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: Good day, everybody. Glad to have you on board and
Speaker 1: for another edition of mid Rats. And if you are
Speaker 1: with us live, I would like to extend the invitation
Speaker 1: to you. You should be able to find the chat
Speaker 1: room over there on riverside. We'll be monitoring that during
Speaker 1: the course of the show and if there are some
Speaker 1: comments you would like to make, or maybe some questions
Speaker 1: you would like for us to direct to our guests
Speaker 1: during the course of the next hour, that is the
Speaker 1: perfect place to do it. And for the next hour,
Speaker 1: we're going to look at a challenge that people who
Speaker 1: pay attention to naval matters are aware of and may
Speaker 1: not fully get a lot of the details that we
Speaker 1: want to make sure and talk about today. And that's
Speaker 1: not just here in the US, but across the anglosphere.
Speaker 1: There seems to be a systemic problem that is taking
Speaker 1: naval requirements and producing something that displaces holes and displaces
Speaker 1: water and put holes next to the pier. And on
Speaker 1: the western side of the Atlantic, one failure LCS was
Speaker 1: going to be corrected with a short cycled production of
Speaker 1: an already existing frigate design and what is now known
Speaker 1: as the Constellation Class FFG. And we have found since
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen that the dream and the promise is not
Speaker 1: quite working out how we wanted it to be, but
Speaker 1: it's not alone as part of a larger systemic problem.
Speaker 1: And coming back to mid Rats today to talk about
Speaker 1: this and other related issues is doctor M. Salisbury, the
Speaker 1: Sea Power Research Fellow at the Council on Geostrategy and
Speaker 1: a fellow at the UK Strategic Command Defense Futures. Emma,
Speaker 1: welcome back to mid Rats.
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me back, Solids pleasure.
Speaker 1: Well, we appreciate you taking some time today to chat
Speaker 1: with us on the topic. And I guess to kick
Speaker 1: things off and we had you on mid Rats to
Speaker 1: talk about it is. You spent a lot a lot
Speaker 1: of time soaked in US military industrial complex, specifically the
Speaker 1: naval side of the house and the Littoral Combat System program,
Speaker 1: and just as you're starting to clear ahead and take
Speaker 1: a deep breath and look at the beautiful world around you,
Speaker 1: somebody delivered the Constellation frigate there on your front doorstep thought,
Speaker 1: I just talk to you a little bit.
Speaker 3: How did this.
Speaker 1: Topic of this challenge that we're seeing again in the
Speaker 1: shipbuilding arena come to you?
Speaker 2: Well, it's very interesting timing, as you say. I, although
Speaker 2: there is no shortage of terrible procurement plans in most
Speaker 2: of our militaries, I wasn't expecting another one quite so soon,
Speaker 2: especially one that was supposed to learn the lessons of LCS.
Speaker 2: It does give me something else to write about, which
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful for. And if anyone thinks there's some
Speaker 2: kind of conspiracy, then I couldn't possibly comment.
Speaker 4: Well, let's talk a little bit about the article you
Speaker 4: put out on a great title, Frankenfrem, how the Constellation
Speaker 4: class became a monster, and talk a little bit about
Speaker 4: the background of the frigate program and how the US
Speaker 4: Navy seems to have got it all screwed.
Speaker 2: Up well after the Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates, and
Speaker 2: obviously the US Navy needs a new frigate started the
Speaker 2: ffg X program in twenty seventeen. So what that was
Speaker 2: supposed to do is to learn the lessons of the
Speaker 2: problems that came from the LCS program by having a
Speaker 2: design based on an existing frigate, So what they intended
Speaker 2: to do was to take that design make a few tweaks,
Speaker 2: because obviously the US Navy has certain things that it
Speaker 2: needs that are not present in the frem as is.
Speaker 2: But what they were intending to do was to make
Speaker 2: the whole process quicker and more streamlined by having that
Speaker 2: based design, making some tweaks, and then being able to
Speaker 2: put it into production. And given that the LCS production
Speaker 2: was truncated because of the problems with it, there was
Speaker 2: that need for a small surface warship that Constellation was
Speaker 2: supposed to fulfill. But it just turns out that despite
Speaker 2: all of these good intentions, the Navy hasn't actually learned
Speaker 2: the lessons of the LCS. So instead of taking a
Speaker 2: decent frigate, making a few tweaks, and then getting an
Speaker 2: into production, they have done exactly what they did with
Speaker 2: the LCS, which is just fitzing around with it, adding
Speaker 2: things on, not making decisions, taking things off, making it bigger,
Speaker 2: making and it's just turned into this lumbering program. That
Speaker 2: means that we just don't know when the US Navy
Speaker 2: is going to get frigates. And given that the US
Speaker 2: Navy doesn't currently have any frigates. This is quite a
Speaker 2: large problem.
Speaker 1: And that's one thing that perplexed me about the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Is I think, as I use as a visual on
Speaker 1: some of the writing I do on the topic, is
Speaker 1: the classic Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown is.
Speaker 1: We knew why we had to do the Constellation class
Speaker 1: frigate program. It was, as you touched on and as
Speaker 1: most of our listeners know, is the to use a
Speaker 1: nice britishism, the complete dog's breakfast that we made of
Speaker 1: the litoral combat system. We still needed a frigate sized
Speaker 1: ship to do sized missions, and so we reached out
Speaker 1: I believe the first it was either the French or
Speaker 1: the Italian's commissioned their first from and twenty thirteen. In
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen we made the decision. So there's a few
Speaker 1: years after commissioning we had that, and there was a
Speaker 1: few compromises that gave the people who made lcs a
Speaker 1: chance to repurpose that, but luckily we didn't go in
Speaker 1: that direction, and so the Navy made a decision. We
Speaker 1: had that eighty we sold it as eighty five percent commonalty,
Speaker 1: and then, like the plot of some b grade movie.
Speaker 1: We handed over the solution to a problem to the
Speaker 1: same people and processes that created the problem to begin with.
