Speaker 1: Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander an
Speaker 1: Eagle one from Eagle Speak at Seer Shore your home
Speaker 1: for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime,
Speaker 1: and welcome board everybody for another episode of mid Rats.
Speaker 1: On today's show, we're going to look at a common
Speaker 1: desire of those, mostly speaking for myself and others, who
Speaker 1: have been frustrated what they see as a lack of
Speaker 1: understanding and focus on the requirement today for our nation's
Speaker 1: maritime inheritance to see new people with new ideas, open
Speaker 1: to posse disabilities, not hindered by legacy entanglements that they've
Speaker 1: accrued over years in politics, and they've wanted to see
Speaker 1: in order to achieve those things, a younger cohort in
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives in the Senate, with military experience,
Speaker 1: preferably naval, matched with an understanding of business and industry.
Speaker 1: And today's guest is straight out of Central Casting looking
Speaker 1: for that. And that's the new Senator from the Great
Speaker 1: State of mynd Tenator Senator Tim Sheehey, who after has
Speaker 1: graduated from the Naval Academy in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: served as a seal officer for the next eleven years
Speaker 1: active reserve duty before building two companies in the civilian
Speaker 1: sector prior to defeating in a cumvent in the two
Speaker 1: thousand and four election. Senator She Welcome to Miterrets.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me on. I've been a longtime reader
Speaker 2: of your newsletters out there since I was in uniform,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's always interesting as life makes full circle,
Speaker 2: you start to run into people later on, so it's
Speaker 2: really fun to be able to talk to you guys.
Speaker 2: You know, your writings, especially you know when I was
Speaker 2: in uniform, although they didn't really apply a whole lot
Speaker 2: to the soft community any necessarily, but just as a
Speaker 2: naval officer, it's great to see that they just the
Speaker 2: conversations that you guys open up amongst the naval community.
Speaker 2: And you know, the publication Proceedings is one I've read
Speaker 2: since high school, actually performed at the Academy and still
Speaker 2: read to this day. And obviously that's a bit more
Speaker 2: of a formal, uh you know, conduit for that. But
Speaker 2: thanks for what you guys have been doing to increase
Speaker 2: the discourse around naval strategy and make sure that that
Speaker 2: fresh ideas are brought to the fore.
Speaker 1: I really appreciate that senator for your group. Two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight officer senator is a pretty good billet. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: not bad. You pretty good for an O eight guy.
Speaker 1: But for listeners who may not be real familiar with
Speaker 1: your background going from the academy, through the Navy, the
Speaker 1: private sector, and then coming into the Senate, you know,
Speaker 1: outline for a little bit about those those decisive points
Speaker 1: in that path that got you to where you are today,
Speaker 1: the second youngest senator in the US Senate.
Speaker 2: Well, it's as you probably know as well as you know,
Speaker 2: we all set out as young adults with our plan
Speaker 2: for our life and mind, and usually God has other
Speaker 2: things in mind for us and for me. You know,
Speaker 2: if you'd asked me when I was sixteen, twenty four,
Speaker 2: twenty eight, thirty two, thirty four where I was going
Speaker 2: to be in five years, I would have been wrong
Speaker 2: every single time. And as someone who's reasonably intelligent and capable,
Speaker 2: you know, even I couldn't come close to predicting the
Speaker 2: path of my life. Award, you know. So yeah, I
Speaker 2: went to the Naval canon read out of high school.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be a Navy pilot, grew up flying
Speaker 2: my neighbor as a child was a Korean War Navy pilot,
Speaker 2: so he started teaching me how to fly when I
Speaker 2: was about eight years old, and I sold a plane
Speaker 2: for I drove a car and my pilots license in
Speaker 2: high school and got accepted to Annapolis and went there
Speaker 2: with the mission, like most children of the eighties, to
Speaker 2: be Maverick, you know, we all wanted to fly tom Kats.
Speaker 2: And of course I got to the academy, and you know,
Speaker 2: once you're immersed in something, as you know, the view
Speaker 2: from inside a ship is very different than the you
Speaker 2: outside of ship, and Naval academy is no different. I
Speaker 2: get there and realize pretty quickly that, you know, the
Speaker 2: perception I had of being a Navy pilot was very
Speaker 2: different than what the reality of a nation at war
Speaker 2: was in a nation at war two, massive ground wars
Speaker 2: to insurgencies, and you know, being there, getting there in
Speaker 2: fall of four, pretty quickly realized that, you know, as
Speaker 2: you all probably remember better than I, you know that
Speaker 2: they were even service warfare officers were being pulled off ships,
Speaker 2: given desert cammis and rifles and sent to Iraq and
Speaker 2: Afghanistan to say, hey, you're going to man a operations
Speaker 2: center you're going to be a provincial reconstruction team or
Speaker 2: you name it. It was really an all hands on
Speaker 2: deck effort to where warfare officers of any service, of
Speaker 2: any specially were being sent over there because frankly, that's
Speaker 2: where the need was. We didn't really need fighter pilots.
