Speaker 1: Welcome to mid Rats with sal from Commander Salamander, an
Speaker 1: Eagle one from Eagle Speak at seer Shure your home
Speaker 1: for a discussion of national security issues and all things maritime.
Speaker 1: And welcome on board everybody. Thank you for joining us
Speaker 1: for another edition of mid Rats, And if you are
Speaker 1: with us live, I'd like to extended invitation for you
Speaker 1: because it's extra advantageous today is go ahead and scroll
Speaker 1: over to the chat room. I'll hop right in there.
Speaker 1: We'll be monitored during the course of the conversation, and
Speaker 1: usually we have guests here, people will make some observations
Speaker 1: or even suggest a question or two. But today we
Speaker 1: have our ever popular and ever famous Melee format for
Speaker 1: here in the middle of May. Perhaps not March, it's
Speaker 1: the other month. It's March, not May.
Speaker 2: Oh, we're not confused though.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I just need more caffeine and I'll
Speaker 1: be fine. But yeah, it's like June July. As long
Speaker 1: as I know what year it is, I'm feeling all right.
Speaker 3: Put it in there.
Speaker 1: If that's a topic or question you want us to
Speaker 1: bounce into, that's the perfect place to do it. And
Speaker 1: always want to extend the invitation to everybody. If you
Speaker 1: don't already, going over to iTunes, secer, Spotify wherever you
Speaker 1: are and go ahead and subscribe to the podcast. That way,
Speaker 1: if you can join us live, we'll be there waiting
Speaker 1: for you. And like I said, we do not have
Speaker 1: a guest today is just marking myself pontificating about things.
Speaker 1: And we cheated because in the pre show we pretty
Speaker 1: much know what we wanted to kick off with. And
Speaker 1: it's something that has momentum to go from one Congress
Speaker 1: to another. I wrote a bit about it right before
Speaker 1: the November election. It didn't get passed, but it's got
Speaker 1: even more enthusiasm behind it now and there'll be some
Speaker 1: changes made to it perhaps, But let's talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about what makes all navalists toes tingle the ships at.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the ship building in harbor, infrastructure for prosperity and
Speaker 2: security for America.
Speaker 3: That's a mouthful.
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that gives it so
Speaker 1: much of a boost is it really is bipartisan. Is
Speaker 1: In the previous Congress, the point man on it on
Speaker 1: the Republican side of the House, in the House of
Speaker 1: Representative Is was Mike Waltz, who's now the National Security
Speaker 1: Advisor he's in the administration, so he knows the rhythm,
Speaker 1: he knows the story. And in the last Congress, the
Speaker 1: Democrats had the Senate and retired Navy Captain Mark Kellnedy
Speaker 1: now Senator, a Democrat at Arizona, he had the point
Speaker 1: on their end and it got a fair bit of sponsors,
Speaker 1: but not enough to really get a vote last Congress.
Speaker 1: And there was a couple of things when I wrote
Speaker 1: on in October that some staffers spot welded onto it
Speaker 1: that are probably unnecessary that I think will be cleaned
Speaker 1: up if it looked at again. But I think what
Speaker 1: has me looking forward to it being regenerated and resubmitted
Speaker 1: for this Congress once people have a chance to take
Speaker 1: a deep breath and catch up to everything that's going on,
Speaker 1: is the fact that the executive branch and the President
Speaker 1: UH and his Secretary of Defense and pretty much most
Speaker 1: of the players in his national security operas have you know,
Speaker 1: responded to to the bell. It's there's a lot of
Speaker 1: talk about pro seapower, bigger navy, better navy maintenance, shipyards, infrastructure,
Speaker 1: merchant marine. So we're having the right things being said.
Speaker 1: Again that has to have action behind it. However, you're
Speaker 1: not going to get action if you don't have the
Speaker 1: words in the top cover and you've got it from
Speaker 1: the Commander in chief on down. So I think, uh,
Speaker 1: the details of what comes in the the hopefully the
Speaker 1: Resurrected and Resubmitted Ships Act, I think it will flow
Speaker 1: in real well with the President's priorities. We have bipartisan
Speaker 1: support in the House and the Senate. There's really no
Speaker 1: reason why some version of this can't see the light
Speaker 1: of day sooner more than later.
Speaker 3: It really is.
Speaker 1: It's an exciting exciting thing to see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been it's a hot topic. The President has said, uh,
Speaker 2: make ship building greater. God, you seem to have a
Speaker 2: motto kind of thing going on. Uh, But Brando and
Speaker 2: they've they've named they've they've changed the name of a
Speaker 2: group of folks that are already working for the National
Speaker 2: Security Council from the Maritime and Industrial Capacity Group to
Speaker 2: the the the Office of ship Building. And they've got
Speaker 2: a couple of people already there who has been pointed
Speaker 2: out by some other folks are not necessarily experts in shipbuilding.