Speaker 1: And it almost seems from the cheap seats that this
Speaker 1: system is not self aware of And you mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: on in your article that markmt reference learning the lessons
Speaker 1: of previous failures, as if none of that happened, and
Speaker 1: they were going to make a point about bringing in
Speaker 1: an already designed ship. Is is that too cynical of
Speaker 1: a view or was there a lack of appreciation in
Speaker 1: the Big Navy arena that in paralleling the old doing
Speaker 1: the same thing again and expecting a different result as
Speaker 1: a definition of a sanity that we use the same
Speaker 1: people in the same processes, in the same procedures that
Speaker 1: brought us to a hard point again in law and behold,
Speaker 1: where do we find ourselves in the summer twenty twenty four.
Speaker 2: It's really really difficult to know from the outside. So,
Speaker 2: as you said, they originally planned for the constellation to
Speaker 2: have eighty five percent commonality with the FREM. It now
Speaker 2: has eighty five percent non commonality with the FREM. So
Speaker 2: that shift from eighteen percent to fifteen percent, it's that
Speaker 2: shift that we need to think about with what's gone wrong.
Speaker 2: And I don't know how many of those changes were necessary,
Speaker 2: how many were nice to have, how many were need
Speaker 2: to have, But the fact that it went from one
Speaker 2: percentage switched around to the other shows that there is
Speaker 2: a very serious problem here. And part of me does
Speaker 2: wonder whether people will had the good intentions of learning
Speaker 2: the lessons from the LCS. But then you think, oh, well,
Speaker 2: if we just add this one tweak, that won't matter,
Speaker 2: and we'll just add this on and maybe we'll change
Speaker 2: this but over here, and then well, now we need
Speaker 2: to make it a bit longer. And it's just all
Speaker 2: kind of accreting into this avalanche of changes that ended
Speaker 2: up with the point where we are today. So it
Speaker 2: isn't necessarily done deliberately, But it may just be the
Speaker 2: accumulation of a small group of people or a large
Speaker 2: group of people going through and just tweaking tweaking, tweaking
Speaker 2: tweaking until it becomes something completely different. But it's very
Speaker 2: difficult to know from the outside. I mean, I would
Speaker 2: be absolutely fascinated to see some kind of list of
Speaker 2: all of these tweaks to see how necessary they are,
Speaker 2: if they actually bring any operational value, or if they're
Speaker 2: just doing the kind of American disease of wanting things
Speaker 2: to be exquisite and over produced for what is actually
Speaker 2: quite a simple task. And frigates are quite a simple thing.
Speaker 2: And it's just feels very over designed. And I don't
Speaker 2: know where in the process that became a problem, or
Speaker 2: if it was just something that was sprinkled all the
Speaker 2: way through.
Speaker 3: How much.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's a quote somewhere again, I think it
Speaker 4: was from one of the GSA or one of those
Speaker 4: reports that part of the problem was that that they
Speaker 4: can't the reason for the noodle as is, it's an
Speaker 4: incomplete design, and they started building these ships laying the
Speaker 4: keels down before they had complete designs. Now that the
Speaker 4: frem itself had that was a complete design. But apparently
Speaker 4: just all the all the things, as you said, all
Speaker 4: the things we've added, have cause some of these issues.
Speaker 4: What would it take do you think for the US
Speaker 4: Navy and probably the Royal Navy and a bunch of
Speaker 4: other navies to sit with the design and build a
Speaker 4: few of them and uh and just live with them
Speaker 4: for a while. Just is that out of our Is
Speaker 4: that out of our I noticed when you talk about
Speaker 4: the LCS program. That was part of the issue there too.
Speaker 4: They didn't want to build one office and then and
Speaker 4: then let the choice be made. It was it was
Speaker 4: more complicated now.
Speaker 2: Well, so, interestingly, this is how China approaches shipbuilding. So
Speaker 2: when China designs and you destroy, for example, it'll build
Speaker 2: one test it, iterate it, and then build a second
Speaker 2: one slightly different, and then when it gets to the
Speaker 2: final good design, it will then build. However, many of those,
Speaker 2: so China iterates through construction, and that might be an
Speaker 2: interesting way to think about it for the Royal Navy
Speaker 2: and so on, is to come up with a design,
Speaker 2: build it, and then see what needs to be tweaked.
Speaker 2: But then again, at that point you may run into
Speaker 2: the problem that the LCS has, which is why we
Speaker 2: have two classes of LCS, because they didn't pick a design,
Speaker 2: but then both of them turned out to be terrible
Speaker 2: in their own special ways. Maybe those could both have
Speaker 2: been iterated as well. So I think the our navies
Speaker 2: don't tend to think about iteration as a good idea
Speaker 2: because it just seems messy, I guess. And you think
Speaker 2: when you think shit building, you think, right, here's our
Speaker 2: design we're going to build ten of them off you go.
Speaker 2: But if we cannot do that, then we do need
Speaker 2: to think about another way forward, because otherwise we're not
Speaker 2: going to have any ships.
Speaker 1: I think you hit on a good point here. It's
Speaker 1: not well, sure, isn't the lack of money, and there's
Speaker 1: plenty of that's sloshing around in the building. It's not
Speaker 1: the fact that our engineers are less intelligent are bad.
Speaker 1: It's just it's almost a mindset issue. Because I have
Speaker 1: my own little hobby horses in one of which at
Speaker 1: least on the American side of the equation. But I
Speaker 1: know there's a lot of bleedover for what happens in
Speaker 1: America to our allies, because y'all send you your best
Speaker 1: folks here to go to our war colleges and to
Speaker 1: do tours with us. But it's before and after Goldwater Nichols.
Speaker 1: Is that whole Goldwater Nichols joint construct. Goldwater Nichols was
Speaker 1: put in the law in eighty six. It really didn't
Speaker 1: start getting its teeth until two palm cycles later about
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, and then really that whole change in mindset
Speaker 1: took place because before Goldwater Nichols, the last ship to
Speaker 1: really do its initial designs at least was the Arly
Speaker 1: Burke that the US Navy seems to want to build
Speaker 1: to the crack of doom, which is mine. They do
Speaker 1: a good job, But the Arley Burke had a similar
Speaker 1: characteristics that the Spruance has had, and the Spruance had
Speaker 1: a different little aspect I'll bring up in different questions
Speaker 1: because you brought up in your article that kind of
Speaker 1: reminded me of it. But the Spruance was whole. One
Speaker 1: did not hit the water. As this is the ultimate DG.