Speaker 2: We needed guys on the ground fighting an insurgency. So,
Speaker 2: you know, once I got to the Academy, it pretty
Speaker 2: quickly dawned on me that flying jets was a selfish
Speaker 2: desire I had, but the country really needed was was
Speaker 2: fighters on the ground. So, you know, coming up at
Speaker 2: the end of my first semester there at the Academy,
Speaker 2: I made the wise decision that I was going to quit.
Speaker 2: I was gonna lead the academy. I was going to
Speaker 2: resign from the Academy and go be a marine and
Speaker 2: fight on the ground because I felt, like most nineteen
Speaker 2: year old kids, the war is going to be over
Speaker 2: before I have a chance to do my part. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm better get out there and fight the war while
Speaker 2: I still can. Otherwise, you know, I'm going to miss
Speaker 2: my chance to do what we all want to do
Speaker 2: when we're you know, teenage young men, and you know,
Speaker 2: submitted my letter resignation to my company officer and commander,
Speaker 2: and they kind of said, all right, kid, you want
Speaker 2: to quit, fine, we're not going to stop you, but
Speaker 2: go talk to this guy. I think we think you
Speaker 2: should talk to him. And so I went down to
Speaker 2: Dahlgren Hall that night and then there was a guy
Speaker 2: waiting there, and you know, I'm a plead walking around,
Speaker 2: pleading my cover, and they say, you're going to be
Speaker 2: a guy named McDonald have a conversation with him. And
Speaker 2: I get there, I'm looking at name tags and I
Speaker 2: see that McDonald is a full Bird Army Special Forces
Speaker 2: colonel who's on the Naval Academy campus. And I'm like, well,
Speaker 2: what the hell is this guy doing here? And why
Speaker 2: am I talking to him? I said, sir, you must
Speaker 2: be Tim. I said, yeah, yes, sir, I am. We'll
Speaker 2: have a seat. And turns out he was the officer
Speaker 2: rep for the hockey team and was currently attending National
Speaker 2: Defense University in DC, which is why an Army six
Speaker 2: was sitting on the Navy yard and Dalgren Hall, which
Speaker 2: is you guys probably remember, used to be the skating rink.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure if it still is. And you know,
Speaker 2: proceeded to kind of say, hey, I hear you're quitting
Speaker 2: the academy. You're you know, at the time, I was
Speaker 2: number one ranked in my company and pretty high up
Speaker 2: in my class. So it was like, your company officer
Speaker 2: is pretty surprised you've decided to quit and go to
Speaker 2: the fleet and the list. I said, well, sir, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm here to fight the war and do my part,
Speaker 2: and I just don't feel like three more years of
Speaker 2: calculus and thermodynamics are what I need, uh more more
Speaker 2: directly what the country needs. H He said, well, listen,
Speaker 2: I've just done my third deployment in the War on Terror.
Speaker 2: And he's the guy who fought the first golf for War
Speaker 2: Panama and you know all these and he's like, this
Speaker 2: war is not going to be over in you know,
Speaker 2: anytime soon. We're going to be fighting this war for
Speaker 2: the next generation. Obviously, Boy was he right. And this
Speaker 2: is fall of before December of before he's telling me this.
Speaker 2: He says, but you know, one thing we're working on
Speaker 2: is inner service operability, especially in the special ops world,
Speaker 2: and a lot of people don't really realize is you know,
Speaker 2: prior to the War on Terror, our special operations units
Speaker 2: were very segregated. You know, rangers, Grain, berets, seals, air Force,
Speaker 2: special ops, marine recom They all existed, but they didn't
Speaker 2: really combine and work together very much. And for the
Speaker 2: first time ever, we were seeing these combined special joint
Speaker 2: special operation task forces where all different elements Army and
Speaker 2: Navy special missione units you know, rangers, SF, seals, nice talkers,
Speaker 2: everyone was getting mashed together with even you know, agencies,
Speaker 2: intel agencies mixed in I kind of create these joint
Speaker 2: task forces where everyone was just working together and kind
Speaker 2: of the the old school lines were really being blurred
Speaker 2: in a way that had never been done before. And
Speaker 2: one of the issues that was emerging was seals were
Speaker 2: the smallest and most unique of soft the soft principal elements,
Speaker 2: and they just weren't meshing well with the Army because
Speaker 2: everything we did was different, you know, I mean, our
Speaker 2: radios are different, our fregency are different, our guns were different.
