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Welcome to bid rats before the Navy
Middle Blogs, Communities, top bloggers,

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special latest development, long term friends
and the way forward for the Navy Marine

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Corps team and all things Maritimes.
And good morning everybody, our afternoon or

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evening wherever you are. We are
really appreciation time to join us here for

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today's mid Rats. As you probably
heard, all my notes just hit the

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floor. That's the joy of doing
a live podcast. And for those that

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are with us live, I would
like to invite everybody if you scroll to

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the bottom of the show page,
that's where you will find a link to

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the chat room and you can roll
in there with the usual suspects. If

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you have some observations you would like
to share with us during the course of

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the show, Arthur's a question you
would like for us to direct during the

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next hour, We'll be glad to
pull that into the conversation as we move

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forward. And as always, if
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podcasts. That way, if you
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earlier, or you just want to
catch up on all the podcasts you might

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have missed before. That's the best
way to do it. And hey,

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let's go ahead and roll in today's
show. Y'all may have noticed something a

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little different at the beginning of the
show, because that was actually our first

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intro that we updated since then.
Yes, we've been at this thirteen years,

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but we have only recorded two intros
and I wanted to put our first

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intro out there because we've got a
returning guest today that was with us from

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the start, and actually we can
assign either credit or blame to him for

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mid Rats being with us. But
today we're going to have with us author,

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historian, teacher, and all around
good friend Claude Barrabay, and we're

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going to talk about the third novel
in the Connorstark series. It just came

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out titled The Philippine Packed, and
you can find links to it on the

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show page. Another Philippine Packed,
we see the returning to some of your

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favorite characters from the first two books
in the series, The Aid and Effect

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Sirens Song. He brings some new
players onto the stage as well, and

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as always of Claude's novels, they
may be fiction, but they bring stuff

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to the front, usually a little
bit ahead of the news. So Claude,

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welcome back to Rats is glad to
have you on board. I'm glad

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to be back. Thanks so much
for having me, and I guess probably

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the easiest way to kick things off
is double listeners a bit. What is

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the Philippine Pact about? The Philippine
Pact is about a potential conflict in the

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South China Sea and Chinese influence on
the region with a specific target. What

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we find at the beginning of this
novel is CONNERSH. Stark, the former

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naval officer turned mercenary or private security
officer if you will, has his company

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working with the Philippine government on the
island of Balabac, which is the southernmost

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island in the Philippine Islands, very
small island, and during this exercise he

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finds that things are taking on a
very real aspect contrary to what they had

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planned for. And so we find
Connor with the private security folks on the

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island. The two subplots to this
will find the characters that we've we've seen

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before. Damien Gozari is now a
former Diplomatic Security Service agent and he is

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in Paris investigating a human trafficking organization, and mostly at Camp David, we

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find the National New National Security Advisor, Ambassador C. J. Sumner,

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who we saw as one of the
primary figures in the Aid and Effect and

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we saw her briefly at the end
of Sirensong, and she's advising the President

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on how to deal with this growing
crisis in the Philippines as a as a

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government is about to be brought down, as a cyber attack is launched,

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and as more diplomatic difficulties emerge,
and strangely enough, you know you said

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that sometimes these things reflect reality.
And what I didn't expect when I was

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writing this about a year and a
half ago, when I selected Ballaback Island

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and the Philippines. Just a couple
of weeks ago, I saw in the

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news that there were US military exercises
with the Philippine government and one of the

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four sites was Balla Back Island,
and be frank, I didn't I really

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didn't know that there was any kind
of military presence on Balla Back. But

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it's it's always good to see some
of these names in the news and to

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really tell the tale of what's going
on in the high Seas, particularly with

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China's growing role in the world,
and how Connor Stark's company tends to find

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itself in the middle of some of
these small wars. Yeah, you've you've

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in all three books, you've you've
put the locations on major sea lines of

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communication. And I assumed, I
assumed that was intentional. And you've you've

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carefully selected Aiden and UH, Sri
Lanka and UH and the Philippines. I

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talk a little bit about that.
What what what when you're when when you're

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sitting down you say, I've got
this a series of books in mind.

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I assume you had the series in
mind to beginning, didn't you know?

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Do you lay out this is what
these are important issues, this is why

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this area is important. And I'm
going to base my books on that because

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everybody needs to know that this these
are potentially troubled waters. Absolutely right.

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And I would go back to a
few years ago when when the Music Naval

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Cabin Museum held its first Navy Con
and over the years, you guys have

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both been involved with those and my
intent for a Navy con was to expose

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UH Navy operations that the United States
does every day, issues that we deal

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with every day to a much broader
audience, namely the science fiction community who

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actually understand naval operations, but only
in terms of the you know, whether

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it's the Honor Harrington series by David
Weber, the Star Trek or Star Wars

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series, Babylon five, etc.
I just wanted to take those navy stories

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and educate and inform a broader public
with Navy count The same is true for

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these books. Not a lot of
them take place simply on land, and

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if they do, it's mostly islands
or island nations. And that's exactly what

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I do. Eagle one is when
I have an idea for a book,

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I'll take a look at a general
region and the criteria I use number one

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it's there's got to be a geographical
interest for the United States, so that

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we can inform people about why is
this particular region important. So that's why

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the first one took place with the
Gulf Aaden, and I wrote it,

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you know, as Somali piracy was
real expanding, and it came out the

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year that I think it reached its
height. And then the next thing I

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do is I look more broadly at
the region. Okay, which countries do

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I really want to learn about?
Which ones have a real impact on this,

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So that's why I chose Yemen in
that case. And then obviously Sri

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Lanka very important in terms of maritime
operations because you had the Tamil Sea Tigers,

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the terrorist organization and probably one of
the best efforts to develop a maritime

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terrorist organization in the past thirty or
forty years, and that's why I selected

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that one. In this case,
I still wanted to deal with China.

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I wanted to deal with it closer
to home, and I had to look

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at the major routes. Did I
really want to do something on something in

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the waterways right between Taiwan and China
or something a little off the beaten track,

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And that's why I chose the Philippines
because it has so many islands,

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so many opportunities, such a rich
history, such a history with with domestic

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terrorism from international terrorism, from switching
back and forth on who they alli with,

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and to show the criticality of that
nation in terms of geopolitics. So

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that's why I chose this one.
And you're right, the other books that

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like I'm working on run right now
U and the others will also have a

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very heavy maritime component. And it's
you know, when I write the novels,

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part of it is I want to
entertain. Like when I go,

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you know, on in the summer
to vacation, or go on a plane

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or go on a ship, I
want to read a book to be entertained.

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But you can use that those novels
to educate, uh and inform in

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a broader way and to get people
to think, Okay, well, yeah,

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this is fiction. However, why
why is this area so important?

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Why are large scale exercises so important? Why is the decision making or the

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personnel who are involved in some of
these operations so critical? What if you

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have the wrong person in charge?
And what if you have the right person

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in charge? So, especially with
the Aid and Effect, I really wanted

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to study two things beyond the geopolitics. I wanted to study how individuals who

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are different behave to the same issues
or challenges. So you had so I

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came up with these three characters,
Stark, Golzari, and Sumners. So

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Stark is the guy who is believes
an injustice over the law. Think of

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it in terms of what I wrote
on the very first page of The Aid

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Effect was a quote by Martin Luther
King Jr. In letter from a Birmingham

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jail, and that is everything Hitler
did was legal. Everything the Hungarian resistance

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did was illegal. In this case, Connor Stark is the Garyan resistance.

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In many cases, the second character
represents law and order. That's Scholzari,

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the diplomatic Security Service agent. And
the third one Ambassador Sumner, who is

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the diplomat who believes in soft power
humanitarian operations to support allies and partners.

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But what you start to see through
this series is how each of them changes

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in each of the books and almost
becomes opposite of what they originally were envisioned.