Speaker 1: The Oliver Hazard Perry went through iterative changes. You had
Speaker 1: the short Perris, you had the long Perry's. They had
Speaker 1: a couple of corrections you had to make were already
Speaker 1: in flight three of the Arly Burks. There should be
Speaker 1: the muscle memory in our systems of the iterative approach
Speaker 1: that really has shown a lot of success. But I
Speaker 1: think you're right. It's this desire to be perfect at
Speaker 1: day one. And I don't know if that's so much
Speaker 1: written into law, or is it because we have accountants
Speaker 1: in NBAS vice engineers approaching our shipbuilding program, or have
Speaker 1: the politicians a different generation expect too much I'm not
Speaker 1: a believer in single causel there's always multi causs when
Speaker 1: are in problems. But I think a lot of it
Speaker 1: has to do with with mindset and not realizing that
Speaker 1: both we have done things differently and better in the
Speaker 1: recent past in other nations, like you mentioned the People's
Speaker 1: Republic of China their navy, they have a different approach
Speaker 1: that arguably is being very successful. Is that a harder
Speaker 1: thing to try to approach or fix if you're dealing
Speaker 1: with a mindset issue.
Speaker 2: I sort of wonder whether it's a difficult thing to
Speaker 2: sell to Congress, because given that the defense budget and
Speaker 2: defense funding has to go through the House and the
Speaker 2: Senate every single year, you do have to sell this program,
Speaker 2: whichever program is constantly to those lawmakers. And I do
Speaker 2: wonder whether it is easier to sell this beautiful design.
Speaker 2: We're going to build fifteen of them. It's going to
Speaker 2: be great. Give us the money, as opposed to we've
Speaker 2: got this design, we think it's pretty good. We're going
Speaker 2: to build a couple, might make some tweaks, give us
Speaker 2: some money, and then we'll see how it goes. And
Speaker 2: I just I wonder whether there's a mindset in Congress
Speaker 2: that has less flexibility for failure essentially, and they want
Speaker 2: things to be perfect cookie cutter frigates that will just
Speaker 2: be stamped out in the shipyards, bash bash bash, there
Speaker 2: we go, and they don't have the risk appetite or
Speaker 2: the muscle memories you say, of the previous ways in
Speaker 2: which is this has been done to be able to
Speaker 2: have the ability to allow that kind of iteration in
Speaker 2: building ships as opposed to designing them, because designing something
Speaker 2: on paper it's not cheap, but maybe it seems cheaper
Speaker 2: to those lawmakers than it does to actually weld something together.
Speaker 2: So I don't know whether it's a conversation should be
Speaker 2: being had with and within Congress as to how you
Speaker 2: fix those programs going forward, Maybe to allow that wiggle
Speaker 2: room of the possibility of failure in a way that
Speaker 2: allows for iteration rather in a way that sends you
Speaker 2: down the LCS route of pumping good money after bad.
Speaker 2: There must be a way to rectify that without going
Speaker 2: down the same old routes that we've been down before.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know that the obviously US and the and
Speaker 4: the Royal Navy developed aircraft carriers, and they they did
Speaker 4: not build twelve at once they were iterations, I mean
Speaker 4: went from the from the converted coal ship to A
Speaker 4: to the all the variations we had during World War Two,
Speaker 4: the Essex Class and the Midway, all these other ships
Speaker 4: maney of which were still in operation several years later.
Speaker 4: That was an interview process. We had the same thing
Speaker 4: in between World War One and World War Two with
Speaker 4: the cruisers. There was a development of those. It was iteratived.
Speaker 4: So and during the war our destroyers were developed on
Speaker 4: so you had the Johnson class, which which turns into
Speaker 4: another class, which turns eventually into the Gearing Class. No,
Speaker 4: we did that before. But I was struck in your
Speaker 4: dissertation where you talked about with the lcs. One of
Speaker 4: the problems was that the the the industry people were saying,
Speaker 4: if you do it the way you're proposing, this is
Speaker 4: what I got out of your dissertation, and this part
Speaker 4: is if you do what you're doing with the l
Speaker 4: C where you're gonna only have a couple, we're gonna
Speaker 4: have to We're gonna have to pause our work, we
Speaker 4: have to lay off our workers. We really don't want
Speaker 4: to do that. That's that's bad. And I'm thinking, well,
Speaker 4: that's you know, if I'm a manufacturer, I probably don't
Speaker 4: want to do that. The Chinese have the advantage, of course,
Speaker 4: that they don't really have that kind of industry where
Speaker 4: they have to worry about laying off the workers. So
Speaker 4: I mean, how much of this is driven by those
Speaker 4: those uh what do you call it a malgative or something?
Speaker 4: What is the word you're using your dissertation that I
Speaker 4: can't remember right off the top of my end. You know,
Speaker 4: all these other people have input. It's not just Congress,
Speaker 4: and it's not just the Navy.
Speaker 2: No, it's definitely true. And I think with Constellation, because
Speaker 2: that's being built by Vincantieri Marionette Marine in Wisconsin, it
Speaker 2: would have been interesting to see what what Mike Gallagher
Speaker 2: would have carried on making of this if you hadn't
Speaker 2: retired from the House, and to see it's interesting to
Speaker 2: see how those lawmakers whose districts and states are directly
Speaker 2: affected by the building of a specific program have their
Speaker 2: view shaped as opposed to other lawmakers. And you know,
Speaker 2: in many ways that is understandable because you know, building
Speaker 2: a big program in a yard in your area gives
Speaker 2: jobs to your constituents, it gives economic spill over affects
Speaker 2: your communities, keeps people in work, so it's very understandable.
Speaker 2: But then also it can skew how lawmakers look at
Speaker 2: whether the programs have merit in and of themselves. So
Speaker 2: you can get the effect where a lawmaker will look
Speaker 2: at a program and say, I'm not too sure about this,
Speaker 2: I don't think we need this, or I think it
Speaker 2: could be done better. But if I don't vote the
Speaker 2: money for this, then forty five thousand of my constituents
Speaker 2: will lose their jobs. And that kind of incentive is
Speaker 2: very very understandable, but can also skew how lawmakers approach
Speaker 2: these kinds of decisions. And if you have the big
Speaker 2: prime companies like Raithion, Luckied, Martin and so on, they
Speaker 2: deliberately spread the production of their big programs across as
Speaker 2: many states as they can in order to say as
Speaker 2: many lawmakers as they can, Hey, there's our site in
Speaker 2: your district that gives ten thousand jobs. Maybe you want
Speaker 2: to think about not canceling our product. The thing with
Speaker 2: Constellation is, like with shipbuilding, it's much more limited because
Speaker 2: obviously there are fewer shipyards because you have to have
Speaker 2: some water to build ship. So that does narrow the
Speaker 2: number of states and districts that are affected, but those
Speaker 2: shipyards do become really central economic hubs to those areas
Speaker 2: in a way that can often be a lot stronger
Speaker 2: than say an aircraft factory or an engine factory or
Speaker 2: something like that. The effect is a lot stronger, I
Speaker 2: think with shipbuilding, but a lot more focused on certain districts.