Speaker 2: That concerns me less than that they're experts in moving
Speaker 2: money around and getting things done because we can always
Speaker 2: hire experts in shipbuilding. That's why there are shipbuilders, and
Speaker 2: so I think this is going to be really interesting.
Speaker 2: I'm excited about it. We're getting a new see it.
Speaker 2: What's he called, Secretary of the Navy, John Phalen, who
Speaker 2: is He's another money guy, I think, and that's going
Speaker 2: to be helpful for the Navy because up to now,
Speaker 2: I'm not sure we've been managing the money very well.
Speaker 2: Has probably when we ever pass an audit, we'll find
Speaker 2: out what happened to a lot of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I am.
Speaker 1: I'm not sold very much on some of the critiques
Speaker 1: that Phalan has been receiving. You he's not from industry,
Speaker 1: he doesn't know the system.
Speaker 3: To me, that's a benefit.
Speaker 1: I look at what we've done, especially on the surface
Speaker 1: side of the house, in the last quarter century, and
Speaker 1: to be blunt, we're not going to get different, hopefully
Speaker 1: better results with people from that industry, from that background,
Speaker 1: with that friend group. You have a gentleman who is
Speaker 1: unquestionably successful, and what he's successful at is looking at organizations,
Speaker 1: finding out what's healthy, what's not, what need works, what
Speaker 1: needs to be left behind. And the Navy needs a
Speaker 1: good wire brushing like that because I don't see a
Speaker 1: convincing argument that we have overperformed in the last quarter
Speaker 1: century and things have to get really bad before they
Speaker 1: get better. But I mean, we've talked about it a
Speaker 1: lot over the years, in the last few years especially.
Speaker 1: I love the argument. My answer is both. But people
Speaker 1: argue submarines are our capital ships, aircraft carriers are capital ships. Well,
Speaker 1: when you have attack submarines literally spend years welded to
Speaker 1: the peer waiting for maintenance, and everybody just kind of shrugs,
Speaker 1: that's that's a sign that we have a system that's.
Speaker 3: Almost frozen in place.
Speaker 1: So you need somebody who's had success in other areas
Speaker 1: that's going to come in and he'll hire the right people.
Speaker 1: He'll hire the folks that can tell him what the
Speaker 1: damn acronym means and probably can tell you listen to
Speaker 1: none of what that guy says. Listens to a lot
Speaker 1: of what that guy says, and I don't believe anything
Speaker 1: after the first two minutes from this guy, and that's
Speaker 1: that's an important skill to have. I think it's also
Speaker 1: interesting that they've Originally it was thought that you're going
Speaker 1: to have another outside individual come in as the under,
Speaker 1: but again with different people breaking the mold of a
Speaker 1: different background. Retire another retired Navy captain Hung caw EOD
Speaker 1: guy coming in as he under. He will have a
Speaker 1: different view of the Navy than a lot of other folks.
Speaker 1: And I think, can you know, be the let me
Speaker 1: explain you what this act that means? Uh to fail
Speaker 1: And I think that's an interesting pairing. They both kind
Speaker 1: of break the mold. But being that the mold we've
Speaker 1: been using has not been producing products fit for service,
Speaker 1: I think there's lots of opportunity here.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Personally, I mean worked with some of the EO dkis
Speaker 2: and you know, they're a hoot. I mean that is
Speaker 2: that is a that is a small group of folks
Speaker 2: who do a really important mission. And I think that
Speaker 2: the way they you know, the way they work their
Speaker 2: teams and the way they work their assets, it is uh,
Speaker 2: that may be a really helpful model as we as
Speaker 2: we move forward, because some of the big stuff we
Speaker 2: do we need to take a hard look at. I mean,
Speaker 2: the potential secretary that maybe failing has said he wants
Speaker 2: to do a complete overhaul of shipbuilding goals and processes,
Speaker 2: and you know, then you get this industry best practices stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, So I hate buzzwords like that, but in
Speaker 2: this case, I'm not as concerned because Lord knows, we're
Speaker 2: using the industry best practices now and a lot of
Speaker 2: our efforts and and you know when when you I
Speaker 2: think I referenced a few shows ago that that there
Speaker 2: was a really nice presentation by one of the submarine
Speaker 2: whoever the submarine PEO is, I think, and you know,
Speaker 2: they're talking about the need to get the parts availability
Speaker 2: and all that good stuff in line, because that's what's
Speaker 2: holding up a lot of these ship uh and submarine
Speaker 2: processes is you know, it's we need to have a
Speaker 2: solid pipeline of this, of the of the materials we
Speaker 2: need to build the ships. We need to have this
Speaker 2: and this benefits everybody in the country because the economy
Speaker 2: will you know, it is driven by the processes of
Speaker 2: getting the materials and supplies you need to the place
Speaker 2: you need them, when you need them, and before you
Speaker 2: need them. Because I think we're just about done with
Speaker 2: the just in time shipbuilding processes, and so I'm very hopeful, yeah,
Speaker 2: that this will work out and that the you know
Speaker 2: that there's enough Doge whoever's looking into the personnel people
Speaker 2: can take a hard look at NAVC and try and
Speaker 2: figure out what exactly some of those eighty three thousand
Speaker 2: people do there. I know there are a lot of
Speaker 2: good folks there, but you know, we also see a
Speaker 2: lot of I think we talked about this recently with
Speaker 2: one of our guests, that there's a core of yeah,
Speaker 2: we've got these rules, we can't bend these rules. We
Speaker 2: have to do it exactly this way, and every since
Speaker 2: everybody that has a hand on some of these projects
Speaker 2: says that, then all of a sudden, your rule bound
Speaker 2: instead of mission driven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's there's a lot of reason for optimism out
Speaker 1: there in some ways, and you get the ship sack there.