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As you know, you're going through
some of the recurring characters there,

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and when you look at you know
those are the primary characters. You also

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ask some secondary characters to show up
again. But when you look at Connor

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Stark's company, Highland Maritime Descent,
in a lot of ways, it's a

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land of misfit toys. And the
fact that and also some of the related

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characters as well, that these are
not people that if you lined up all

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their their fit reps or their official
records would be seen as success. But

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in you're a historian by training,
so you know this better. Than I

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do. But it's usually those types
of misfit toys in history that either are

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able to do things, are to
see things in a certain way that really

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can create an impact when you look
at those characters the outlined where there's some

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actual individuals from history that people can
see echoes of our flavors of in your

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characters. Not necessarily in history all
the time, but some of them are

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based not on real characters, but
on real events that I saw. And

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yeah, there are some misfit toys. There are guys like Jay Warren,

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the crazy engineer from the Upper Peninsula, who is he He's the CUE of

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Highland Maritime Defense, who's always coming
up with these ideas, but had been

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kicked out of as being a civilian
in the Navy because you know, he

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was doing catnip. But there are
other characters who were essentially either drummed out

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of the Navy or left the Navy
who were really qualified. I think of

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the junior officer Bobby Fisk that we
see as an ensign on the Nubie insign

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on the USS Bennington, and we
see Jamie Johnson starts cousin and she is

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Naval Academy grad commands a Navy destroyer, but they leave because of a toxic

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leadership. And in the character of
Admiral Rossberg, we see him first as

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the unnamed commanding officer of USS Bennington
and Aid in effect. We see him

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as an admiral, a rear admiral
in Sirensong, and we see him again

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yes, in Philippine Pack. He
initially was based sort of on a one

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commanding officer I had twice, but
not in a bad way. They're one

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of the finest naval officers and finest
individuals I've ever known. Guy by the

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name of Darryl Hancock retired as a
captain, And basically I took all the

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good qualities of Daryl Hancock and I
simply inverted them and created the character of

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Admiral Rossberg. And then later I
realized that admir Rossberg was getting to be

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very similar to an actual CEO I
had in the in the Navy Reserve.

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So he's sort of a congomoration of
all of these characteristics. So his summer

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named from history, I mean Connor
Stark why people asked me sometimes, well,

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you know, it's not very original. I mean, you've got Tony

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Stark from Marvel, Marvel comic,
and you've got all these things. I

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said, yeah, But this was
in nineteen eighty eight that I first envisioned

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having a not being doing a novel. And at that time I was writing

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my senior thesis on General John Stark
of the American Revolution. I was up,

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I was in college up in New
Hampshire, and so I said,

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you know what I'm gonna have when
I write a novel. It's going to

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be the descendant of General John Stark. And on the other side we see

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a Russian mercenary, and we see
a lot about Russian mercenaries today in Ukraine,

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and one of the Russian there's a
Russian mercenary in this novel that we

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see briefly in Sirensong, and now
he's taken a more prominent role. His

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last name is his Makaroff, and
he's I don't think I actually say this

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in the book, but I had
envisioned him sort of as an alternate to

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start where he's now the descendant of
Admiral Stepon Makaroff of the Russo Japanese War.

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So I really try to mix in
history, but a lot of what

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I observe in characters, and just
a final thought on that, I the

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characters Stark, Glzari, and Sumner, this triad, especially in the first

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book and now in the second book. I was very heavily influenced by a

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particular writer in the eighties and nineties
and early two thousands before he passed,

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and wanted to reflect and honor that
as well. And then the final there's

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a very brief introduction of the Filipino
president, And as I was writing it,

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all I could imagine and envision was
the president from the expanse. So

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every time I wrote one of her
few lines, I had her in mind

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and what that would sound like.
Well, I would like to clarify that

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I was even though I was in
the reserves, I was never your commanding

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officer. So, Admiral Rosberry,
there's not I don't reflect any aspect of

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him, but I must admit that
there have been quite a few CEO in

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my career that reminded me very much
him, And you know that. I

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think one of the things you point
out with him is it he's he's he's

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where he is because he's a political
He's a benefit of a political system,

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and it you know, do you
as you write these things. Then another

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one of those things, the points
you're making that there's a danger in the

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politicization of our of our senior leadership
in the military. Uh, So I

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want to be really careful again the
views expressed my own and that those of

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the United States Navy or Enaval Academy. Uh. That being said, prior

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to working at the Naval Academy,
I did work for two US senators and

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I did see a lot of interesting
political maneuverings, uh, and how people

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would answer or how people would prepare
testimony, and a lot of other considerations.

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So yeah, that's uh. Again, you're spot on with that that,

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uh, would something happen like this
potentially? I mean, I'm right

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now, I'm working on I'm just
finishing a book about Admiral Rickover. I've

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been working on this for a while. And you know, Rickover was passed

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over for captain, sorry, he
was passed over for rear admiral. And

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it wasn't until Congressman Said Yates of
Chicago and a number of other members of

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Congress really pushed the effort. That's
why he became an admiral, That's why

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he got his second star, why
he got his third star while he got

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his fourth star. There were a
lot of politics with Rickover's rise through the

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flag ranks. I'm not saying that's
bad in that case. I mean,

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look what the result was. We
had the father of the nuclear Navy.

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But these things do happen, and
I don't think we should we should ignore

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it, ignore realities. You mentioned
the fact and most of the listeners amid

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rats. No. I mean,
you've taught at the Naval Academy for for

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a while, and you're a historian
by training, and you've written both fiction

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and nonfiction books, and as you
outlined earlier when you're talking through you know

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how you kind of built the bones
of the plot line of the book that

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requires imagination looking at human interactions,
you know, like a couple of couple

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of friends of mine's kids going through
the academy and I think I must say,

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hey, you needed to sign up
for doctor Brube's class. And but

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they're all in stem majors, and
the Naval Academy it does specialize a lot

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in producing stem majors. But there's
something about not so much history, but

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the creative writing process, especially in
the venues such as yours, that is

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in the national security segment of the
book writing area. You have to take

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facts in reality. Physics has to
imply, unlike science fiction where you can't

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have these great well, we're just
going to go warp factor ten, so

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we can go real fast in books
such as Yours, water is wet,

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displacement matters, electrons or electrons to
debate the laws of physics. People are

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people, and you have certain personality
types that throughout history show up. But

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it requires the writer to think,
to be imaginative. And when you look

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at a lot of the challenges that
we've had in the national security arena,

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it's been I mean, people say
it all the time. We never expected

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that it was a failure of imagination. Nobody briefed this as a possible course

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of action. So in the background
there's a hint that one of the things

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the Imperial we don't do too well
is to have an imagination and to think.

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And when you look at your students
that are in your class, as

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we have all these physics and chemistry
and engineering requirements that we have that we

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think is what we need to,
you know, get our minds around to

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be leaders in the Navy. As
a writer, and somebody who's had to

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force themselves to go through the fiction
writing process and that intellectual effort. Do

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you see a window where creative writing
classes are you know, short story there's

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quite a few contests out there for
short story writers. Is that a process

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you see that can activate certain parts
of the brain than in a nineteen twenty

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twenty one year old shipman might be
good to have exercise for when they're twenty

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eight, thirty eight or forty eight. Absolutely. In fact, the first

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thing that I thought of was some
of the incredible English professors we have,

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especially the poetry professors, who really
do creative projects with their midshipman, the

250
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same as with a former professor now
that I worked with on recreating a Roman

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Carthaginian naval battle, a Battle of
Dropana, where we wanted to teach midshipman

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about galley warfare, and instead of
reading and writing about it, we got

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thirty kayaks of different colors from the
fiz Ed Department and held the battle on

254
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the Severn River right off the Naval
Academy. But prior to that, the

255
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professor had them do orations Roman orations
to figure out who was going to be

256
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the admiral of the Carthaginian Fleet and
the Roman fleet, and the best orators

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then were selected by their people,
and it was to show the importance that

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absolutely we need STEM majors. We
need those math and science people too,

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and the engineers, but we also
need people who can aulate why we where

260
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we need to go, why we
need to go somewhere, how we need

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to get there, who can sort
of bridge that gap. So absolutely,

262
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and we do have a lot of
English and poly Sign majors. In fact,

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I think every I think every helopilot
on my ship was a poly sign

264
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major. If I'm not mistaken,
Um, I'm pretty I'm pretty sure.

265
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Um. But right, I mean, writing is so an integral to what

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they're going to be doing in their
careers. They I just don't think they

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understand it yet. So that's why
I, Charlotte'm a fit rep like you

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have. You have this amount of
space to write a good fit rep.

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How do you do it? What
words do you use? Um? And

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the I think a bigger challenge quite
frankly as reading. You've we've got we've

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not got a generation. And this
is not on the on the academy,

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since I think this could be of
anybody. Uh, You've got a generation

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of TikTok folks who have short attention
spans, who can't sit down for twenty

274
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or thirty minutes to read ten or
twenty pages of a book, and that's

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that could be problematic. It's great
to be able to have ideas, but

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where do you get the ideas from
if you're not learning from the past.

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And I think Mattis was a general
Mattis was a perfect example of that.