Speaker 2: So with Constellation, that's going to be very focused on Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: and given the importance of Wisconsin to the upcoming elections
Speaker 2: in November, that might be a consideration. Again very understandable,
Speaker 2: but you can argue against that very strongly from a
Speaker 2: military operational need standpoint.
Speaker 1: And we see it in the UK, but also in
Speaker 1: the US. Is everything you said about the economic impacts
Speaker 1: for local Whether you're representative of Congress or a member
Speaker 1: of Parliament, you have those local issues because they can
Speaker 1: not just be a huge financial and jobs impact on
Speaker 1: a an np are our Comersman district, but also it
Speaker 1: can be the heart and the culture of a of
Speaker 1: a city and of a people, and when these industries disappear,
Speaker 1: it can change the nature and culture of entire areas.
Speaker 1: We've seen in the last few decades that as our
Speaker 1: ship building capacity has shrunk in the US. Everybody talks
Speaker 1: about the bracts and the nuxts is we have fewer
Speaker 1: and fewer shipyards building fewer, fewer ships, and I think
Speaker 1: we're past the point. But I think you could argue,
Speaker 1: at best, we're at the pivot point that a loss
Speaker 1: of a yard here, are closing of a yard there,
Speaker 1: whether it's in Green Bay or or somewhere between Portsmouth
Speaker 1: and Glasgow, that it's a national issue. Is you cannot
Speaker 1: create a shipyard overnight. You cannot create it in a year.
Speaker 1: You really can't create it in two years or four years,
Speaker 1: because those shipyards also require machinery, they require infrastructure, They
Speaker 1: required workers and artisans, especially if you're in the nuclear field.
Speaker 1: If you're a welder, you're an artist more than you
Speaker 1: or anything else there seems to be. And you mentioned
Speaker 1: Mike Gallagher on the US side of the equation. I
Speaker 1: think his retirement, combined with on the other side of
Speaker 1: the aisle in twenty twenty two, former Representative of the
Speaker 1: Lane Lauria leaving, we lost a lot of not just
Speaker 1: naval knowledge, but the people willing to invest political capital
Speaker 1: in the topic. But the loss of these capabilities of
Speaker 1: these yards is in many regards a national issues, a
Speaker 1: national security issue. I'm not sure how many warship producing
Speaker 1: or auxiliary producing yards anyone in the anglosphere can be
Speaker 1: comfortable in losing in twenty twenty four, because as the
Speaker 1: world again gets more challenging ease, there is no surge
Speaker 1: capacity because our merchant yards that build merchant ships are
Speaker 1: almost non existent compared to what they were even within
Speaker 1: living memory.
Speaker 2: No, you're completely right, and the problems that we're seeing
Speaker 2: with shipbuilding at the moment are proof completely that once
Speaker 2: you lose that capacity, you cannot get it back. And
Speaker 2: you know, kind of the peace dividend after the end
Speaker 2: of the Cold War, so much was kind of trimmed
Speaker 2: and stripped from the defense industrial base in the UK
Speaker 2: and the US, in France and Germany and so on
Speaker 2: and so on, and we are now feeling the effects
Speaker 2: of that because you can't come in and say, hey,
Speaker 2: we need to build ten destroyers. Let's build a shipyard
Speaker 2: that'll be done by the end of the year. Then
Speaker 2: we can start getting on with the destroyers. Like. It
Speaker 2: doesn't work like that, and it's much easier to keep
Speaker 2: facilities running than it is to build them. And if
Speaker 2: you'd stop giving orders to shipyards, you lose the facilities,
Speaker 2: you lose the talent, you lose the artisans, the designers,
Speaker 2: everybody involved in that process. The ones that you have
Speaker 2: go off and retire or get other jobs, and nobody
Speaker 2: is trained to replace them because there's no need. And
Speaker 2: then you get this gap. And then once you get
Speaker 2: to the point where you think, oh, we actually need
Speaker 2: this capacity, you then have to start winding up your
Speaker 2: recruitment and your retention and your education and your facility
Speaker 2: building or bringing things out of a moth board state,
Speaker 2: or extending a shipyard in one place to have another
Speaker 2: dry dock, and all of that. To have to do
Speaker 2: all of that at the same time under the pressure
Speaker 2: of need is very, very difficult. And I know a
Speaker 2: lot of people have criticized the current US administration and
Speaker 2: Secretary Del Toro for presiding over not that many ships
Speaker 2: being built. But I think that this administration is taking
Speaker 2: this seriously in a way that so many previous administrations
Speaker 2: have absolutely failed to do of both sides, And I
Speaker 2: think del Toro is the first second now that I
Speaker 2: can remember, who has actually sat down, looked at this
Speaker 2: and thought right, Okay, this is a problem. We need
Speaker 2: the funding, we need the plans, and he's not going
Speaker 2: to get that done in a year, two years, three
Speaker 2: years because he hasn't had that. He's not building on
Speaker 2: stuff that has been happening in previous administrations. He's having
Speaker 2: to do it all himself from whole cloth. And the
Speaker 2: Biden administration has got this great funding for the submarine industry,
Speaker 2: for example, but that would have been me did if
Speaker 2: there had been that long term planning from the nineties,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty tens, all those previous administrations who just failed
Speaker 2: to do that. So I think the current administration and
Speaker 2: the next administration will have a very very difficult job
Speaker 2: because they are starting from a much lower point than
Speaker 2: would have been the case if previous administration had also
Speaker 2: taken this seriously. And I think that's a problem that
Speaker 2: shared in the UK as well. You know, we have
Speaker 2: similar patterns in our industry. From the end of the
Speaker 2: Cold War, things dialed down, you don't need to spend
Speaker 2: so much on defense, and we have that same kind
Speaker 2: of pattern here in the UK. And it's only really
Speaker 2: under the Johnson administration that we had a shipbuilding strategy.