Speaker 2: Even the words we'd use our ranks for these weird
Speaker 2: ass ranks, you know, like what a sergeant, what's a
Speaker 2: petty officer, what's a sonarman? Second class? You know, you
Speaker 2: sergeant or corporal, you know, and just simple things like
Speaker 2: that was making it hard for Army Soft and Navy
Speaker 2: Soft to intermix and work seamlessly together. And unfortunately, were
Speaker 2: a couple of disasters relatively early in the war that
Speaker 2: kind of increased that resentments. It was a roberts Ridge
Speaker 2: Battle and there was Red Wing's Operation Red Wing as well.
Speaker 2: So anyways, the intent was, Hey, that there's a program
Speaker 2: that we're looking at standing up, where're take midshipmen who
Speaker 2: are going to go into the NSW community and send
Speaker 2: them through some cross training with the Army, go to
Speaker 2: Airborne School, range of school, recon school, and get some
Speaker 2: exposure there so when they go become seals, they understand
Speaker 2: Army Soft speak the language and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: And he said, you know, based on your scores, you're
Speaker 2: like you'd be the perfect candidate. Do you want to
Speaker 2: do it? And of course, as a nine year old kid,
Speaker 2: is it hard? Is it dangerous? Yes, I'll go. So
Speaker 2: I went ahead and did that. And the deal was
Speaker 2: they had to graduate though, and that man had to
Speaker 2: miss a lot of school and over the next three
Speaker 2: years and initiative, going through the Naval Academy, became an
Speaker 2: Army ranger, firstman shipment over the Range of School, went
Speaker 2: to the seventh the Ranger Regiment, Airborne School, fifth Special
Speaker 2: Forces Group Exchange, and a couple of other couple of
Speaker 2: other specialized courses, and it was a great experience. Graduated
Speaker 2: the academy, drove across country, started buds five days later, graduated,
Speaker 2: you know, seal training, but might tried it a week later.
Speaker 2: I'm on the ground in Iraq on my first mission
Speaker 2: and had a very high op tempo career, as all
Speaker 2: of us did those years, and that Army Exchange training
Speaker 2: I did, it could have been more valued in my
Speaker 2: first deployment. I walked in the door first day in
Speaker 2: Baghdad in two thousand and nine and boom, you know,
Speaker 2: there's two guys that went to Range School with on
Speaker 2: the Army Special Operations Unit there that I was working with.
Speaker 2: And then every deployment after that, I mean, not a
Speaker 2: single deployment. I did five total, several different trips around
Speaker 2: the world, but really, you know, five deployments that I
Speaker 2: would call directly, and every single one I'd run into
Speaker 2: a guy that that you know, I had met and
Speaker 2: worked with during my Army Special Operations Exchange and made great,
Speaker 2: great friends in that world. And actually, you know Colonel
Speaker 2: General Career, I said, Colonel General Corilla, now I run
Speaker 2: said coom. You know, he was my task force commander
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan back when he was running range regiment. And
Speaker 2: now of course I see him regularly on the hill
Speaker 2: as he brisas on saidcom issues. So it's fun to
Speaker 2: see everything come full circle. But love the teams was
Speaker 2: great exposure there my wife. I met my wife at
Speaker 2: the academy. She was a Marine Corps officer, so we
Speaker 2: both commissioned in we were some of those mashipment who
Speaker 2: broke the rules and David in company, but we both graduated.
Speaker 2: She went into the Marine Corps also after in war VET.
Speaker 2: And then yeah, eventually I got wounded in Afghanistan, got
Speaker 2: injured on dive action as well during a sub mini
Speaker 2: submarine operations, got put on the medical hold list, and
Speaker 2: you know, with the future uncertain, I kind of decided, well,
Speaker 2: you know, if I can't be on the teams anymore,
Speaker 2: I think I'll go find a new path in life.
Speaker 2: So that's when I started my company, and all that
Speaker 2: started with another Naval officer. Whole leadership team early on
Speaker 2: was all Academy grads West Point and Navy, and yeah,
Speaker 2: all veteran founding team. We grew to you know, created
Speaker 2: about five hundred jobs over the course of ten years,
Speaker 2: all veteran management team all over the world. It was
Speaker 2: a great, great time and loved those companies and it
Speaker 2: was a great camaraderie had that really came from the military,
Speaker 2: with the culture of excellence that came from the academies.