278
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He says, look, you're not
always going to be in a war,

279
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so you better read about war to
see at least get a sense of what

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it's like. So absolutely, I
mean, I think that the broad range

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of courses that they take at the
academy is absolutely fantastic. But they just

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need to read more. And I
found that that's been far more difficult as

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I've seen them progress in the past
eighteen years. Eighteen years ago, they

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might have read a little bit more
than they do now. But a lot

285
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of Americans don't read books anymore.
I think it's the last figure I saw

286
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was fifty percent haven't read a book
in a long time. And that's that's

287
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a problem. That is a problem
because well, you have to the background

288
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to understand what's going on, and
that they're not reading about it, then

289
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they're just getting there where they're getting
their information. One of the things I

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really like about your books, and
I think maybe you've done this to give

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yourself some flexibility. But you,
you and I have long talked about private

292
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maritime companies, uh, private private
military agencies whatever, And of course we

293
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never talked about the Russian folks.
But the the uh, the freedom you've

294
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given Connor Stark in this is he
started his own PMC and he uh and

295
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then he's he's able to do things
like become a privateer and says or he

296
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gets a letter of mark from the
from the Sri Lankan government. Uh was

297
00:25:41.519 --> 00:25:45.440
was your thinking just so he could
freem up? And it gives him excuse

298
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to have used the uh the sea
hunter uh shift and all that is is

299
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that's where you went with us.
Yeah, I uh, I wanted to

300
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see this sort of like the A
team goes to see. Initially it wasn't.

301
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It was only something that was that
was envisioned in the background for the

302
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first book. And I should say
aid and Effect was was not the first

303
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book. It was the first book
that was published, but twenty five years

304
00:26:14.519 --> 00:26:19.079
ago, I actually wrote a Conner
Stark novel that takes place in Canada and

305
00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:23.240
the and Washington DC that that's actually
the prequel, and I'm gonna be rewriting

306
00:26:23.240 --> 00:26:29.359
that as as one of the follow
ons as as a prequel, but definitely

307
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Sri Lanka. And in this case
where they're where they're fighting with the private

308
00:26:33.319 --> 00:26:41.240
security company, is fighting with the
the Filipino Navy partners that they have against

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against the bad guys, it absolutely
gives me a lot of flexibility. In

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fact, several years ago, uh
gosh, I guess it was like seven

311
00:26:49.559 --> 00:26:55.359
or eight years ago, there was
a producer screenwriter who was really interested in

312
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in pitching this as a series as
well as a separate Damien Gozari TV series,

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and you know, worked with them
for about a year along with another

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screenwriter, and they pitched it to
Hollywood and it came down to two series

315
00:27:11.680 --> 00:27:12.880
and at that time they said,
you know what, it would just cost

316
00:27:12.920 --> 00:27:18.640
too much to turn this into a
series as as much as we like it.

317
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So it's one of those almost but
again it showed because I had to

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do a treatment of ten episodes just
to show the viability of a series and

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so I came up with, you
know, two or three paragraph storylines for

320
00:27:32.200 --> 00:27:36.839
ten episodes, and in each case
there is flexibility. And there's always something

321
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going on around the world. Pick
up the newspaper, pick up the economists,

322
00:27:40.720 --> 00:27:42.079
and there's something going on in the
high seas. I mean, there's

323
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a there was just an incident with
a forty fourth task Escort group of the

324
00:27:48.240 --> 00:27:53.200
Chinese Navy was just got deployed I
think two or three weeks ago, and

325
00:27:53.359 --> 00:27:56.880
you know, they had a Chinese
trawler in the middle of the ocean,

326
00:27:57.240 --> 00:28:02.640
thirty nine people and the Indian government
is trying to work on rescues. So

327
00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:07.160
you can really develop something out of
that. But I also think that the

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fact that we've got now forty four
Chinese task forces that have gone to the

329
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Horn of Africa, who have built
up all this experience is part of what

330
00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:22.720
I talk about and evolve in the
in the in the books. I think

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we've we've talked about this before on
a on a separate topic. If not,

332
00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:30.440
I'll surprise you with it now.
But um, we're roughly the same

333
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age. So one of the things
is I was reading the Philippine Pact that

334
00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:40.680
came to mind was m yet Claude
sees it too, and I know for

335
00:28:40.720 --> 00:28:48.200
a fiction writer networks in relationships,
um they helped move things along. But

336
00:28:48.839 --> 00:28:51.920
the older, the older I get, and it's really clicked for me in

337
00:28:51.960 --> 00:28:57.920
my mid thirties is the importance of
personal networks, you know, like RM

338
00:28:57.960 --> 00:29:03.599
said, the perfect circle of acquaintances
and friends and one thing that keeps the

339
00:29:03.640 --> 00:29:10.680
action moving on a really a global
scale, which in today's communication item environment,

340
00:29:10.720 --> 00:29:15.759
it's quite easy. I've seen it
with my youngest daughter who will be

341
00:29:15.920 --> 00:29:22.359
up on a zoom call with friends
that she's made in Burma or Myanmar,

342
00:29:22.440 --> 00:29:30.160
depending on who you are, Austria, Australia, England, Germany, herself

343
00:29:30.240 --> 00:29:36.359
up in Canada, and they're all
talking in real time. But your characters

344
00:29:36.400 --> 00:29:44.759
have developed a network that can leave
them from backwater bars all the way up

345
00:29:45.559 --> 00:29:48.279
into the White House, and you
spend a lot of time in DC.

346
00:29:48.519 --> 00:29:55.079
I know you've seen similar networks.
If you ever had an opportunity to talk

347
00:29:55.119 --> 00:29:56.880
with some of your midship and who
might be interested in the work you do,

348
00:29:56.960 --> 00:30:03.799
to talk about not just uh the
art and effort of being a writer,

349
00:30:03.039 --> 00:30:08.559
but how network such exists. They
do exist in a personal and professional

350
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environment. It's not just the plot
device. Yeah. And by the way,

351
00:30:14.480 --> 00:30:18.119
I have to apologize. My dog
is just going crazy and it's in

352
00:30:18.200 --> 00:30:19.759
the way the house is. You're
going to hear them, and I apologize

353
00:30:21.119 --> 00:30:26.480
to your listeners. Um. Yeah. I actually do tell my students how

354
00:30:26.519 --> 00:30:30.559
important it is to network. And
I think back on my own career,

355
00:30:30.640 --> 00:30:34.640
and you know, first coming to
Washington, d C. In nineteen ninety

356
00:30:34.680 --> 00:30:38.200
one, and some of the people
that you know, I started off with

357
00:30:38.440 --> 00:30:44.839
are now in very senior positions,
especially in the Biden administration. Because this

358
00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:48.920
was a I was working for a
Democratic senator at the time. And but

359
00:30:48.319 --> 00:30:55.960
you spend enough decades in a particular
region and or overseas. I mean,

360
00:30:56.000 --> 00:30:59.079
I can think of it was kind
of funny that I think it was.

361
00:30:59.759 --> 00:31:03.599
I met him my second on my
second for a senator, and I was

362
00:31:03.640 --> 00:31:08.480
flown off my ship to the Milius
and the Milius pulled in got me to

363
00:31:08.839 --> 00:31:11.960
Djibouti and then I had to take
a sea one thirty from Jibooty to Bahrain.

364
00:31:12.240 --> 00:31:15.000
Well by the time I arrived in
Bahrain, it's about midnight, and

365
00:31:15.039 --> 00:31:18.039
I you know, my mind is
mush. I had to I had to

366
00:31:18.079 --> 00:31:22.880
be flown home on an emergency leave. My mother had just passed, and

367
00:31:23.519 --> 00:31:27.599
I'm coming off the C one thirty
and who do I see but this guy

368
00:31:27.680 --> 00:31:32.200
shoe Bob carry And I was just
like, shoe Bob, what are you

369
00:31:32.279 --> 00:31:34.319
doing here in Bahrain? He goes, well, I was just about to

370
00:31:34.319 --> 00:31:38.119
go home for the night and I
was looking at the names of people who

371
00:31:38.160 --> 00:31:41.519
were coming through. I saw your
name and I wanted to come by,

372
00:31:41.599 --> 00:31:44.640
say hi and see if you need
anything. And you know, if you

373
00:31:44.680 --> 00:31:49.000
wrote that in a novel, it
would be seen as as disingenuous or unrealistic.

374
00:31:49.480 --> 00:31:52.000
But these things happen all the time. I'm sure you guys saw this

375
00:31:52.079 --> 00:31:56.279
as well, that somebody you meet
in d C or back home you run

376
00:31:56.319 --> 00:32:01.400
into again. And yeah, I
do want that reflected in the novels.