Speaker 2: We had a shipbuilding office. Things started to come together
Speaker 2: and once again that is starting to happen. Things are moving.
Speaker 2: But we shouldn't have had to start from scratch in
Speaker 2: such a tight time frame because previous people should have
Speaker 2: got that ball rolling.
Speaker 4: How much do you think of the problems we have,
Speaker 4: as you say, gearing up from scratch or related to
Speaker 4: the last twenty years where both the UK and the
Speaker 4: US have been involved in land wars and the army
Speaker 4: seems to be have become i want to say, the
Speaker 4: predominant force in both countries, so that the sea blindness
Speaker 4: that we always talk about is causing a lot of
Speaker 4: issues because the army is army is saying, well, we
Speaker 4: really need to prepare for I know in the UK,
Speaker 4: prepare for war in Europe, land war in Europe. But
Speaker 4: you know how much of that is a forgetfulness of
Speaker 4: the fact that you are an island and the US
Speaker 4: is essentially an island too.
Speaker 2: Well. The problem is that we have also historically underfunded
Speaker 2: our army as well as our army is at the
Speaker 2: stage where it is not certain that we could actually
Speaker 2: field a core in Europe to assist NATO partners. So
Speaker 2: the army has a very good argument for more investment,
Speaker 2: as does the RAF, as does the Royal Navy. So
Speaker 2: it's one of those circumstances where our entire armed forces
Speaker 2: have been underfunded since the end of the Cold War,
Speaker 2: and you can see that in our fighter jets, in
Speaker 2: our ships, in our auxiliary fleet, in our infantry, in
Speaker 2: our armored vehicles, in our tanks, in everything. And both
Speaker 2: the last government and the current one have had to
Speaker 2: try and struggle with spending our defense budget in a
Speaker 2: way that manages to fix all of this at the
Speaker 2: same time, and that is a very very difficult thing
Speaker 2: to do. Obviously, I think that the Royal Navy should
Speaker 2: have priority because we are a maritime nation and our
Speaker 2: navy is what we do well, and I think the
Speaker 2: best support that we can give to later allies and
Speaker 2: other allies and partners is naval. But that's an argument
Speaker 2: that is going to be had at much higher levels
Speaker 2: than my pay grade. But I would also like to
Speaker 2: see to have a decent army and a decent air force.
Speaker 2: So it's very very difficult to either the current government
Speaker 2: or future governments are going to be able to square
Speaker 2: this circle because fundamentally it's the same problem that you
Speaker 2: are trying to fill holes that have been left for
Speaker 2: forty years.
Speaker 1: In your article on behind the Front, we've been referencing
Speaker 1: throughout our conversation the Frank and Fram how the constellation
Speaker 1: class became a monster. One thing I love about your
Speaker 1: article I always do this when I read stuff. I
Speaker 1: was like, hey, are there footnotes and references? And you
Speaker 1: have those, which is always great, I think because that
Speaker 1: gives the reader an opportunity to dive a little deeper.
Speaker 1: And one of the references was an article by Tom
Speaker 1: Sharp in June of twenty twenty four. It was titled
Speaker 1: the US Navy has fallen victim to the British disease
Speaker 1: for folks on this side of the Atlantic. What is
Speaker 1: the British disease that he was referring to?
Speaker 2: Well, when I first read that article, I thought he
Speaker 2: meant the Nelson quote, were I to die at this moment,
Speaker 2: want to frigate so it would be stamped upon my heart.
Speaker 2: But then reading it, I realized that he was actually
Speaker 2: talking about something quite a lot deeper, which is Project
Speaker 2: Creep and we're very favored that in the UK, and
Speaker 2: it's exactly what we're seeing with the constellations that you
Speaker 2: designed something, you need to tweak it and add more
Speaker 2: bits on it, and then you run out of space,
Speaker 2: and then the ship gets bigger and heavier, and you know,
Speaker 2: it's the same problem with constellation. And also it's the
Speaker 2: problem that Tom also references in the article about times
Speaker 2: where we've tried to buy a design, a foreign design,
Speaker 2: and then we end up fitzing with it too much
Speaker 2: and then it goes wrong. So this happened with the
Speaker 2: Apache helicopters, and we should have just bought the American
Speaker 2: Apache and made it, but we didn't because we meddled
Speaker 2: with it and then it cost far too much, and
Speaker 2: then it turned out that we had to have them
Speaker 2: rebuilt in America. Anyway, we did it with armored vehicles
Speaker 2: with Ascord, and we messed that up completely, and then
Speaker 2: we tried to build ourselves and now it's Ajax, which
Speaker 2: is a complete disaster and makes anyone who rides in
Speaker 2: it death, which is not great. So it's this jet
Speaker 2: Creek not being able to stop fitzing with things that
Speaker 2: I think is the disease that Tom's referring to you,
Speaker 2: and something that I don't know whether we've communicated it
Speaker 2: across the Atlantic or if it's come the other way,
Speaker 2: or if it's just something that is shared between all
Speaker 2: Western armed forces, but it does seem to be something
Speaker 2: that we're seeing in a lot of places.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, I liked in your thesis the way
Speaker 4: you tracked through the history of the military industrial complex
Speaker 4: and the kind of the vacation that happened after the
Speaker 4: after the Cold War ended, and and a lot of that,
Speaker 4: the people who were anti military militarism seemed to have
Speaker 4: come to the fore, And I maybe how much of
Speaker 4: that do you think is responsible for the way we've
Speaker 4: approached the kind of the the necessary re arming. You know,
Speaker 4: some people, I guess think we still don't need the
Speaker 4: kind of assets we have, But is there is that
Speaker 4: a big issue you think?