Speaker 2: And then I got into poll this completely by acident
Speaker 2: iby Aram for Student Council before. This is my first
Speaker 2: time ever. But it was Afghanistan. It was a collapse
Speaker 2: in cobble. You know. As I saw that happen, I
Speaker 2: was getting refugees out, spending around money trying to get
Speaker 2: people out, as our own government basically was sitting there
Speaker 2: watching this lapse. And you guys know, I mean for
Speaker 2: so many of us, that defined our life. I mean
Speaker 2: we all spent our twenties there. I lost friends there,
Speaker 2: my wife lost friends there. So to see us just
Speaker 2: walk away from that in such a disgusting manner and
Speaker 2: abandoned over eight harded American citizens and project weakness to
Speaker 2: the entire world, which we're now still feeling the effects
Speaker 2: of that kind of jolted me out of my political
Speaker 2: apathy and got me involved in politics for the first
Speaker 2: time in my life. It originally I got involved more
Speaker 2: as a speaker and a donor, and then eventually a
Speaker 2: couple of guys corner me said, hey, we've got a
Speaker 2: really important center race kinding up, and frankly, we think
Speaker 2: we need a fresh face, a young guy to go
Speaker 2: out there and do this. And here I am. So
Speaker 2: it's an honor to be here to represent Montana. I'm
Speaker 2: on Armed Services of course, Seatpower Committee, Emerging Threats as
Speaker 2: well for Special Operations, and just joined the board of
Speaker 2: the Naval Academy. So I'm interested in supporting the revitalization
Speaker 2: of our navy and all forms undersea, on the sea,
Speaker 2: in the air. As we all know that the conventional
Speaker 2: Navy has really been in a state of decay for
Speaker 2: some time. Decades of focus on insurgency warfare have left
Speaker 2: the Navy in a position where we are not ready
Speaker 2: to fight a near pure conflict on the oceans. And
Speaker 2: I think it's as the only constitutionally mandated branch of
Speaker 2: the military to build and maintain a navy, it's time
Speaker 2: we get this thing rebooted and refocused. So that's where
Speaker 2: we're here. Thanks for having me, Well, it's great to
Speaker 2: have you.
Speaker 3: And I think since you've come into the Senate, you've
Speaker 3: planted on, as you've just pointed out, a couple of
Speaker 3: really key committees for the maritime, not just the Navy,
Speaker 3: but the Merchant Marine group too, because you're you're on
Speaker 3: the Armed Services Committee, which is obviously seapower and all that,
Speaker 3: but also on the Commerce Science whatever I can't remoin
Speaker 3: right and transportation. I mean, you're dealing with a coast Guard,
Speaker 3: maritime and fisheries. Has Has it happens you've fallen right
Speaker 3: in when the people are proposing this Ships Act? Can
Speaker 3: you kind of talk about what you know about that
Speaker 3: and what looks like to you if that is at
Speaker 3: a very positive step in your view of waiting to
Speaker 3: get our maritime supremacy back.
Speaker 2: Well, listen, I'm obviously my experience of the Navy was
Speaker 2: even though I'm a Naval Academy grad. To be honest,
Speaker 2: I mean, the grand total amount of time I've spent
Speaker 2: on ships and submarines is probably less than most kids
Speaker 2: eive summer camp. You know. My time was in the
Speaker 2: desert care and a gun but the truth is, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a history I'm a history obsessed person and being
Speaker 2: a Naval Academy grad, and my favorite era of history
Speaker 2: is the Age of Sale, and the book Six Frigates
Speaker 2: is one of my favorite books ever. And Ian told
Speaker 2: all of his work, I've read multiple times, and I
Speaker 2: recommend Six Frigates every sending member of Congress. I see
Speaker 2: because the arguments that our very first Congress had around
Speaker 2: having a navy are almost the same ones we're having today.