377
00:32:01.440 --> 00:32:07.640
I think it is. And networks
are so important to Connor start the friendships

378
00:32:07.680 --> 00:32:13.720
he's developed, and sometimes even some
of the enemies with regard to the nefarius

379
00:32:13.799 --> 00:32:19.480
mister who isn't who's in charge of
a Chinese company that will follow you your

380
00:32:19.480 --> 00:32:25.279
whole life? And you're You're absolutely
right. Networks are incredibly important, and

381
00:32:25.319 --> 00:32:30.119
I also tell them my midst this
is that you know, whatever they do

382
00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:37.960
at the academy will follow them positively
or negatively throughout their careers because people will

383
00:32:37.000 --> 00:32:40.759
always remember that. It may not
be the same if you if you're an

384
00:32:40.880 --> 00:32:45.119
ROTC or if you you know,
you were a DIRKM reservist like me,

385
00:32:45.000 --> 00:32:50.599
but when you spend four years in
a very tight environment, Uh, those

386
00:32:50.640 --> 00:32:53.880
people are going to know you and
do something bad, They're going to remember

387
00:32:53.880 --> 00:33:00.400
it twice as much. Well,
that's a that's an interesting problem. One

388
00:33:00.400 --> 00:33:05.200
of the things that you you know, we've kind of hit on this before,

389
00:33:05.319 --> 00:33:09.759
but you get you get a a
screamer for a CEO or a CEO

390
00:33:09.799 --> 00:33:13.880
who's bad for some reason, and
you get these, you know, a

391
00:33:13.920 --> 00:33:19.119
negative fitness report, and the way
the Navy works says you're well aware of

392
00:33:19.119 --> 00:33:22.279
that that that will haunt you for
a long time and may even permanently haunt

393
00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:29.400
you. Um. And yet the
Connor Stark offers up an alternative to two

394
00:33:29.440 --> 00:33:34.400
people who got trashed by the admiral. Uh, is there a way just

395
00:33:34.480 --> 00:33:37.039
this is kind of a side question, but is there is there a way

396
00:33:37.079 --> 00:33:42.559
around a system that the tars people
so early potentially so early in their careers

397
00:33:43.119 --> 00:33:45.920
not because they did a bad job, just because they had a bad boss.

398
00:33:46.240 --> 00:33:50.920
Yeah, and I've seen this.
I've known officers who have left.

399
00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:53.880
I mean, I knew one former
student of mine who just incredible. She

400
00:33:54.079 --> 00:33:59.480
was one of the best I've ever
taught. And I couldn't believe when she

401
00:33:59.640 --> 00:34:05.079
left, having just made lieutenant commander. I was just kind of gobsmacked.

402
00:34:05.680 --> 00:34:07.039
And I talked her about it,
and she said, you know, I've

403
00:34:07.039 --> 00:34:13.519
had some great assignments, but this
last one on the ship with this CEO

404
00:34:14.280 --> 00:34:16.840
was just so bad that I just
said, forget about it, and I'm

405
00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:21.280
not going to the reserves. I'm
not doing anything. Could these people come

406
00:34:21.280 --> 00:34:23.039
back? I would love to see
some sort of program, But it's really

407
00:34:23.079 --> 00:34:31.800
tough once you have that tarnished relationship
with a larger organization to bring them back

408
00:34:31.880 --> 00:34:38.760
into that same organization, because you
never know that that commander or just right,

409
00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:43.920
who was a captain at the sorry
commander at the time, might now

410
00:34:43.960 --> 00:34:47.159
be an admiral. And no,
you're telling that young officer, yeah,

411
00:34:47.159 --> 00:34:52.360
we want you back, but we've
also promoted somebody who's you know, a

412
00:34:52.440 --> 00:34:59.480
screamer or whatever. You know.
I I've told people that I've known,

413
00:34:59.559 --> 00:35:01.679
I said Look, if if the
active duty community isn't for you, then

414
00:35:01.719 --> 00:35:06.320
at least stick it out in the
reserves and what you can do. There

415
00:35:06.360 --> 00:35:12.360
are opportunities to go back when you
want under certain conditions, either at sea

416
00:35:12.519 --> 00:35:15.400
or overseas, and it's a great
opportunity and you can still bring your skill

417
00:35:15.440 --> 00:35:19.320
set. But more and more I'm
seeing just a lot of people leave.

418
00:35:19.880 --> 00:35:22.960
There's a large percentage of people who
leave after their first first tour or so.

419
00:35:23.519 --> 00:35:30.840
And it's I feel bad because I
see all the potential we are losing

420
00:35:30.880 --> 00:35:36.239
in our Navy from these incredible,
incredible junior officers that I've known since they

421
00:35:36.239 --> 00:35:40.559
were pleads and who on whom I've
I've had high hopes. Uh, you

422
00:35:40.599 --> 00:35:44.920
know, a lot of them I
selected for when I was on active duty

423
00:35:44.960 --> 00:35:46.920
of the Academy. You know,
some of them I selected for the Intel

424
00:35:46.920 --> 00:35:52.079
program, had incredibly high hopes,
and now they're out because it for whatever

425
00:35:52.159 --> 00:35:58.519
reasons. And that that's one of
the things that bothers me with with regard

426
00:35:58.559 --> 00:36:02.159
to great power competition, and is
that and I wanted that reflected, especially

427
00:36:02.199 --> 00:36:06.960
in this large scale exercise you see
in the in the Philippine pack. How

428
00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:10.960
many of those officers in that briefing
room. After seeing Admiral Rossberg do what

429
00:36:12.039 --> 00:36:17.320
he does, how many of them
are going to stay in And I do

430
00:36:17.440 --> 00:36:21.239
want people to think about that when
they read the book. That's not only

431
00:36:21.280 --> 00:36:25.159
there, it's not some sort of
gratuitous scene. It's to make people think

432
00:36:25.199 --> 00:36:31.480
about what are the consequences of those
particular actions on our general capability as a

433
00:36:31.599 --> 00:36:37.559
navy if we're losing really qualified people
like some of the junior officers you see

434
00:36:37.559 --> 00:36:44.679
in that in that oh, that
briefing room. Yeah. A phrase I've

435
00:36:44.760 --> 00:36:49.960
used talking to a few people is
incentives and disincentives do people have? And

436
00:36:50.119 --> 00:36:57.119
motivators and demotivators. And it's not
an insignificant problem like like you've seen um

437
00:36:57.679 --> 00:37:01.679
and I continue see. I just
had two individuals, classic cases that I've

438
00:37:01.679 --> 00:37:07.119
seen in the last year, who
know, no organization is perfect, but

439
00:37:07.880 --> 00:37:15.159
you spend you know, a dozen
to fifteen years in the Navy and inexplicitly

440
00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:22.679
you're put on an off ramp with
no recovery. It can really impact people

441
00:37:22.119 --> 00:37:27.519
and how they not just view the
Navy. But what's really tragic, especially

442
00:37:27.599 --> 00:37:31.360
if it's a byproduct of a toxic
personality, is how they view themselves.

443
00:37:32.199 --> 00:37:37.199
And you know, one of the
sounds cynical, but I think is actually

444
00:37:37.199 --> 00:37:42.360
healthy for for people's mental health is
you never forget that you may love the

445
00:37:42.440 --> 00:37:46.320
Navy, but the Navy probably doesn't
love you all that much, and it

446
00:37:46.400 --> 00:37:51.360
can really you know, one of
the individual I just talked with again a

447
00:37:51.360 --> 00:37:57.360
few months ago really took it harder. But there are options and ways that

448
00:37:57.440 --> 00:38:00.440
people can can turn the corner.
And I like what you said about the

449
00:38:00.800 --> 00:38:07.400
Naval Reserve. I've seen quite a
few people who for whatever reason, they

450
00:38:07.679 --> 00:38:12.239
they they hit, hit a hole, or fell into a swamp on active

451
00:38:12.280 --> 00:38:15.599
duty, but they took their skills
in their background into the reserves. And

452
00:38:15.719 --> 00:38:19.880
in fact, one of the individuals
actually retired as a flag officer in the

453
00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:24.519
reserves. I remember him as a
lieutenant. He had a list of pros

454
00:38:24.599 --> 00:38:28.800
and cons of staying in the Navy
or getting out of the Navy, and

455
00:38:29.079 --> 00:38:31.880
he had nothing on get on staying
in the Navy, but you a lot

456
00:38:31.920 --> 00:38:37.000
of working out just five for him
in the reserves. M great guy.