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people pre Russia's invasion if
Speaker 2: Ukraine definitely had that mindset because the threat we were
Speaker 2: fighting at that point was the global War on terror
Speaker 2: and counterinsurgency is a very different thing from what we'd
Speaker 2: done previously, and having a big, exquisite, beautiful armed forces
Speaker 2: wasn't actually working against insurgents, so it seemed like we
Speaker 2: didn't need those capabilities at all. I think after Russia's
Speaker 2: second invasion of Ukraine in twenty twenty two, some people
Speaker 2: started to see that war in Europe is not a
Speaker 2: distant possibility, it is a very near possibility, and that
Speaker 2: all of the people who'd been saying this for a
Speaker 2: long time before that were not fearmongering and just wanting
Speaker 2: more defense money so they could buy stock in Lockheed
Speaker 2: Martin or whatever. There was actually a threat, and if
Speaker 2: we'd started rearming previously, then we'd be in a much
Speaker 2: better position now. But I do still think there are
Speaker 2: people who don't think we need to be rearming even now,
Speaker 2: and you think that a wider war with Russia is
Speaker 2: not going to happen. Who think that, you know, on
Speaker 2: the US side, you think that a military confrontation with
Speaker 2: China is not going to happen, and that if we
Speaker 2: all just sit in our houses with the window shut
Speaker 2: and our hands over ears, nobody will come for us
Speaker 2: because we're not doing anything and just leave us alone.
Speaker 2: And the world does not work like that, especially now,
Speaker 2: because everything is interconnected, our economies are interconnected, and our
Speaker 2: alliances are important. And I just think that the argument
Speaker 2: needs to be made to the public more widely that
Speaker 2: defense spending, investment in our armed forces is not only desirable,
Speaker 2: but is necessary. And it's necessary now, not when the
Speaker 2: threat is immediate. And I think the thing that worries
Speaker 2: me is that people won't take that seriously until it's
Speaker 2: too late. And you do not want to be in
Speaker 2: the position of having troops entering the borders of an
Speaker 2: ally and you don't know, you're not ready, and you
Speaker 2: don't have the capability, the personnel, the platforms to respond
Speaker 2: to protect our ally, whether that Taiwan or Estonia or
Speaker 2: Poland or wherever. And the public, a lot of the public,
Speaker 2: I think, aren't interested in hearing that argument, which means
Speaker 2: to chatter louder.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you that the you know, here,
Speaker 1: we are in the third year of the Russia Ukrainian
Speaker 1: War if you define it as starting from twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: but you're right, it really began back in twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: It is an opportunity because it has opened up a
Speaker 1: lot of eyes on the civilian sector, both usual people
Speaker 1: but politicians. I do get a feeling. I believe you
Speaker 1: do as well. It's not getting the traction that we
Speaker 1: would want it to. When that doesn't just mean that
Speaker 1: as opposed to seeing one we see three articles of
Speaker 1: people asking for larger defense, but we actually see the investment,
Speaker 1: We see the allocation of resources in the change of mindset.
Speaker 1: But when it looked at the problem we have with
Speaker 1: the fleet, you know, there's the old phrase of throwing
Speaker 1: good money after bad. Let's put in all of our
Speaker 1: own optimism filters, and let's say that we're able to
Speaker 1: change some mindsets and we have more of the people
Speaker 1: that have their hands on the levers of power and
Speaker 1: budgets on the civilian side of the national security and
Speaker 1: the political arena. We've got them on board, we've got
Speaker 1: them changing. But inside the lifelines of the uniform side
Speaker 1: of the shop, there's more money necessarily going to make
Speaker 1: it better. You know, you mentioned the incremental Nitanoid changes.
Speaker 1: That's what killed over here in the US, the CGX
Speaker 1: program that they were going to turn into some Battlestar
Speaker 1: Galactica looking creation that nobody could afford or explain because
Speaker 1: there was no program control where somebody said, no, we're
Speaker 1: not going to do that, We're going to do this instead,
Speaker 1: and it just grew out of control. And you even
Speaker 1: mentioned that when it comes to the Constellation class that
Speaker 1: I'll do a little quote for you this vision when
Speaker 1: you're talking about why we are bringing the Constellation on board. However,
Speaker 1: now has a number of holes below the waterline, all
Speaker 1: caused by the navy. Unquote, where do you find the
Speaker 1: holemakers inside the Navy that if you could have your
Speaker 1: own little group of enforcers go in there and dig
Speaker 1: around and name where are some of those entities inside
Speaker 1: the navy proper you think that are part of the
Speaker 1: problem and not part of a future solution that need
Speaker 1: to be reformed, replaced or eliminated.
Speaker 2: Oh boy, that is a big question.
Speaker 1: Make you impress for a day.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, America's traditionally loved having a British monarch,
Speaker 2: so I think this would be fine. I think NAPSI
Speaker 2: I'd start naps. But the problem is with this kind
Speaker 2: of thing is that ultimately the box stops with theleadership,
Speaker 2: and there hasn't been the leadership from the top to
Speaker 2: make things happen and to keep an eye on things
Speaker 2: and to make sure that projects like this are not
Speaker 2: ballooning in the way that the Constellation has. And I
Speaker 2: was pleased to see last week that we're now having
Speaker 2: a program manager for the Maritime Industrial Base that SECNAV
Speaker 2: has hired and this man's entire job is going to
Speaker 2: be overseeing investments in the industrial base. And I'm hoping
Speaker 2: that will mean that there is accountability in leadership for
Speaker 2: this going forward. So I'm hoping that will help. But
Speaker 2: the problem is that wherever you go with trying to
Speaker 2: place blame, I don't think it's really possible. Well, because
Speaker 2: this kind of thing is so systemic, and I think
Speaker 2: if I had to fire everybody who had badly contributed
Speaker 2: to a naval procurement program in the United States, we
Speaker 2: wouldn't have anyone left.
Speaker 4: Let me let me ask another question that troubles me.
Speaker 4: Going forward. We seem to have a magic viewer, that
Speaker 4: there's some kind of magic motion pixie dust or something
Speaker 4: that's going to solve all our problems and maybe maybe
Speaker 4: make large ships totally unnecessary. I mean about AI and
Speaker 4: unmanned assets and you know, tech tech tech, we're going
Speaker 4: to teck ourselves to death. Uh, how much of that
Speaker 4: do you think is wishful thinking? And we we need
Speaker 4: if we're going to have a free we need to
Speaker 4: a frigate can do a frigate's job. Somebody in the
Speaker 4: chat room talks about Uh, the f FG's potentially being
Speaker 4: outgunned by Chinese ships. You know. His comment is why
Speaker 4: does that matter?