Speaker 2: And it's fascinating to just getting the time machine and
Speaker 2: go back and listen to our founding fathers wrangle about
Speaker 2: cost of money and whether you know, having a navy's
Speaker 2: imperialist and et cetera, et cetera. But you know, really
Speaker 2: what the consensus ended up being was we had to
Speaker 2: have a navy. You know, we were a mercantile republic,
Speaker 2: but we weren't. We weren't an empire. We were in
Speaker 2: and we depended on global trade. We were the first
Speaker 2: country that was founded as a business, and our business
Speaker 2: needed trade, it needed access to global shipping routes. And
Speaker 2: very wisely, our framers understood that we have to have
Speaker 2: a viable native to exist as a nation, and I
Speaker 2: think that awareness is now re emerging when quite frankly,
Speaker 2: just to be honest, you know, we all know the
Speaker 2: importance of the Navy. I mean we're preaching the choir
Speaker 2: here that you know, freedom of navigation of the world's
Speaker 2: oceans underpins our twenty first century economy and our ability
Speaker 2: to project power all over the world. Yes, our army
Speaker 2: bases and air force are important, but it really comes
Speaker 2: because of our navy. But not everyone understands and appreciates that.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, the Navy hasn't had a
Speaker 2: commanding role as far as the force of decision and
Speaker 2: a conflict since lay take golf. So I think most
Speaker 2: people have just kind of said, don't well, the Navy
Speaker 2: will always be there, right, we don't have to focus
Speaker 2: on it. But now as we're coming to grips with
Speaker 2: the d industrialization of America and the shifting of these
Speaker 2: industries overseas, we're having to grapple with the fact that
Speaker 2: you know, this is a very in depth complex issues
Speaker 2: and to quote unquote fix the Navy. As I've said
Speaker 2: with all the service chiefs and everyone I've met and said, listen,
Speaker 2: you know, every branch has its challenges and to fix
Speaker 2: the problems of the army. In my opinion is, you know,
Speaker 2: it's a one year problem, all right. I mean, some
Speaker 2: could be already as larger, but really the key issues,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a year problem. Fix the Air Force,
Speaker 2: it's a five year problem. We can still build planes,
Speaker 2: we can build guns and bullets and bombs. To fix
Speaker 2: the Navy is a ten year plus problem. I mean,
Speaker 2: to build ships at scale, to engineer these systems, to
Speaker 2: acquire them. It's really I mean, it's a whole new paradigm.
Speaker 2: So I think the good news is bipartisan focus understands
Speaker 2: that in an era of hyper partisanship, when you've shut
Speaker 2: on Fox News, AROUNSSNBC, you feel hopeless for the future
Speaker 2: of America. When the cameras are off and you get
Speaker 2: behind closed doors, both parties really do treasure in the
Speaker 2: Navy and realize it's time to reinvest. So I feel
Speaker 2: good about it. I mean, of course, the devil's in
Speaker 2: the details with anything that goes through Congress, but I
Speaker 2: think what we're going to see is the President's make
Speaker 2: clear he wants a ship building off, he wants to
Speaker 2: focus on this. The Senate Armed Service Committee and Seatpower
Speaker 2: Committee has been very clear and a lined across the
Speaker 2: aisle that this needs to happen. So I think I
Speaker 2: think it's going to be. It's gonna be an unprecedented
Speaker 2: era of support for the Navy, probably likes which we
Speaker 2: haven't seen as a Secretary Layman in the Reagan years. Now.
Speaker 2: What I'll say to that, though, is what Secretary Layman
Speaker 2: and thegear the Reagan Navy build up did was essentially
Speaker 2: an extension of the you know, World War two era
Speaker 2: kind of shipbuilding paradigm that was very twentieth century industrial
Speaker 2: era focused. We can't do that again. And what I've
Speaker 2: been telling everyone is we can't just cut and paste
Speaker 2: Layman's plan from the eighties. We can't cut and paste
Speaker 2: Henry Kaiser's plan for World War Two. We are a
Speaker 2: fundamentally different nation today, and therefore we can't just tell
Speaker 2: the Navy, here's more money, go build ships, because quite honestly,
Speaker 2: the Navy doesn't know how to build ship the scale
Speaker 2: either anymore. So this is going to take a new
Speaker 2: shipbuilding paradigm that may involve certain classes of vessels are
Speaker 2: least you know, it may involve accepting that, you know,
Speaker 2: a baseline commercial level of vessel. You know, build is acceptable,
Speaker 2: and then you know certain upfitting can happen later with
Speaker 2: classified systems, you know, we may have to accept that
Speaker 2: we may not own the fleet out right. Navies throughout
Speaker 2: history at least fleets are borrowed fleets, you know, capturing
Speaker 2: other nations ships and using them as their own. Obviously
Speaker 2: no one does that anymore. But I think we have
Speaker 2: to think more broadly and be more limber in our
Speaker 2: in our kind of structure that we're willing to adopt
Speaker 2: because we need to revitalize in avy. It has to
Speaker 2: happen fast. China's building ships two hundred and thirty times
Speaker 2: faster than we are, so we can't wait for American
Speaker 2: shipyards to magically reappear. We're going to find other ways
Speaker 2: to do this. And I think, you know, the ships
Speaker 2: ACKed and many others between executive ors and legislation, and
Speaker 2: we try to solve that.