457
00:38:37.239 --> 00:38:40.000
I never never busted him in public
once he made flag officer, but we

458
00:38:40.199 --> 00:38:46.400
all have stories speaking of stories,
as a guy who on my Twitter profile

459
00:38:46.440 --> 00:38:52.400
if people ever go there. I
identify as my home as being a Navesa

460
00:38:52.559 --> 00:38:55.159
island, which those who have spent
time in the Caribbean know where that is.

461
00:38:55.800 --> 00:39:00.880
I'm also a big fan of Jan
Mayan. But in in your novel

462
00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:06.760
Quad, you seem to have a
similar predilegion that I have. There's a

463
00:39:06.760 --> 00:39:10.119
soft spot in your heart for isolated
and weird islands. For instance, in

464
00:39:10.199 --> 00:39:19.679
the Eighting Effect we had the Culture
and here we have Ballaback Island. As

465
00:39:19.760 --> 00:39:22.880
as a ride er is there besides
the fact it's just fun to talk about

466
00:39:22.880 --> 00:39:31.639
something nobody else talks about. Is
there something about these relatively unknown geographical areas

467
00:39:31.679 --> 00:39:37.599
that happen to be in some of
the most well known and important parts of

468
00:39:37.599 --> 00:39:40.480
the world that kind of draws you
to you to to help wrap a story

469
00:39:40.519 --> 00:39:45.800
around. Sure, I think it's
a mystery, you know. I've I've

470
00:39:45.840 --> 00:39:49.079
been very fortunate to be to go
to a lot of places around the world,

471
00:39:49.079 --> 00:39:51.920
but there are a lot of places
I haven't been. I did actually

472
00:39:51.960 --> 00:39:55.440
sail past Scocha Island, so Culture
Island in two thousand and five, and

473
00:39:57.199 --> 00:40:00.920
it's this appeal to mystery. I
want to unravel the mystery of a place

474
00:40:00.920 --> 00:40:04.039
and I want to learn about it. And in the case of Socotra Island,

475
00:40:04.079 --> 00:40:07.840
I was going back through really ancient
texts and some of the first mentions

476
00:40:07.880 --> 00:40:14.480
and seeing one of the apostles may
have gone through through uh Socotra Island.

477
00:40:15.440 --> 00:40:21.119
But more importantly it's because they really
lend the opportunity for me to use the

478
00:40:21.599 --> 00:40:24.880
private security company ships in a way
that I couldn't if this was a story,

479
00:40:25.239 --> 00:40:30.280
you know, based in Mongolia.
There's there's just the reality of the

480
00:40:30.320 --> 00:40:34.320
ocean. But there are a lot
of islands. I have to really pick

481
00:40:34.400 --> 00:40:40.159
the islands that are near these either
strategic choke points or these major trade routes

482
00:40:40.400 --> 00:40:46.320
that could be that could well be
disrupted if if something happens there and it

483
00:40:46.360 --> 00:40:49.880
gives me a chance to learn about
it. And Socotra Island is still one

484
00:40:49.920 --> 00:40:52.559
of those places I would love to
visit if if the opportunity came about,

485
00:40:53.280 --> 00:40:57.920
because it's known as the Galapagos of
the Indian Ocean has some of the most

486
00:40:58.039 --> 00:41:01.639
unique floora and faun in the world. But even Balaback Islands. As I

487
00:41:01.679 --> 00:41:06.920
started researching it and looking at the
options of the Philippine Islands, I was

488
00:41:06.960 --> 00:41:12.840
going to use there were unique things
to that as well, and so yeah,

489
00:41:12.920 --> 00:41:15.159
I'm I'm very much drawn to these
islands. There was one case where

490
00:41:15.199 --> 00:41:20.440
I almost use used an island that
I went to and flew over off the

491
00:41:20.440 --> 00:41:24.079
west coast of Sumatra, Similou Island, which was very close to the epicenter

492
00:41:24.119 --> 00:41:30.599
of the two thousand and four tsunami. We were flying over in a sixty

493
00:41:30.639 --> 00:41:36.199
Bravo and that really appealed to me. And I figure, if if I'm

494
00:41:36.199 --> 00:41:37.880
going to write about something, I
might as well write about something that appeals

495
00:41:37.880 --> 00:41:40.199
to me that I want to unravel
the mystery and I want to take the

496
00:41:40.199 --> 00:41:55.440
time to research and tell and incorporate
into the storyline over eagle on you there.

497
00:41:57.639 --> 00:42:00.239
Yes, but I pushed the wrong
button. So when you when you

498
00:42:00.239 --> 00:42:04.760
push muting and talking doesn't nothing,
nothing happened. It's a right. A

499
00:42:04.760 --> 00:42:13.079
lot of people push mute when I
start talking. The uh my dog was

500
00:42:13.119 --> 00:42:16.440
barking, okay, let's see um
A lot of a couple of years ago,

501
00:42:16.840 --> 00:42:20.760
I was reading some articles on people
who were suggesting that one way to

502
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:27.480
help handle China is to go to
private teering route again. And I started

503
00:42:27.480 --> 00:42:35.480
that that struck me that when I
was reading your books that somebody's been thinking

504
00:42:35.559 --> 00:42:39.480
Connor Stark style, and what do
you think is mister Start going to get

505
00:42:39.519 --> 00:42:45.719
involved in in privateering activity other than
the letter of market I had from Sri

506
00:42:45.840 --> 00:42:50.119
Lankros is going to be a thing
of the future. I think doing a

507
00:42:50.199 --> 00:42:52.519
letter of mark for Sri Lanka in
the case of the second book is a

508
00:42:52.559 --> 00:42:59.079
different case because it's an isolated,
relatively isolated region and one in which you're

509
00:42:59.119 --> 00:43:01.079
not going to have the entire Chinese
government coming down on you. I mean,

510
00:43:01.079 --> 00:43:07.679
I imagine that if there were privateers
being used against China, China would

511
00:43:07.159 --> 00:43:10.719
would deal with them in the same
way they deal with the wagers. There

512
00:43:10.719 --> 00:43:16.960
would be a mass approach to it, and you know, kind of a

513
00:43:17.039 --> 00:43:22.000
take no prisoners. I don't know
how effective privateers would be, and we're

514
00:43:22.000 --> 00:43:27.719
talking a very different era when you
know, when you're looking at letters of

515
00:43:27.760 --> 00:43:31.880
mark of the age of sail,
they could be effective because the ships that

516
00:43:31.960 --> 00:43:37.199
the merchants had were more or less
and I know there are differences I teach

517
00:43:37.320 --> 00:43:44.320
naval history, but more or less
they are very similar. The weapons used

518
00:43:44.400 --> 00:43:49.719
aboard a privateer would be very similar
to those you might find on a small

519
00:43:49.760 --> 00:43:53.480
warship, a sloop or a schooner. In today's case, what is what

520
00:43:53.639 --> 00:43:57.199
is a privateer going to use?
Are they going to use a slow freighter?

521
00:43:57.679 --> 00:44:00.880
Probably not, those are just a
target. Are they going to use

522
00:44:00.000 --> 00:44:06.400
a super high speed uh, you
know, super Bazos level cruise ship or

523
00:44:06.679 --> 00:44:10.000
or excuse me, a personal yacht
where you wouldn't be able to mount very

524
00:44:10.039 --> 00:44:15.719
many weapons or have access to them. Quite frankly, so, I don't

525
00:44:15.920 --> 00:44:22.119
think that there's a realistic use of
that, unless you were talking about trying

526
00:44:22.119 --> 00:44:29.639
to somehow take over or sink or
do whatever to Chinese merchant ships. And

527
00:44:29.760 --> 00:44:35.599
again I I just don't see that
as a realistic endeavor to the level that

528
00:44:35.639 --> 00:44:39.760
you would need you would given the
size of the Chinese merchant merchant fleet.