Speaker 1: We have a lot of top cover and a lot
Speaker 1: of the reason why we have trouble with our industrial
Speaker 1: base and our infrastructure is simply there hasn't been much
Speaker 1: of a demand signal there, or a consistent demand signal.
Speaker 1: These are profit and lost companies, and a lot of
Speaker 1: when they disappear, you don't have that ability yet. And
Speaker 1: these are American jobs, good paying jobs, and it is
Speaker 1: really a national security asset because on Friday I did
Speaker 1: a post about I'm not even gonna try to pronounce it.
Speaker 1: It's the zaikaku. I can't pronounce Japanese words very well.
Speaker 1: Where's my friend Brent sadlerk he knows Japanese fluently. But
Speaker 1: it was the last of the carriers that the Imperial
Speaker 1: Japanese Navy used to attack Pearl Harbor, and she was
Speaker 1: sunk the last of the sixth and she was sunk
Speaker 1: in October of forty four when she was part of
Speaker 1: the diversionary part in the Battle of Lata Golf that
Speaker 1: brought Halsey north.
Speaker 3: And you can.
Speaker 1: Look at the difference between the US, which had a
Speaker 1: very vigorous due to over half a decade of investment
Speaker 1: in the shipbuilding industry in the late mid to late thirties,
Speaker 1: the production that we had in the carriers that we
Speaker 1: produced in the course of that three year and eight
Speaker 1: month war, and that Japan pretty much fought with what
Speaker 1: she brought to the table, except for some very light
Speaker 1: and limited carriers that they were able to produce. That
Speaker 1: all had to do with industrial capacity and the ability
Speaker 1: to fight a long war, a vice what the Japanese
Speaker 1: were hoping for, that they would swat us so hard
Speaker 1: that we would back out. You know a lot of
Speaker 1: people get those briefs President Putin and it often doesn't
Speaker 1: work out that well.
Speaker 3: And you look.
Speaker 1: Today, Japan and China is the USA of the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties when you look at that industrial capacity. And we
Speaker 1: had a nice show on I think we had Salmar
Speaker 1: Cogliano on where we talked about where we had sidelined
Speaker 1: over a dozen ships just to be able to repurpose
Speaker 1: to seven hundred mariners mare Ad. When you look at
Speaker 1: our ships that we do have. Ideally as part of this,
Speaker 1: I would like to see US production because you can
Speaker 1: build ships for mara Ad and our Naval Reserve Force
Speaker 1: cargo ships auxiliaries to mostly a different standard than warship.
Speaker 1: But we just don't have the ability. And there was
Speaker 1: an interesting article that John Grady over US and I
Speaker 1: News put out what's the date on here back on
Speaker 1: March sixth. I'll just do a little quote from it,
Speaker 1: and it's good news, but it also tells a story
Speaker 1: and I'm glad he acknowledges it. Okay, a little quote here,
Speaker 1: the head of US Transportation Command ask a key Senate
Speaker 1: panel for the authority to buy ten more used cargo
Speaker 1: vessels to support American forces overseas in combat. Air Force
Speaker 1: General Randall Reid said in a Thursday hearing. Unless moves
Speaker 1: are made quickly, by twenty thirty two to fifty four
Speaker 1: percent of government owned sea list ships will reach the
Speaker 1: end of their service life. He added, eighty five percent
Speaker 1: of the Navy's combat powers in the United States, and
Speaker 1: we need to be delivered by sea for our air
Speaker 1: for operational operations overseas. Acknowledging President Donald Trump's call to
Speaker 1: overhaul American ship building to compete with China, the Maritime
Speaker 1: Administration and Command needs to quote, get ships in any
Speaker 1: way we can, Reid said, for speed, that means buying
Speaker 1: used but newer vessels to support US C lift. We
Speaker 1: would like to buy four per year, but two it
Speaker 1: a minimum to maintain necessary sea lift capacity. Estimated to
Speaker 1: cost for two would be about two hundred and ten
Speaker 1: million unquote. Maybe we could repurpose some of the doze
Speaker 1: money that they're finding under the seat cushions. But it's
Speaker 1: it's it's sad because previous generations you could get on
Speaker 1: the phone and say, hey, we need to spit out
Speaker 1: two more auxiliaries a year out of our shipyards, and
Speaker 1: it could happen.