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 4: Is it a matter really keeping an idea in mind
Speaker 4: about what this ship is supposed to do or this
Speaker 4: asset is supposed to do, and stop trying to make
Speaker 4: it into something it's not.
Speaker 2: I think that has been a huge part of the
Speaker 2: problem with constellation is that frigates themselves have quite a
Speaker 2: simple role or set of roles, and you don't need
Speaker 2: to make a frigate into a destroyer or into a
Speaker 2: cruiser or anything else for it to have significant value
Speaker 2: to the fleet. And if you're trying to make a
Speaker 2: frigate do everything and be exquisitely armed and be able
Speaker 2: to do asw and that is where you get these
Speaker 2: monstrosities with every single thing added onto them, and it
Speaker 2: doesn't work. I think actually with these ships, sleek, simple
Speaker 2: outcomes are better. And this is where the FREM is
Speaker 2: a good idea, because that's what the FREM does. It
Speaker 2: is a decent frigate. And if you've just taken the frame,
Speaker 2: made a couple of weeks and churn them out, you
Speaker 2: would have had a fleet of decent frigates. That do
Speaker 2: what frigates do. They do not need to do everything else,
Speaker 2: they just need to do what a frigate does. And
Speaker 2: with technology, I think there's a tendency to think that
Speaker 2: if something can be added, it should be added, and
Speaker 2: that extends to kind of more modern stuff like AI,
Speaker 2: machine learning, all of that kind of thing. If it
Speaker 2: can be done, it should be done. And I think
Speaker 2: there needs to be much more thought about exactly which
Speaker 2: capabilities can be augmented by each of these technologies, should
Speaker 2: they be does it actually add value to that capability,
Speaker 2: And when it comes to uncrewed technology especially, I think
Speaker 2: uncrewed is the future. Having an uncrewed fleet would be spectacular.
Speaker 2: It would add mass, it would add ISR capabilities, all
Speaker 2: this kind of thing. It would be great. But we
Speaker 2: are not there yet with the technology. Having a significant
Speaker 2: number of uncrewed vessels is not going to happen in
Speaker 2: the next twenty thirty years because that tech is still
Speaker 2: being developed and iterated and it needs to be fitted
Speaker 2: into the fleet structures. So there is going to be
Speaker 2: a next iteration of the fleet that needs to have
Speaker 2: crued platforms. So we need to do those properly and
Speaker 2: not rely on uncrewed platforms to solve our problems with
Speaker 2: personnel because they don't, and to not rely on uncrewed
Speaker 2: platforms to solve our problems with overdesigning things because they don't.
Speaker 2: And I do worry that people look at modern technology
Speaker 2: and think, as you say, it's this magic pixie dust
Speaker 2: that's going to fix all of our problems, and I
Speaker 2: just don't think that's the case. I think it will
Speaker 2: add great value to a future fleet, but we are
Speaker 2: not there yet, and we need to think seriously about
Speaker 2: traditional crew platforms in the interim, otherwise we're going to
Speaker 2: have a massive gap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we've already tripped over ourselves a few times with
Speaker 1: being a little bit too optimistic about what the future
Speaker 1: is going to bring and how fast it's going to
Speaker 1: bring it. You mentioned something that I think is important
Speaker 1: that it's always concerned me. I remember when going back
Speaker 1: to the spruance is when the spruances were first brought online,
Speaker 1: there was a couple of people from the cheap sheets,
Speaker 1: cheap seats that would throw bricks at it, saying that
Speaker 1: we have all this empty space here. Well, the empty
Speaker 1: space was designed into the ship at the beginning, going yes,
Speaker 1: because we're going to fill it over the course of
Speaker 1: the next decade with these different systems that are going
Speaker 1: to be coming online. But we're going to get the
Speaker 1: ship in the hole in the water. You know, a
Speaker 1: point eight of a d D is better than a
Speaker 1: point one of a DD at some point down the
Speaker 1: road that will never happen. And so by the time
Speaker 1: the sprunces were starting to be decommissioned, they were full
Speaker 1: up with vlsls and weapons systems. They filled up all
Speaker 1: the gaps just fine. And on the bridge side of
Speaker 1: the house, I would argue a very successful classes ship
Speaker 1: your type twenty three frigates, I believe sufferers. Now it's
Speaker 1: been upgraded and added on so much that it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the HMS Hood becoming almost semi submersible. It's
Speaker 1: taken on so much additional weight. And here with the
Speaker 1: Constellation we don't even have a whole one commission. And
Speaker 1: yet it is again in your article, yet twenty three
Speaker 1: feet longer and five hundred tons heavier than the original.
Speaker 1: What we do know, there's a lot we don't know
Speaker 1: about the future, but one thing we can almost guarantee
Speaker 1: is we're going to need extra whites and spare displacement
Speaker 1: to bring on those systems that maybe we don't fully
Speaker 1: appreciate the requirement in twenty twenty four, but in twenty
Speaker 1: thirty three you probably want to be able to put
Speaker 1: that on.
Speaker 3: There.
Speaker 1: Is that a legitimate concern that people should also have
Speaker 1: about the constellation classes. We've managed to engineer to the
Speaker 1: point that there's no.
Speaker 2: Exp I absolutely agree with you, sal but I'm very
Speaker 2: worried that if we start suggesting that they're just going
Speaker 2: to add another sixteen feet on to it to have
Speaker 2: some empty space off the bow, and it will end
Speaker 2: up being even longer than it is now. It's the
Speaker 2: concept where we in the UK we call it building four,
Speaker 2: but not with So you have the four for the capability,
Speaker 2: but you don't have it there at the beginning. And
Speaker 2: that is really important to have the flexibility to be
Speaker 2: able to add capability in and it's what gives these
Speaker 2: ships their length of life, which is very very important.
Speaker 2: But that again could be potentially solved by having more
Speaker 2: of this iteration that we were talking about. So if
Speaker 2: you had your flight one constellations, for example, and then
Speaker 2: the you know, something changed in a capability, and then
Speaker 2: you could take something out and put something in for
Speaker 2: the flight twos of the Constellation class, and do that
Speaker 2: again with the flight threes. So it's not necessarily that
Speaker 2: you have to leave space for every possible capability, because
Speaker 2: that could come at a cost of making the ships
Speaker 2: too big. But it is important to be able to
Speaker 2: have the flexibility with huge capabilities. But I think that
Speaker 2: can be achieved by replacing things rather than adding them on,
Speaker 2: because then again, you get to this point where this
Speaker 2: ship is expected to do everything because hey, we've got
Speaker 2: this cool new via less capability, let's just whack that
Speaker 2: on the constellations for no reason, and you know, it
Speaker 2: could become another excuse for things to be overdesigned and
Speaker 2: far too heavy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's there's a picture somewhere one of
Speaker 4: the Burke class.