529
00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:44.519
I don't think you would even put
a dent in that. And then you'd

530
00:44:44.559 --> 00:44:49.199
have to worry about very you know, logistics processes. You know, in

531
00:44:49.199 --> 00:44:51.840
the age of sail, you had
sales. All you had to really worry

532
00:44:51.840 --> 00:44:55.360
about was having enough beer aboard,
you know, two gallons a day roughly

533
00:44:55.400 --> 00:45:02.719
for each sailor, and you can
sail. You can't simply take a modern

534
00:45:02.800 --> 00:45:10.039
privateer sail at five thousand miles and
then expect to find fuel somewhere unless you

535
00:45:10.079 --> 00:45:15.360
were working with a particular government.
So from a practical standpoint, I just

536
00:45:15.400 --> 00:45:20.000
don't see how that might be employed. That being said, one of the

537
00:45:20.039 --> 00:45:23.119
first articles I wrote on this issue
was called Blackwaters for the Blue Waters,

538
00:45:23.159 --> 00:45:29.039
the promise of private naval companies.
I wrote it for Orbis in two thousand

539
00:45:29.079 --> 00:45:31.800
and six or two thousand and seven. But I didn't say, take these

540
00:45:31.920 --> 00:45:38.880
new twenty first century privateers and attack
a nation's merchant fleet or anything. What

541
00:45:39.079 --> 00:45:46.599
I envisioned was taking these private security
companies and doing low end operations, whether

542
00:45:46.639 --> 00:45:53.400
it's drug interdiction in the Caribbean or
at that time protecting doing convoy duty of

543
00:45:53.880 --> 00:45:59.239
ships in the Gulf of Aden,
in order to free up our assets,

544
00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:05.360
our destroyer at that time, our
cruisers to redeploy where they are truly needed

545
00:46:05.360 --> 00:46:09.639
in great power competition. There is
no reason, for example, when we

546
00:46:09.719 --> 00:46:17.280
when Somali piracy was really major,
that you had a small sailboat that Somali

547
00:46:17.360 --> 00:46:22.519
pirates had taken with four I think
it was two Americans Canadians. The sv

548
00:46:22.719 --> 00:46:28.400
quest you had you had two destroyers, a cruiser and an aircraft carrier surrounding

549
00:46:28.639 --> 00:46:34.760
that sailboat. Okay, this is
a bit much. I think if you

550
00:46:34.840 --> 00:46:39.400
had had the model of private security
ships for the Gulf of Aid, and

551
00:46:39.480 --> 00:46:45.079
I think you might have been more
effective globally by shifting over your big assets

552
00:46:45.159 --> 00:46:57.599
elsewhere. I guess this might be
considered a a spoiler, so spoiler alert

553
00:46:58.559 --> 00:47:01.840
though it is revealed early on what
the common thread is here, So if

554
00:47:01.840 --> 00:47:08.639
people don't don't want any any quasi
plot reveals early on, go ahead and

555
00:47:09.280 --> 00:47:15.239
go walk the dog for the next
couple three minutes. But in research and

556
00:47:15.280 --> 00:47:19.320
a fiction novels, sometimes you can
pick some areas you need to research that

557
00:47:19.440 --> 00:47:23.360
can really take you some dark places
and without showing too much leg Here,

558
00:47:23.480 --> 00:47:30.599
one of the common threads has to
do with international human trafficking, really modern

559
00:47:30.679 --> 00:47:37.320
day slavery. How how deep did
you dig into that topic and where there's

560
00:47:37.360 --> 00:47:43.639
some surprises plus or minus that you
discovered in the course of research in that

561
00:47:43.679 --> 00:47:47.000
area. Yeah. So there were
a couple of things that I really tried

562
00:47:47.079 --> 00:47:51.760
to do deep dives on. The
first one was actually the drones that are

563
00:47:51.880 --> 00:47:57.559
used in here are based on an
actual company's drones DPI out of Philadelphia,

564
00:47:57.559 --> 00:47:59.880
and I actually call them by name
in the book, and I got from

565
00:48:00.280 --> 00:48:04.400
from the CEO of the company,
and I'll be going up here to Philadelphia

566
00:48:04.400 --> 00:48:07.280
in the next couple of weeks to
talk with him again and do a little

567
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:10.119
video. But yeah, on human
trafficking, you know what, I started

568
00:48:10.119 --> 00:48:15.480
off with a baseline of the GMT, the general military training that we all

569
00:48:15.519 --> 00:48:20.400
get on it. And then I
just started going through you know, the

570
00:48:20.400 --> 00:48:23.679
the figurative rolodex that I've I've had
over the years and talked to law enforcement

571
00:48:23.920 --> 00:48:30.840
officials. I talked to some folks
overseas, and you know, you kind

572
00:48:30.840 --> 00:48:34.800
of pull the thread that way.
It's like, Okay, if I'm talking

573
00:48:34.840 --> 00:48:37.760
to person a here that I maybe
I knew in college, say okay,

574
00:48:37.079 --> 00:48:39.920
I need to understand this. What
do you see here in the big cities

575
00:48:39.920 --> 00:48:44.840
in the United States? Do you
ever work with people outside of the country.

576
00:48:44.840 --> 00:48:49.159
What kind of organization would I need
to talk to? So, yeah,

577
00:48:49.159 --> 00:48:53.320
I did. I did talk to
people who dealt with human trafficking,

578
00:48:53.400 --> 00:49:00.840
both domestically and internationally to try to
get a better understanding of that. And

579
00:49:00.920 --> 00:49:02.480
I try to do that, you
know, in all the books, I

580
00:49:02.480 --> 00:49:06.159
really tried to do the research.
Uh, you know, in the first

581
00:49:06.159 --> 00:49:07.480
book, it was like, I
wanted to understand, what's what would it

582
00:49:07.519 --> 00:49:14.480
be like to have dinner with Muttahar
the merchant slash you know, multi gazillionaire

583
00:49:14.480 --> 00:49:16.639
that it turns out what kind of
food, what's what does the food snow

584
00:49:16.679 --> 00:49:20.119
like? What does it taste like? What are the ingredients to these to

585
00:49:20.199 --> 00:49:22.840
these things, just to lend some
reality to it. In some cases it's

586
00:49:22.920 --> 00:49:27.800
light reality, and in cases of
the human trafficking thread that I have in

587
00:49:27.840 --> 00:49:32.360
this particular book, it's you know, the dark realities. Yeah, I

588
00:49:32.400 --> 00:49:36.719
want I want to go back a
little bit to the to the private military

589
00:49:36.960 --> 00:49:40.599
companies as the private naval companies in
the case start, because what we saw

590
00:49:40.639 --> 00:49:46.119
in the the Smally Pirates was the
yeah, we we we were way overkill

591
00:49:46.199 --> 00:49:51.559
as far as worships go. But
what what seemed to have the most effect

592
00:49:51.559 --> 00:49:55.480
was when we started putting private security
guards on the merchant ships uh and using

593
00:49:57.199 --> 00:50:00.760
um parsenal ships to you know,
so the countries that are worried about having

594
00:50:00.800 --> 00:50:07.760
too many weapons a shore UH didn't
react to that, but I mean it

595
00:50:07.880 --> 00:50:15.079
was kind of It's not quite the
same as having private ships UH fighting fighting

596
00:50:15.119 --> 00:50:17.199
the pirates, but you know,
it is the functional equivalent I would I

597
00:50:17.239 --> 00:50:21.239
would think, is that is that
off based? And I know that.

598
00:50:21.320 --> 00:50:24.039
I think in one of the books
you kind of discussed those armed security guards

599
00:50:24.039 --> 00:50:29.039
on the hundred merchant ships. Yeah. I think that was my second or

600
00:50:29.079 --> 00:50:31.599
third nonfiction book on It was on
private security at sea in the twenty firth

601
00:50:31.639 --> 00:50:37.480
century. But yeah, um no, I think that still stands. Any

602
00:50:37.519 --> 00:50:44.360
ship that had private security armed guards
aboard was never taken by Somali pirates.

603
00:50:44.840 --> 00:50:49.199
And now Somali piracy is a thing
of the past more or less. But

604
00:50:49.320 --> 00:50:52.519
during that time, I think that's
that's really telling. And at the beginning

605
00:50:52.039 --> 00:50:55.679
of this whole thing of the whole
Somali piracy trend. I remember being at

606
00:50:55.679 --> 00:51:01.480
a securitytime security conference and I was
talking about how much about this concept of

607
00:51:01.519 --> 00:51:06.800
black waters of blue waters and I
had There was a guy at the back

608
00:51:06.840 --> 00:51:09.519
of the room in DC and he
got up and starts yelling at me,

609
00:51:09.559 --> 00:51:14.119
says, you don't know what you're
talking about. There will never be armed

610
00:51:14.119 --> 00:51:16.920
guards on any of our ships,
bla blat. I was like, Okay,

611
00:51:17.280 --> 00:51:21.400
I appreciate, thanks, I hope, I hope not. And about

612
00:51:21.400 --> 00:51:24.960
a year later, his company pretty
pretty large company I learned was using armed

613
00:51:24.960 --> 00:51:30.199
guards board because they had to.
And so I've always learned, you know,

614
00:51:30.320 --> 00:51:34.599
never say Never's a that's a really
dangerous word when you're talking about security.