Speaker 1: And I think kind of building all Mark's question, it
Speaker 1: is really a very opportune time for somebody with your
Speaker 1: background to show up, because you join depending on how
Speaker 1: you measure it. There's about a half dozen other senators
Speaker 1: who have combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. They have
Speaker 1: a younger, younger perspective, a more updated perspective. In the
Speaker 1: real world, seniority has its advantages and great knowledge. But
Speaker 1: you know, being in the real world, as you know,
Speaker 1: outside of a community d C, it's a very different
Speaker 1: place with different priorities and different perspectives. And you also have,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at the near game. Something that you
Speaker 1: share in common with the second of the Navy Fialan
Speaker 1: is y'all both come from successful business backgrounds, which is
Speaker 1: in tune with you know, like you said out Eern
Speaker 1: twenty first century solutions to problems, and there's a lot
Speaker 1: of commonality you can't you know, not like McNamara who thinks,
Speaker 1: you know, building a navy is like building a ford,
Speaker 1: Not like that at all. A lot of it has
Speaker 1: to do with mindset in time frames, and I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that's kind of spot welded on
Speaker 1: to that that there are things in the important executive
Speaker 1: branch legislative branch connection. The one thing that I continue
Speaker 1: to look to the Senate in the House as ultimate resolutions.
Speaker 1: If you if you to try to modernize things, you
Speaker 1: also have to look at the macro things that are
Speaker 1: our Navy are in. Our military is structured around nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six was a great year. I was a sophomore
Speaker 1: in college having a blast, But it's not what we
Speaker 1: need in twenty twenty five to run our military course.
Speaker 1: I'm talking about Goldwater Nichols has been around since nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six. We around the edges of CoCom reforms that
Speaker 1: initially was structured with a Cold War mindset. And of
Speaker 1: course you've seen the very positive aspect as you described
Speaker 1: when your first deployment, the way joint was supposed to
Speaker 1: work in the ideal way that you work in a
Speaker 1: joint environment, but that whole requirements and processes on the
Speaker 1: side that don't really make sense, they're just there because
Speaker 1: they're there. Requires a form as well, besides addressing those immediately.
Speaker 1: Reindustrialization and ship building and repair capability that is going
Speaker 1: to take more than one generation to go, more than
Speaker 1: one Palm cycle to go through. It's going to require
Speaker 1: bipartisan support. Are there other things you think you might
Speaker 1: have a critical mass of people that you can work
Speaker 1: with in the House and the Senate to look at
Speaker 1: these larger things that really are are archaic and need
Speaker 1: to be If not replaced, significantly reformed to bring it
Speaker 1: more in line with what we need now vice forty
Speaker 1: years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, wow, that's a I think, as you know,
Speaker 2: that's probably in our conversation on us. I'll try to
Speaker 2: be quick with it just so we can cover more
Speaker 2: topical ayers. I think number one, you know, we can't
Speaker 2: let perfect be the enemy good enough. And I think
Speaker 2: quantity has a quality all its own. And I think
Speaker 2: the Navy, you know, rightfully so, but has become so
Speaker 2: obsessed with the most advanced systems, the highest quality, the
Speaker 2: most over engineered systems possible, that we've essentially settled the
Speaker 2: fact that we're going to have a small, extremely advanced navy.
Speaker 2: And you know that briefs well, and that sounds great
Speaker 2: on powerpoints lies, but the reality is, you know, when
Speaker 2: we enter into sustained naval combat, our ability to replace vessels,
Speaker 2: not not refit, not repair, not repaint the rust I
Speaker 2: mean holes on the bottom of the ocean, and we
Speaker 2: have to replace that hole with another hull, and it
Speaker 2: has to happen as fast as humidly possible, and preferably
Speaker 2: when one holes sunk, we send three to replace the
Speaker 2: one that's gone. We have. We're not even that universe anymore.
Speaker 2: And that was our We had many advantages of the
Speaker 2: World War Two, but that was really our core advantage
Speaker 2: in Westpac of World War two against the Japanese was
Speaker 2: as we sank those ships, they weren't replaced. As they
Speaker 2: sank ours that were replaced immediately, and frankly, each one
Speaker 2: that was sunk spawned three more. And we have absolutely
Speaker 2: no concept of how to conceive of doing that again
Speaker 2: because we've become so focused on we're going to engineer
Speaker 2: this ship, We're going to change it this, We're going
Speaker 2: to add this lazoo system here. It's like, you know what,
Speaker 2: just build a ship that can go fast the floats,
Speaker 2: that's survivable, and let's get to work. And I think
Speaker 2: you know that's something that this acquisition paradigm. It's not
Speaker 2: just the Navy's the entire military has become so defect free.