Speaker 3: Now we're going.
Speaker 1: Through the used car lot just to find good enough
Speaker 1: at the minimum numbers. That is pretty damning. But at
Speaker 1: least we're trying to buy them now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm less troubled by that than you are, because
Speaker 2: I think that.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not troubled by it. Well, in my perfect world,
Speaker 1: we would be building new construction. But hey, I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
Speaker 1: If we can get we still instead of driving around
Speaker 1: on my nineteen sixty nine Dodge panel truck, if I
Speaker 1: can pick up twenty twenty one Toyota, that'll be fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to put holes in the water and
Speaker 2: have holes available. I don't I don't care where they
Speaker 2: come from necessarily, and if it's you know, if it's
Speaker 2: less expensive to do that, then to try and get
Speaker 2: Nasco and San Diego to build us you know, some
Speaker 2: something like that or some of these other you know
Speaker 2: most you know, we're not. This is the problem. This
Speaker 2: is why the Ships Act is so important. We are
Speaker 2: not building cargo vessels, container ships and all that in
Speaker 2: the US, uh, unless for very specific purposes, for for
Speaker 2: Jones Act reasons and you know, so we end up
Speaker 2: we're looking at ships made every place else Korea, kind
Speaker 2: I don't know where else they're doing it these days,
Speaker 2: Norway maybe, And you know, that's just that's just it's
Speaker 2: killing us. We don't have the and I remember doing
Speaker 2: Desert Storm. It's some of the some of the ships
Speaker 2: that were that we hired to bring equipment over there
Speaker 2: were you know, I'm surprised they passed any kind of
Speaker 2: coast Guard inspection before they returned loose to to tote
Speaker 2: that equipment. And that's when we really geared up right
Speaker 2: after Desert Storm to get you know, all these marriages
Speaker 2: from Desert Storm. Was was a zillion years ago, it's
Speaker 2: relatively speaking, and you know, thirty thirty one years.
Speaker 1: Anyway, Here here's an interesting data point over on X.
Speaker 1: His ears must have been burning our buddy the other
Speaker 1: south Salamarcagliano. He just replied to our live stream over
Speaker 1: on X and interest the data point said about the
Speaker 1: used ships, he said, we paid one hundred and ten
Speaker 1: million for the last ship when it was built a
Speaker 1: decade and a half ago. It was eighty million. Supply
Speaker 1: and demand. I guess where's the art of the deal
Speaker 1: when it comes to gain about price inflation hit used
Speaker 1: cars too, So that's true here, Sure Dodge panel van
Speaker 1: is worth a lot more than you're paid for it. Probably, Well,
Speaker 1: if you take good care of a Dodge pedalvan, it
Speaker 1: becomes a classic.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Well, you know we've we need to build destroyers, we
Speaker 2: need to build frigates, we need to get this this
Speaker 2: stupid constellation class off the off, the off the mark.
Speaker 2: But you know, here's the other thing I was. I was,
Speaker 2: I have a new surface warfare hero Rear Admiral or
Speaker 2: I can say that. I can't say that's very off,
Speaker 2: but h Rear Admirald William Daley, who is N ninety
Speaker 2: six in the op NFT staff.
Speaker 3: UH.
Speaker 2: He gave a speech to the Surface Navy Association, and man,
Speaker 2: it's a burst of of of common sense. It's just
Speaker 2: incredible what he was talking about, and he's talking about
Speaker 2: getting What he's talking about is getting these these unmanned
Speaker 2: UH surface vessels out as fast as we can and
Speaker 2: and load them up with with four whatever whatever you
Speaker 2: can put in four forty foot containers, which includes I
Speaker 2: think what is that called the I think they tested
Speaker 2: him on the one of the l L LCS is
Speaker 2: the Mark seventy launcher forty foot container. You know, every
Speaker 2: one of those launchers has four uh missiles in it.
Speaker 2: So if you put four on a ship and they
Speaker 2: all have four, you just added sixteen missiles to your
Speaker 2: capacity when you go out to see with a with
Speaker 2: an unmanned ship. So that's I think that's a pretty
Speaker 2: significant thing. But what what Admiral Daily is saying. He
Speaker 2: says we need to stop going for the exquisite. Let
Speaker 2: me let me give you a quote. Instead of different
Speaker 2: large and medium designs, we need one craft that is affordable,
Speaker 2: non exquisite, can come off multiple production lines in an
Speaker 2: identical manner and go towards one of two payloads, either
Speaker 2: the envisioned magazine payload at the large us V or
Speaker 2: the envisioned I s R Medium USB payloads. We can
Speaker 2: build this craft in numbers at many shipyards. Designs already exist.
Speaker 2: We must not overspect this man. You could have knocked
Speaker 2: me over with a feather when I when I when
Speaker 2: I heard him say that, and it's it's uh, he's
Speaker 2: talking about the large USB And I think you've got
Speaker 2: a piece kind of on this about the DARPA. What
Speaker 2: is that thing called the us X one.