615
00:51:37.039 --> 00:51:38.840
Yeah, that's one of my favorite
things to hear people say, especially

616
00:51:38.880 --> 00:51:45.320
if they say it with a lot
of emotion. That will never, that's

617
00:51:45.400 --> 00:51:49.840
like we have to those those two
words I usually have followed by my favorite

618
00:51:49.840 --> 00:51:54.000
word in English language, why,
which is very triggering to people who aren't

619
00:51:54.079 --> 00:52:00.760
used to having people ask that question. Now we see from the aid and

620
00:52:00.800 --> 00:52:07.039
effect on that the center of the
tactical action. Though the webs go globally,

621
00:52:07.760 --> 00:52:12.800
keeps moving further east. And I
don't know if you'll be comfortable revealing

622
00:52:12.840 --> 00:52:19.239
what's knocking around your head here,
but if you look east of the Philippines,

623
00:52:19.800 --> 00:52:24.400
are there a few places that if
it doesn't result in a Connor Stark

624
00:52:24.400 --> 00:52:30.840
novel, but it's something that you
think people should be looking at, because

625
00:52:30.880 --> 00:52:35.239
I know your mind is always bouncing
around looking looking under rocks for the unseen.

626
00:52:36.800 --> 00:52:42.280
So, like Christopher Columbus's Gold,
if you go further and further west,

627
00:52:42.480 --> 00:52:45.719
eventually you'll find yourself in the east
and right back to where you came

628
00:52:45.760 --> 00:52:49.920
from, and that that's where this
is roughly going. You're going to be

629
00:52:50.000 --> 00:52:55.480
going so far east so Gulf of
Aden, Indian Ocean, Sri Lanka,

630
00:52:55.719 --> 00:53:00.000
South China Sea. The next one
is going to be coming around the globe

631
00:53:00.400 --> 00:53:09.800
and it's gonna start hitting closer to
home. Yeah. Um oh, very

632
00:53:09.800 --> 00:53:15.760
effective, you know, China,
China, just effective they are. Yeah.

633
00:53:15.880 --> 00:53:20.760
Yeah, you mentioned the your your
the non fiction maritime private security book

634
00:53:20.840 --> 00:53:23.760
of Dewich. By the way,
I didn't interest of full disclosure, I

635
00:53:23.760 --> 00:53:30.800
could contributed a chapter. Um,
how about the other books? The book

636
00:53:30.800 --> 00:53:37.119
on Captain Stewart? Is that is
that has that reflected in your in your

637
00:53:37.039 --> 00:53:45.159
fiction writing some uh so Siren's Song
towards In fact, Captain Charles Stewart commanded

638
00:53:46.039 --> 00:53:52.239
a ship called Siren during the Tripoli
War. That was his second command when

639
00:53:52.239 --> 00:53:58.159
he was a lieutenant along in the
Prebble's squadron. And that's why toward the

640
00:53:58.280 --> 00:54:01.400
end of Siren's Song, for those
who haven't read Siren Song, I won't

641
00:54:01.480 --> 00:54:08.559
I won't, you know, expose
a surprise, but there is an age

642
00:54:08.559 --> 00:54:12.360
of sale incident and I try to
do that. I did that at the

643
00:54:12.400 --> 00:54:15.960
end of Aid and effective that at
the end of Siren Song where Stark really

644
00:54:15.039 --> 00:54:22.119
uses history to solve a tactical issue. So in that way, I can

645
00:54:22.239 --> 00:54:27.039
use some of the stuff that I've
researched inn for my naval history class or

646
00:54:27.039 --> 00:54:30.639
for my books and actually employ it
in a way that I would hope my

647
00:54:30.760 --> 00:54:36.880
students do. In fact, the
past couple of years, I'm not going

648
00:54:36.920 --> 00:54:42.599
to do this next year, but
I had students for their final exam say

649
00:54:42.639 --> 00:54:46.440
that they were the Cno, I'm
the president, and they have to Their

650
00:54:46.480 --> 00:54:52.320
final exam is to write a formal
memo to me that we are going into

651
00:54:52.440 --> 00:54:57.960
ethnic Clashestan, it is going to
be a naval conflict, and what ten

652
00:54:58.039 --> 00:55:04.840
pieces of advice would you give me
in conducting this war? And with each

653
00:55:04.840 --> 00:55:10.039
of those, give me three examples
in naval history that they studied that support

654
00:55:10.199 --> 00:55:15.079
those recommendations. So I'm trying to
get them thinking. And that's why I

655
00:55:15.079 --> 00:55:16.840
try to do that in the books, is bringing a little bit of naval

656
00:55:16.920 --> 00:55:22.119
history into into the novels as well, and hopefully it'll inspire people to look

657
00:55:22.119 --> 00:55:24.400
at them more. I mean look
at you know, you'd go down the

658
00:55:24.440 --> 00:55:28.800
Wikipedia rabbit hole. But before there
was Wikipedia, you know, when the

659
00:55:28.800 --> 00:55:30.000
three of us were kids, you
know, and I'd go to the library

660
00:55:30.039 --> 00:55:34.639
to pick up a book and I'd
see a sentence in one book, I'm

661
00:55:34.639 --> 00:55:37.719
like, I want to know more
about that, So I'd go pick up

662
00:55:37.760 --> 00:55:43.000
another book and figure out what that
meant. And that's Those are some of

663
00:55:43.000 --> 00:55:46.239
the rabbit holes that I'd like to
see people go through, uh in not

664
00:55:46.320 --> 00:55:52.119
just being entertained again, but in
learning about something from these books that they

665
00:55:52.239 --> 00:55:58.840
might not otherwise. One thing I
hope that the reader does, it's a

666
00:55:58.920 --> 00:56:01.320
it's a predilegtion of mine. I
love globes, I love garth. I

667
00:56:01.400 --> 00:56:07.280
like making a little measurements and stuff. But when you look at the geometry

668
00:56:07.360 --> 00:56:12.559
in the Philippines, and again,
without doing another plot spoiler, as I

669
00:56:12.599 --> 00:56:15.840
watched a couple of the threads developed, especially in the in the second half

670
00:56:15.880 --> 00:56:24.400
of the book, it reminded me
in that five thousand year history that China

671
00:56:25.280 --> 00:56:30.840
has as a reference point, we
are our history is but a sub chapter

672
00:56:30.039 --> 00:56:36.519
compared to their larger book that in
their Nearer Abroad, not just Ashore,

673
00:56:36.639 --> 00:56:40.039
but also in See It One Time
reached all the way out to Okinawa,

674
00:56:40.280 --> 00:56:45.440
included Korea, a lot of the
islands in the South China Sea, in

675
00:56:45.480 --> 00:56:55.119
those purphyle areas, they had,
lack of a better phrase, not allies,

676
00:56:55.159 --> 00:57:00.559
but subservient kingdoms to them, and
they they see them cells as that

677
00:57:00.760 --> 00:57:07.400
is their rightful place in there,
near or abroad, not unlike what we

678
00:57:07.519 --> 00:57:14.000
used to think about in the Caribbean, in Central and South America, and

679
00:57:14.639 --> 00:57:17.599
especially a portion where you look at
what the Chinese could move forward in the

680
00:57:17.599 --> 00:57:22.719
Western Pacific out of emergency compared to
what the US Navy can with a big

681
00:57:22.760 --> 00:57:29.880
asterisk therapy, be careful how many
allies you're leaning on. But is that

682
00:57:30.079 --> 00:57:35.920
something you would hope that the reader, when when looking at this, would

683
00:57:35.960 --> 00:57:39.280
pause for a moment and maybe maybe
look at a look at a map and

684
00:57:39.400 --> 00:57:44.760
dig into the little history a bit
about not just how the neighbors look at

685
00:57:44.880 --> 00:57:50.280
China, but perhaps more critically,
with her strength, how China views the

686
00:57:50.440 --> 00:57:53.679
proper place for those lesser nations it
spinds to its south and its east.