Speaker 2: They're so obsessed with never making a mistake, with never
Speaker 2: making anything that's not perfect, that we have these over engineered, underutilized,
Speaker 2: irreplaceable weapons systems that were built to fight the last war,
Speaker 2: and then when those systems hit in reality, we realize,
Speaker 2: oh great, like we built this thing, and guess what,
Speaker 2: you know, nobody wants it or needs it. Instead of
Speaker 2: having one of these, I'd rather have five one of those.
Speaker 2: We built them a great Ferrari. But guess what they
Speaker 2: want f one fifties and instead of one, they want
Speaker 2: fifty of them. So I'm not saying we need to
Speaker 2: stop investing in technology and making good ships, not at all.
Speaker 2: But what I am saying is, you know, we should
Speaker 2: be able to walk at you gop at the same time,
Speaker 2: That's what I mentioned earlier. I think the acquisition paradigm
Speaker 2: has to shift. We have to find a way for
Speaker 2: the Navy to innovate new ships. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: in parallel, have people, you know, and probably some of
Speaker 2: the structure of the Department of Navy is you know,
Speaker 2: it's just a secretary offense, you know for RNA. You know,
Speaker 2: we've got all the engineering experiment, everything's jammed into one
Speaker 2: office and it's really there should be an Office of
Speaker 2: ship Building that like, all they do is build ships.
Speaker 2: They're not worried about the latest stealth technology, and they're
Speaker 2: not worried about you know, electromagnetic catapults. Their job is
Speaker 2: to get holes in the water and do it fast,
Speaker 2: and I think we have to have to figure out
Speaker 2: how to iterate again and build quantity. And that's going
Speaker 2: to come from industry. It's not going to come to
Speaker 2: the government. That knowledge does not exist in our government.
Speaker 2: So instead of trying to create it there, let's go
Speaker 2: to who already knows how to do it. And there
Speaker 2: are a lot of people out there, like the Koreans
Speaker 2: that build a lot of ships. They know how to
Speaker 2: do it. Let's incentivize joint ventures with them in America,
Speaker 2: and let's also use commercial basis for ships. At the
Speaker 2: end of the day, some of the best technology in
Speaker 2: the world, In fact, this and this era, most of
Speaker 2: the best technology in the world is in the civilian sector,
Speaker 2: not the government sector. So let's let's leverage that and
Speaker 2: create a little more flexibilit in or acquisition scheme. And
Speaker 2: I think you know, a lot of the requirements you mentioned,
Speaker 2: they're there because they're there. That's exactly right. They're there
Speaker 2: because they are there, They've always been there in the
Speaker 2: and the contract officers are not incentivized to take risk,
Speaker 2: they're incentivized to take no risks. So therefore incentives matter.
Speaker 2: If we encourage our acquisition professionals to take no risks,
Speaker 2: then they won't take any risks. And the truth is
Speaker 2: to do a paradigm shift at a fundamental level is
Speaker 2: inherently risky, and we have to make it okay to
Speaker 2: take risks. We have to make it okay to fail.
Speaker 2: I mean, nowhere, I think is there a better illustration
Speaker 2: of this than NASA and SpaceX next to each other
Speaker 2: for the last twenty years. You know, NASA really became
Speaker 2: a heavily centralized, highly bureaucratic, zero defect culture with all
Speaker 2: the right intentions but all the worst outcomes. And essentially
Speaker 2: they never wanted to see a rock explode period ever,
Speaker 2: and then every wanted to make a mistake. That's very noble,
Speaker 2: but mistakes is how we learn to get better. And
Speaker 2: SpaceX meanwhile blows up a rocket a week, but guess what,
Speaker 2: they're also now landing giant rockets backwards, catching them in
Speaker 2: mid air with chopsticks. I mean, it's crazy, and that
Speaker 2: comes from iteration and quantity. So I think we need
Speaker 2: to reinject that culture back into the Navy acquisition system.
Speaker 2: And I think that's going to come from private sectors,
Speaker 2: the only place it can come from, because it does
Speaker 2: not exist in the Navy. And as you know, we're
Speaker 2: talking ship building mainly, that also applies to our culture
Speaker 2: and our officer training promotions too, where we've encouraged this
Speaker 2: no mistake is ever allowed, and if you make one
Speaker 2: mistake in your career, Boom you're out. One bad fit rep.