Speaker 3: Yea, yet the medium size.
Speaker 2: So you did it on your you did it on
Speaker 2: your substack and and you know that that isn't cool.
Speaker 2: But it's way too sophisticated for what we need. We
Speaker 2: need hauls in the water that are carrying equipment that
Speaker 2: can do damage to other people. I think Admiral Daily's
Speaker 2: right on with this, and he's gonna hope he keeps
Speaker 2: pushing this. He says, he'll keep pushing until somebody tells
Speaker 2: him to stop. But you know, let's let's let's suppose
Speaker 2: you put I mean and these are these are they're
Speaker 2: based on the mirror and the was the other two
Speaker 2: there were two offshore oil field the marri and Ranger
Speaker 2: Ranger demonstration vessels. To suppose you buy and they don't
Speaker 2: cost much. I mean, you can buy a used US
Speaker 2: one of those used oil oil field boats for I
Speaker 2: don't know, a couple of million.
Speaker 3: Offshore supply vessels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's say they cost Yeah, let's say they cost
Speaker 2: six million dollars or ten million dollars a new If
Speaker 2: you bought forty of them, you know you're not you
Speaker 2: haven't spent as much money as you would spend on
Speaker 2: one d d G, but you would you would then
Speaker 2: have forty times sixteen.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Of course you're not gonna use them all for missile
Speaker 2: gram Let's say you use you know, some number thirty
Speaker 2: of them for missile totage. Then you've added a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of new missiles to your system without having to
Speaker 2: expand your current ships, without having to wait for the
Speaker 2: for the Constellation class, without how to wait for new DDGs,
Speaker 2: without having to wait for some exquisit program that you'll
Speaker 2: never see, and and you don't risk any human lives
Speaker 2: in this. You know, these things whatever the whatever the
Speaker 2: complications are by how they're going to be run and
Speaker 2: who runs these things and all that stuff, you could
Speaker 2: you could you can drive these things if you have to.
Speaker 2: You can tow them across the ocean where you can
Speaker 2: where you can put them to use, and then turn
Speaker 2: them loose with the you know, four for each destroyer,
Speaker 2: give some to the AMFIB people to play with that
Speaker 2: they have. They have an offensive weapons system that can
Speaker 2: do some damage. You know, I I envisioned you could
Speaker 2: put a lot of these things in the water and
Speaker 2: it would be a real nightmare for whoever's on the
Speaker 2: other side. So I am really with this program, and
Speaker 2: I'm really impressed with the with that Mark sevent well,
Speaker 2: the Mark seventy launcher too. That that's pretty neat. They've
Speaker 2: already tried it out on the lcs But you can
Speaker 2: also put these things on lcs is so they can
Speaker 2: become useful too.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's it's got used ashore see a lot
Speaker 1: of platforms, and I see your Daily. I'm gonna raise
Speaker 1: another Daily. I think you may have quoted part of this,
Speaker 1: but it's it's funny. I'm not saying that he might
Speaker 1: be a listener to mid rats. If so, EDERALD Daily,
Speaker 1: well done, like your listener, But I see a little
Speaker 1: echoes of things that you and I have said over
Speaker 1: the years in this quote.
Speaker 3: This is Admiral Daily quote.
Speaker 1: The large USB has a great purpose.
Speaker 3: It has walked that path.
Speaker 1: Towards exquisite, expensive, unpalatable. Daily said in a later Wednesday
Speaker 1: briefing with Reportals, I'm skeptical about that landing in the
Speaker 1: fleet instead of different large and medium designs into long quote,
Speaker 1: he's hitting exactly the problem. It's similar to what we
Speaker 1: have seen with the Loyal Wingman program. On the air side.
Speaker 1: Of the house is we actually pull the thread on
Speaker 1: these These are almost as expensive as the fighters that
Speaker 1: they're flying next to, because they've been over it. They're
Speaker 1: too exquisite, they're too nice, and you're just in that
Speaker 1: point about not being able to make it to the fleet.
Speaker 1: I would be really interested to see and hear a
Speaker 1: little hint about something I'm writing about tomorrow, if he
Speaker 1: has a background or watched in detail what happened to CGX.
Speaker 1: The reason why we don't have a replacement for our
Speaker 1: Takonder Roger cruisers is because their design went quote towards exquisite, expensive, palatable,
Speaker 1: and it just won't make it to the fleet. When
Speaker 1: you start quoting a price to Congress and they say,
Speaker 1: well we're waiting for this technology, we're waiting for that technology,
Speaker 1: they're going to go no reason to wait, because we're
Speaker 1: going to cancel the program. You know, it's that whole
Speaker 1: I don't know if you remember who that quote was.
Speaker 1: Give me, give me the third best option to the first.