687
00:57:54.840 --> 00:57:58.360
Yeah, I think that's a really
good point. And again, without give

688
00:57:58.559 --> 00:58:01.719
spoiling the second half of the book
and what happens, I think we see

689
00:58:01.760 --> 00:58:07.880
that play out and how China can
try to exert its influence by dividing allies

690
00:58:08.719 --> 00:58:15.239
and gaining partners. However, small, even a small island, can be

691
00:58:15.400 --> 00:58:17.840
a very powerful ally. And I, you know, I think back,

692
00:58:17.840 --> 00:58:22.119
and I think it's two thousand and
six. I visited six Caribbean islands and

693
00:58:22.239 --> 00:58:25.840
what was strange at four of those
or no, I think it was all

694
00:58:25.880 --> 00:58:34.840
of them had those Chinese arches and
big construction of cricket stadiums, and Chinese

695
00:58:34.840 --> 00:58:37.360
were everywhere, and you know,
this is seventeen years ago, and I

696
00:58:37.559 --> 00:58:40.320
would ask. Finally, I asked
one of the guides, and I said,

697
00:58:40.320 --> 00:58:44.280
what's going on here? Well,
the Chinese are our friends. They're

698
00:58:44.320 --> 00:58:49.119
building these cricket stadiums for the International
Cricket whatever it was in two thousand and

699
00:58:49.119 --> 00:58:52.760
seven. And so when I came
back to the academy, I talked to

700
00:58:52.800 --> 00:58:55.360
one of our experts on China and
all I did was I slapped down the

701
00:58:55.760 --> 00:59:01.039
names of those six islands I went
to, and without giving him any context,

702
00:59:01.119 --> 00:59:05.000
I said, what can you tell
me about these in China? And

703
00:59:05.039 --> 00:59:07.960
he says, huh, that's interesting. Four of these, just in the

704
00:59:08.000 --> 00:59:13.559
past couple of years, have switched
their recognition at the UN from Taiwan to

705
00:59:13.599 --> 00:59:19.519
mainland China. So we see this
this soft power emerge. And now I

706
00:59:19.559 --> 00:59:23.280
don't think Taiwan has more than ten
countries that recognize it in the United Nations.

707
00:59:24.119 --> 00:59:29.440
So when you're talking about China playing
the Long Game and Salamander, you

708
00:59:29.440 --> 00:59:34.400
you've had this The Long Game series
on your blog, that's exactly what they're

709
00:59:34.400 --> 00:59:40.199
doing. And again that's in our
own backyard. Caribbean is I won't say

710
00:59:40.199 --> 00:59:44.840
it's our South China, see,
but we've been down there a while and

711
00:59:44.880 --> 00:59:47.440
we've got a naval base, you
know, right smack dab in the middle

712
00:59:47.440 --> 00:59:53.559
of the Caribbean. And I think
that will play out for some very interesting

713
00:59:53.559 --> 01:00:00.400
events in the coming decades. Well, I hope it's not that interesting.

714
01:00:00.440 --> 01:00:06.519
I would like it to, but
I think i'm I'm I'm hoping against the

715
01:00:07.519 --> 01:00:09.719
odds there. Well, you mentioned
your your work on a Ricover book.

716
01:00:10.159 --> 01:00:15.000
We've taken up a you know your
hour and but we could of course talk

717
01:00:15.039 --> 01:00:16.960
for hours and hours and hours as
we have in the past. Tell us

718
01:00:16.960 --> 01:00:20.440
a little bit about the ricoverbook,
tell us what you know, what your

719
01:00:20.519 --> 01:00:23.880
what your expectation is for being published
and and do you find him to be

720
01:00:24.400 --> 01:00:30.920
a fascinating figure uh was he was? He just I mean a lot of

721
01:00:30.920 --> 01:00:34.000
people have up and down opinions about
him, did great things. Not necessarily

722
01:00:34.000 --> 01:00:38.840
the nicest person on the planet,
but different. So first of all,

723
01:00:38.880 --> 01:00:42.679
I yeah, I do have an
agent, and I've got to give him

724
01:00:43.199 --> 01:00:45.719
a rewrite for something, to add
something in here, and he's going to

725
01:00:45.800 --> 01:00:51.039
be taking care of the pitches with
the big publishers. But this goes back

726
01:00:51.119 --> 01:00:54.519
a few years ago when I started
meeting with missus rick Over his second wife,

727
01:00:54.519 --> 01:00:58.559
Eleanor. She passed away. I
guess it's a year and a half

728
01:00:58.559 --> 01:01:02.199
ago now, but before she passed, she and her co executors bequeathed more

729
01:01:02.239 --> 01:01:07.440
than a hundred boxes of his personal
papers to the Naval Cab Museum. And

730
01:01:08.119 --> 01:01:14.880
so I've been working with special collections
and archives and an initial cataloging of them.

731
01:01:15.800 --> 01:01:21.440
But these go back to nineteen twenty
nine. These include daily love letters

732
01:01:21.440 --> 01:01:24.840
to his first wife or his girlfriend
who became his wife in the nineteen thirties,

733
01:01:24.840 --> 01:01:30.920
that are incredibly detailed and show such
a different aspect of Rickover. I

734
01:01:30.960 --> 01:01:34.480
could not believe this was Rickover,
and I don't think anybody else will.

735
01:01:35.239 --> 01:01:39.199
But it goes throughout his career I'm
going to include a few congressional hearing excerpts

736
01:01:39.320 --> 01:01:45.280
those are publicly available, but he
gave hundreds of speeches that he wrote on

737
01:01:45.320 --> 01:01:50.400
his own on a variety of topics. He has letters with presidents, c

738
01:01:50.559 --> 01:01:53.840
and os. He did memoranda for
the record just for his personal files.

739
01:01:53.880 --> 01:01:59.760
Every time he met with another admiral, a senator, a president, he

740
01:02:00.079 --> 01:02:04.239
wrote up a page or two on
this is what we discussed. That is

741
01:02:04.280 --> 01:02:10.719
incredible primary sources, and then also
the transcripts of telephone conversations he had with

742
01:02:12.280 --> 01:02:17.320
journalists, with cnos, with the
whole gamut of people that we talked about.

743
01:02:17.920 --> 01:02:22.039
And it is more than one hundred
archive boxes. I think it's closer

744
01:02:22.039 --> 01:02:25.519
to about two hundred and fifty.
It was one hundred regular boxes, but

745
01:02:25.559 --> 01:02:29.559
in archive terms, it's closer to
two fifty. So it's taken a long

746
01:02:29.599 --> 01:02:32.480
time to go through those. But
I really think people are going to get

747
01:02:32.559 --> 01:02:38.199
a very different perspective on parts of
Rickover's life. I think it will also

748
01:02:38.320 --> 01:02:43.280
validate a lot of the things that
we've all come to know and learn about

749
01:02:43.360 --> 01:02:49.400
Rickover and in terms of being acerbic
and etc. But he was a very

750
01:02:49.480 --> 01:02:57.320
complex individual and I think these documents
as primary research will show that, and

751
01:02:57.360 --> 01:03:00.920
I'm going to be doing it in
a very different way than than a traditional

752
01:03:00.960 --> 01:03:06.280
biography. So I'm pretty much I've
got maybe three or four more weeks of

753
01:03:06.679 --> 01:03:12.760
research to go through the last sources
and then it's right to the right to

754
01:03:12.800 --> 01:03:17.119
the drawing board and trying to get
this out. Well. At least we

755
01:03:17.199 --> 01:03:22.039
have one more reason to invite you
on to mid Rats again, and Claude

756
01:03:22.480 --> 01:03:27.320
again, thank you very much for
for an hour to come on. Best

757
01:03:27.320 --> 01:03:30.639
of luck, and again for the
for the listeners. The book is The

758
01:03:30.679 --> 01:03:37.679
Philippine Packed. It's the third in
the Connor Start series and I saw via

759
01:03:37.760 --> 01:03:40.400
my Amazon tracker that some of y'all
have decided to go back to the very

760
01:03:40.440 --> 01:03:45.920
beginning and to start with the first
book. And that's but you can pick

761
01:03:45.960 --> 01:03:50.039
it up solo. You don't have
to start at the beginning. And I

762
01:03:50.079 --> 01:03:52.519
hope you have a great summer,
Claude, and look forward to the next

763
01:03:52.519 --> 01:03:55.960
opportunity. Thank you very much to
both of you. I really appreciate it.

764
01:03:57.519 --> 01:04:01.800
Have a good day, take care, con and thank you very much

765
01:04:01.800 --> 01:04:05.519
everybody for joining us for another edition
mid Rats. And until next time,

766
01:04:05.559 --> 01:04:17.719
I hope you have a great Navy
day. Cheers having all things like maloney,

767
01:04:17.920 --> 01:04:26.239
want to marry me and please be
comely, all your being to blame

768
01:04:27.079 --> 01:04:33.000
for love, family to ald me, silly holding you all of the same.

769
01:04:34.760 --> 01:04:44.679
It's a long way to it's a
long way to go. It's a

770
01:04:44.719 --> 01:04:59.000
long way to many. I don't
bye pcdially, Well, let's talk to

771
01:04:59.079 --> 01:05:04.559
it. It's a long long way
to dip a n it, but my

772
01:05:04.719 --> 01:05:06.440
life right there.