next time,

749
00:59:16.800 --> 00:59:31.119
we hope y'all have a great Navy
day. Cheers, replied Paddy.

750
00:59:34.079 --> 00:59:40.079
Mike my loney wants to marry me
and all leave a friend of becdily for

751
00:59:40.360 --> 00:59:50.320
you being to blame for love hold
me, said, folding all the tame.

752
00:59:52.119 --> 01:00:29.079
It's a long way. It's a
long way, a long Peeving again,

753
01:00:29.760 --> 01:00:32.119
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