Speaker 1: The first option will never work, the second best option
Speaker 1: won't show up in time. I need the third best option. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that's kind of the mindset and the correct
Speaker 1: mindset that daily is looking at it. Let's get it
Speaker 1: out there, and you may appreciate this again, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take that this hobby horse. I've always been frustrated that
Speaker 1: our Navy has always underutilized the intellectual and human capital
Speaker 1: that it has that leaves active duty and goes into
Speaker 1: the reserves. The Army and the Air Force with National
Speaker 1: Garden reserves is really good at recapturing that we don't
Speaker 1: with the Naval Reserve. And you know, these unmanned vessels,
Speaker 1: they'll need humans here and there to help out. And
Speaker 1: I'm sure they have a manned option that you can
Speaker 1: get underway with a handful of people and then you know,
Speaker 1: hit the hit the green button switch and the locket
Speaker 1: and uh, get the get the skiff out the back
Speaker 1: and leave it on its own. That'd be a great
Speaker 1: responsibility for USNR units to be attached to these commands
Speaker 1: that are responsible for them, because it's not going to
Speaker 1: be something that you're going to want to have, you know,
Speaker 1: rotating on deployment on a regular basis just now and then,
Speaker 1: because you need them as war reserves and they're not
Speaker 1: going to be as robust and demanding. Because I think
Speaker 1: it would be a real shame. I do want to
Speaker 1: have these go into the fleet, play with them, tell
Speaker 1: us what's good, bad or ugly, and adjust it, you know,
Speaker 1: learn some of the things. And we've made great progress
Speaker 1: in this, you know, the engineering and electrical autonomous robustness,
Speaker 1: computer computer coding, and the full spectrum autonomy that can
Speaker 1: take place. How you're going to replenish these things underway,
Speaker 1: which they've made good progress on. Communications reach back, redundancy
Speaker 1: and bandwidth issues in a wartime environment, and of course
Speaker 1: m CON security and local control like I just talked about.
Speaker 1: But a lot of those answers are in the skiff
Speaker 1: and it's none of my business. But I am confident,
Speaker 1: and I've had people nod their head at me in
Speaker 1: certain ways such that I think we've we've gotten this
Speaker 1: at a point that we would do everybody a lot
Speaker 1: of good if we built them and don't make the
Speaker 1: mistake we made with the X forty seven Bravo back
Speaker 1: in twenty thirteen, where we proved that we could land
Speaker 1: one on a carrier and launch it off, and then
Speaker 1: we let the tack Air people rip them apart, get
Speaker 1: them in the fleet, figure out what needs to be done.
Speaker 1: Seventy five percent solution. Make it an eighty five percent
Speaker 1: solution after having some sailors mess around with it, but
Speaker 1: do it now. And I think that's what Daily is
Speaker 1: looking at, is that type of mindset. So you're right
Speaker 1: having an N ninety six with that attitude towards this,
Speaker 1: you know, right man, right time, right motivation. And I
Speaker 1: think it's a pretty good political environment in the executive
Speaker 1: and legislative branch to hopefully in the twenty six defense
Speaker 1: budget to get some money in the pipeline that we
Speaker 1: can we can do some serious things with these to
Speaker 1: figure out what we might want to have in place
Speaker 1: in twenty third.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is the same Admiral Daily, And that's part
Speaker 2: of the quote I didn't give. But yeah, he's, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, he's on the right page with this. And
Speaker 2: I mean I remember years ago, during Trump's first term
Speaker 2: term or first election, Claude Bearbine I wrote a piece
Speaker 2: for Natural Interest on Trump's gunboats and we were talking
Speaker 2: about going cheap, stop doing this especially you know, I
Speaker 2: was grousing about the missions were we were using AEGIS
Speaker 2: cruisers for fighting pirates off Somalia. You know, we had
Speaker 2: other things to do. With those ships, we didn't have
Speaker 2: to wear them out. Uh, moving around the Indian Ocean.
Speaker 2: I mean this made no sense to me. We could
Speaker 2: have put could have put gunboats out there, and should
Speaker 2: have used our PCs and other things down there. It's anyway,
Speaker 2: you know, there is no reason not to do this.
Speaker 2: It's not that expensive, as you said, you could pay
Speaker 2: for I don't know, one hundred of these things, probably
Speaker 2: with the with the money they saved from from not funding.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I hate to think of the things that doges can
Speaker 2: come up with, but let's say, uh, ballet lessons for
Speaker 2: chickens in Botswana.
Speaker 1: Yes, and they haven't even gotten the the weaponized autism
Speaker 1: inside our our our databases to combine those things, and
Speaker 1: I would I haven't. I've been looking for it. Maybe
Speaker 1: it exists, I just haven't found it. If anybody has
Speaker 1: has it, send it to me. But I've seen lots
Speaker 1: of excuses.
Speaker 3: I don't like excuses.
Speaker 1: But the Marine Corps has passed its audit more than once.
Speaker 1: None of the other services have. I just be really interested.