Speaker 2: Boom you're out. You know, guy, sexual assault, sexual harassment
Speaker 2: issue within your command, boom black eye for the rest
Speaker 2: of your career. And it's encouraged a very risk averse
Speaker 2: mindset in our commanders, which is really the complete opposite
Speaker 2: of what the history of naval commanders were. I mean,
Speaker 2: they were the risky risk takers ever ages sale. I
Speaker 2: know that's a long time ago, but I mean that's
Speaker 2: what you expected out of a ship manner, the swashbuckling
Speaker 2: guy that's going to make the daring decision and is
Speaker 2: going to is going to make those those risky calls
Speaker 2: in the heat of battle. And that's not the type
Speaker 2: of leaders the Navy encourages anymore. As you and I all.
Speaker 3: Know, as it's said before the Battle of Midway, fact
Speaker 3: that his leaders to engage in calculated risk, which I
Speaker 3: think is the way it should be. But just just
Speaker 3: a couple of minutes. I know we don't have much time,
Speaker 3: but talk a little bit. How your office is staff
Speaker 3: so you can keep track of all these programs that
Speaker 3: you're involved in. Have you got a naval shipbuilding expert
Speaker 3: on your staff or or how does that work exactly?
Speaker 2: I'm still building my staff. You know, we're still early,
Speaker 2: and you know, we've really taken the view of we're
Speaker 2: going to be deliberate and try to you know, higher slow,
Speaker 2: fire fast kind of mindset. Let's figure out the right
Speaker 2: staff so, you know, to be quite honest as you
Speaker 2: can tell, I'm a military guy and military nerd, so
Speaker 2: I'm kind of my own uh, you know, I wouldn't
Speaker 2: call it expert, but but guy, right now, hiring people
Speaker 2: onto staff isn't always the right path. In the Senate
Speaker 2: per se, you have staff on sask that are subject
Speaker 2: matter experts that you can that you can you can
Speaker 2: draw on. And then luckily as a senator when you call,
Speaker 2: normally people answer the phone and there's lots of talent
Speaker 2: out there that I've been able to take advantage of that. Really,
Speaker 2: they don't expect to be paid, they don't want to
Speaker 2: be paid. They're just like I want America to have
Speaker 2: a strong navy, and I'm happy to help. So been
Speaker 2: able to really get access to all kinds of folks
Speaker 2: out there from current deformer naval I'm sorry, a shipbuilding
Speaker 2: industry experts, current former you know, senior naval officers across
Speaker 2: the board. So although I of course have you know,
Speaker 2: armed services a specialist on my staff, you know, it's uh,
Speaker 2: it's hard to be able to have an expert in
Speaker 2: every realm you need. It's just it's one of those
Speaker 2: things where can't boil the ocean. You got to focus
Speaker 2: in this career. So eventually I probably will bring on
Speaker 2: a staff for dedicated just to enable a kind of reindustrialization.
Speaker 2: But right now it's it's it's kind of a I
Speaker 2: pick up the phone and talk to any expert I
Speaker 2: need to whenever I need to.
Speaker 1: Well, Senator, you're just a few months into a six
Speaker 1: year term, so we got time to grow and we
Speaker 1: we really appreciate you taking some time here today to
Speaker 1: talk with us. Really appreciate it and look forward to
Speaker 1: next time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it again for sure. Thank you for
Speaker 2: making the time again. Love what your newsletter puts out
Speaker 2: and you know, but perhaps you know as we progress
Speaker 2: through some of this pretty historic legislation coming down the pike.
Speaker 2: You know, I'll send you a notes sometimes so you'd
Speaker 2: include your newsletter just for what's going on in the
Speaker 2: halls of the Senate about this, because I can tell
Speaker 2: you again, people turn on Fox News around the SMBC
Speaker 2: and they and they feel like Congress is totally dysfunctional.
Speaker 2: And maybe it is most of the time, but I
Speaker 2: can tell you right now there's a lot of biparison
Speaker 2: focus on getting our Navy ready for a potential confrontation
Speaker 2: that hopefully never comes, but we have to be ready for,
Speaker 2: you know, in the Pacific, and it's going to take
Speaker 2: some serious reorientation of our industrial base and leadership to
Speaker 2: make that happen. So I would love to you guys
Speaker 2: are our trusted voice within the naval community. It'd be
Speaker 2: great to have you guys alongside us as we as
Speaker 2: we walk along this journey.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks again for joining us. Has been great talking
Speaker 3: to you.
Speaker 1: Thanks guys, Thank you very much everybody for join us
Speaker 1: for another edition of mid Rats And until next time,
Speaker 1: hope you have a great Navy day. Cheers Molly to.
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Speaker 4: It's a long way. It's a long way to differ.
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Speaker 4: long long way to differy. But by life, my