Speaker 3: DDGs. It's got.
Speaker 4: It looks like a chipmunk, but it's with its cheeks
Speaker 4: full of peanuts or something. It's bulged out as they
Speaker 4: added all this this stuff to it. You know, And
Speaker 4: that's fine, it's an iteration and it's a way to experiment,
Speaker 4: but you just you begin to wonder, how much how
Speaker 4: can we not say if we're going to add something else,
Speaker 4: something else. It's kind of like in your house. You
Speaker 4: know you're supposed to before you bring something new, and
Speaker 4: you're supposed to take something old out right? Is there
Speaker 4: is there not a way we can design chips to
Speaker 4: to accommodate new upgrades that but by by getting rid
Speaker 4: of whatever they're replacing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't really want the US Navy to be
Speaker 2: taken into an episod hoarders and have to have their
Speaker 2: below decks force to be cleared out of the twenty
Speaker 2: year old stuff that they've been keeping.
Speaker 1: In some ways, we used to look at the old
Speaker 1: Soviet Union as the naval hoarders. They were those old
Speaker 1: Whiskey class submarines that kept those to the very end.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't decommission anything.
Speaker 3: They would.
Speaker 1: I guess something's got to absorb the torpedoes. We've been
Speaker 1: talking a lot about the problems that we've experienced with
Speaker 1: the Constellation class, which is the American version of the
Speaker 1: FRIM which I always remind people it's an established and
Speaker 1: successful frigate program. The last time I looked, we have
Speaker 1: I think there are four nations that are going to
Speaker 1: be getting frigates and two that are in build, one
Speaker 1: of the two being the US. Having their own variant.
Speaker 1: France has eight, Italy has ten. The originally was going
Speaker 1: to be four different variants, but nobody ever built land
Speaker 1: attack variants. It's been a fairly successful program for the
Speaker 1: French and Italians.
Speaker 3: Haven't it.
Speaker 2: Absolutely And this is one of the things that really
Speaker 2: struck me when I was first researching about Constellation, because
Speaker 2: I thought to myself, why would you not just buy friends.
Speaker 2: I'm sure, like you need to make some changes for
Speaker 2: the US Navy's particular requirements, but it seems like such
Speaker 2: a good idea to buy something that is working and
Speaker 2: then not mess around with it. And that just seemed
Speaker 2: like a really simple idea and something that the US
Speaker 2: Navy did intend to do. And then to have that
Speaker 2: all of these problems with Constellation, yet for that not
Speaker 2: to be caused by frem being a problem makes it,
Speaker 2: you know, robs even more salt into the wound because
Speaker 2: the French and the Italians are merely sailing around the
Speaker 2: seas with their lovely frigates and America still has no frigates,
Speaker 2: and it is just utterly frustrating.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm always reminded, what's the what's the story of
Speaker 4: a horse? An elephant? Is a horse designed by a committee.
Speaker 4: I mean that's kind of where we ended up with
Speaker 4: this fram concept. Brilliant idea, could have could have worked,
Speaker 4: should have worked. But I don't know if it was
Speaker 4: just not invented here, or if somebody said, now we
Speaker 4: can't you know, we've got to have this and uh,
Speaker 4: and then you end up with, as you've already said,
Speaker 4: a Frank, we're running up on time here. What what
Speaker 4: are you being What are you going to be working
Speaker 4: on in the future. I love the stuff you've been doing,
Speaker 4: but what do you be working on in the future
Speaker 4: or now that we're going to be able to see
Speaker 4: here and about I'm sure more about naval matters.
Speaker 2: So I'm currently working on a project to fix our
Speaker 2: defense industrial base now that I've broadly criticized the American one.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm writing in projects about the shipyards and
Speaker 2: supply chains in the United Kingdom. We have a defense
Speaker 2: review with the new government coming in, so trying to
Speaker 2: shape that to argue for more investment in our shipyards
Speaker 2: given the problems that we're having with our shipyards at
Speaker 2: the moment. I once again have a lot to write about,
Speaker 2: so that should be quite a long project. I'll then
Speaker 2: also be doing something specifically on the Royal Fleet Auxidiary
Speaker 2: because my previous project in the role Maybe and the RFA,
Speaker 2: the RFA has quite a lot of red flags at
Speaker 2: the moment, so I'm going to be doing a deep
Speaker 2: dive into the RFA because I think although obviously your
Speaker 2: ships are not as sexy as their combat cousins, I
Speaker 2: think they are widely important and I've become a big
Speaker 2: fan of logistics. So that's my other one.
Speaker 1: Well, I cyber stalk you over on next Are there
Speaker 1: other locations people can keep an eye on you for
Speaker 1: when you do push your latest work out there into
Speaker 1: open source place where you usually hang your shingle as.
Speaker 2: I'm also on linked In, but most of my work
Speaker 2: is through my think tank, the Council on Geo Strategy,
Speaker 2: So a lot of my maritime stuff that's coming up
Speaker 2: will be published through them, and we have a newsletter
Speaker 2: that you can sign up for which would have all
Speaker 2: of my writing on it. But most of my stuff
Speaker 2: I push our ex My dissertation is published, thank you, Paul,
Speaker 2: and it is linked in. My pinned tweet or pinned
Speaker 2: post or whatever is now on x via the British Library.
Speaker 1: Well, perfect, and Emma, thank you very much for taking
Speaker 1: time for what is evening time for you to come
Speaker 1: join us. It's been a great hour and I'll look
Speaker 1: forward to next time.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me back, and I'd
Speaker 2: love to come on again.
Speaker 1: It's always great to talk to you, and thank you
Speaker 1: everybody for joining us for another edition of mid Rat
Speaker 1: And until next time, I hope everybody has a great
Speaker 1: Navy day.
Speaker 3: Cheers, replied pad.
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