Speaker 1: Here's how the Marine Corps is able to pass their audit,
Speaker 1: and here's why the other services can't. There's yes, the
Speaker 1: Marine corps smaller. Yes, it it piggybacks and uses some
Speaker 1: of the naval assets. Yes, yes, I got your excuses.
Speaker 1: Not interested in them, U. That would be very very
Speaker 1: interesting to see because we really can't look for that
Speaker 1: two hundred and ten million dollars to buy two ships
Speaker 1: that we could probably find reallocate it from other areas.
Speaker 1: But you can't do that unless you have the ability
Speaker 1: to go into your accounting side of the house and
Speaker 1: identify line items and where they're going, and you know,
Speaker 1: recon stack your priorities. If you can't rack, if you
Speaker 1: can't find, I don't know, I'll use a figure off
Speaker 1: tell me. If you can't find twenty percent, ten percent,
Speaker 1: fifteen percent of your overall expenditures to rack and stack,
Speaker 1: then you have the probability of taking some things that
Speaker 1: you don't have to take because of that ten to
Speaker 1: fifteen percent. If that's the number, maybe two thirds of
Speaker 1: that is stuff you don't want to touch either. But
Speaker 1: there's probably there's probably a reason why you can't find
Speaker 1: where that line number is that took that money, because
Speaker 1: it's going someplace that probably isn't as high priorities, Maybe
Speaker 1: that they need to go on the unfunded priorities list
Speaker 1: as having newer ships I think is on the on
Speaker 1: the top of the hopefully funded priorities list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and if I were, if I were, the shippings
Speaker 2: are I would I would. This is just a way
Speaker 2: to we can't man we don't have enough people to
Speaker 2: man all these merchant ships stuff. We make it really
Speaker 2: hard for for train surface warfare officers in the Navy
Speaker 2: to go into the merchant marine. Would I would ease ease,
Speaker 2: ease the process. I don't know how you do it,
Speaker 2: but you ease the process of getting those guys on
Speaker 2: the merchant ships. And you know, the difference is on
Speaker 2: a lot of the from what I've observed, is that
Speaker 2: on a merchant ship you may have one guy on
Speaker 2: watching the bridge at a time, maybe one or two people,
Speaker 2: and the rest of it is, you know, handled you've
Speaker 2: got the functional equivalent of modern iron mic and and
Speaker 2: and stuff like that, and you know they don't man
Speaker 2: the same level. But there's no reason a guy who
Speaker 2: spent ten years or twenty years as an O D
Speaker 2: or a CEO of a of a Navy ship can't
Speaker 2: get on the bridge of a large military seat of
Speaker 2: command ship and drive it just as well as any
Speaker 2: anybody who went to a maritime academy. He's already been
Speaker 2: to see understands. Red Ryriy attorney understands, you know, looking
Speaker 2: at the radar and looking you know, doing CPAs and
Speaker 2: all that stuff, and all of that's done electronically now anyway.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and there there are a lot of people that
Speaker 1: leave active duty for a whole variety of reasons, uh,
Speaker 1: that we just simply don't. We don't recapture afterwards that
Speaker 1: they do like going to see they like being up
Speaker 1: on a bridge, but they don't they don't like some
Speaker 1: of the aspects of being on an active duty that
Speaker 1: that we could recapture.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, we don't.
Speaker 1: Just like the you know, the airlines are pretty darn
Speaker 1: good at recapturing our pilots who you know, they they
Speaker 1: they get out as BABYO fours or senior lieutenants whenever
Speaker 1: they run out of their time because they look at
Speaker 1: what the Navy, you know, they look at their jo
Speaker 1: fit reps, and they look at their competitors, they look
Speaker 1: at what the Navy would make them do to quote
Speaker 1: get healthy, which many times, by the time you're senior
Speaker 1: lieutenant or junior O four you maybe have one option
Speaker 1: to quote get healthy unquote and they go, you know
Speaker 1: what like flying planes, But I don't think I want
Speaker 1: to take these hard feel orders to diable. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get out and go fly for American and
Speaker 1: I'll they go.
Speaker 3: I've always there's no reserve in the no reserve.
Speaker 1: Squadrons forum, uh to to keep that skill, and so
Speaker 1: we lose it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I always thought that one of the reasons people at
Speaker 2: that age got out. They could see what was physically
Speaker 2: happening to the guys who'd been in for a while
Speaker 2: and said, I'd like to keep my hearing mcbray fly
Speaker 2: for American Airlines and continue to be able to listen
Speaker 2: hear my children for the next thirty or forty years.
Speaker 3: I feel personally attacked.
Speaker 2: I happen to know a rotorhead. You know, they get
Speaker 2: they get some serious hearing loss.
Speaker 3: It does.
Speaker 1: And yeah, but that's there is for the first time
Speaker 1: in a while, there is a place for optimism where
Speaker 1: there are people that want to help build the strength
Speaker 1: of us as a maritime nation. All we need to
Speaker 1: do is maybe open our arms more, embrace more friends,
Speaker 1: and as I've said to a couple of times a
Speaker 1: couple of people this week. Friends go and go, but
Speaker 1: enemies accumulate.
Speaker 3: Is uh. Find people who have an.
Speaker 1: Interest may not be yours, but maybe they have an
Speaker 1: interest that helps us push in the direction we want
Speaker 1: to go and bring them in, make them friends, find
Speaker 1: out what their concerns are. Uh, you know which rib
Speaker 1: needs to be tickled and to get the right product,
Speaker 1: and let's do it. There's some great ideas out there. Hopefully. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Admiral Daily, he's in the right spot. He's in the
Speaker 1: right time. When we get a new Cno, they'll probably
Speaker 1: align with whatever the second NAB does see what the
Speaker 1: unders priorities are. But it's been pretty clear. I think
Speaker 1: for the whoever the new or, we pretty much know.
Speaker 1: I think Phalans did a really good job at his confirmation.
Speaker 1: He should be the next Secon NAB and I'll see
Speaker 1: any reason why hunk Cow should not be the under
Speaker 1: But they'll they'll rack and stack their priorities, and if
Speaker 1: they align with what we've already heard from the sect
Speaker 1: Deaf and from the President and you know, even the
Speaker 1: Vice President, then there there's an opportunity here to make
Speaker 1: some progress. After a lot of years of people appreciating
Speaker 1: the problem but not making some changes in getting things
Speaker 1: moved in the right direction. So I'm a little bit
Speaker 1: of a of a closet optimist for us right now.
Speaker 1: Over the course of the next twenty months, and I
Speaker 1: think by the end of summer we're going to see
Speaker 1: we'll be able to grade whether it's going in the
Speaker 1: direction that we would like or if it goes off track.
Speaker 1: But I think it would take an unexpected event. Are
Speaker 1: a very misjudging of the situation to think that it's
Speaker 1: going to be heading in a direction that we won't like.
Speaker 1: I think it's the timing and the fruit I think
Speaker 1: is right for some some nice progress in this area
Speaker 1: that we've all been looking for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it conforms with what admill Apio
Speaker 2: has been saying out in the Pacific, which is, uh,
Speaker 2: we're we're not quite out gunned yet, but we're getting there.
Speaker 2: So I think the faster we get assets out there
Speaker 2: that can work, you know, simple, as simple as one
Speaker 2: of the advantages, as simple as it usually doesn't break
Speaker 2: the way complex does.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So you know, if we can get simple, workable assets
Speaker 2: out there, then I think that will totally help Admiral
Speaker 2: papoel and whoever is if he's going to be changed,
Speaker 2: you know, there's the whoever's going to be out there
Speaker 2: is going to be looking at the same things. You know,
Speaker 2: how do we do this? How do we make this work?
Speaker 2: How can we get this faster? And again, you know,
Speaker 2: while we're wait for all the other wheels to spin
Speaker 2: up and get rid of the dead wood and the
Speaker 2: ridiculous restrictions on building ships and all that, and and
Speaker 2: then then we can you know, we at least do
Speaker 2: something with these smaller unmanned vessels that have great deal
Speaker 2: of promise it.
Speaker 1: I think, what will add hef to this? And I
Speaker 1: think that uh, former mid Rats guest friend of the Show,
Speaker 1: Albert Colby Bridge to his friends and distant acquaintances that
Speaker 1: if he comes in as under Secretary of Defense for policy,
Speaker 1: he's been beating the Pacific first drum for years, and
Speaker 1: he brings he has honed that argument in periods of
Speaker 1: time where he was, if not the only guy in
Speaker 1: the big public space making that argument, he was at
Speaker 1: least the one who's taken the most slings and arrows.
Speaker 1: That that emphasis coming from Bridge for DoD policy, it
Speaker 1: goes and it can only go in one direction, that's
Speaker 1: maritime and aerospace power, because if you have to make
Speaker 1: the fight in the Pacific from from Taiwan to Japan
Speaker 1: out to the small island nations in the Southwest Pacific
Speaker 1: and the Great Circle route to Australia New Zealand, that's
Speaker 1: where it's going, it's going to be. But we've only
Speaker 1: the new administration has only been a powerful what six
Speaker 1: weeks now, six weeks in change. They don't have all
Speaker 1: the players in so uh, it's uh, we've gotta gotta
Speaker 1: let the players get in place, let the aspect gel
Speaker 1: a little bit, and I think by again, by this summer,
Speaker 1: we'll really start to see some interesting things coming into
Speaker 1: open source and probably very interesting things happening, uh, you
Speaker 1: know behind closed doors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, as long as as long as they get you know,
Speaker 2: I think where we recapture money and if I don't
Speaker 2: know how they you know, I always remember you couldn't
Speaker 2: sometimes you couldn't spend things for certain items because they're
Speaker 2: and and some line item that we can't do line
Speaker 2: on them budgeting in the federal government for some reason.
Speaker 2: So uh, you know, as long as they get they
Speaker 2: can move the money around somehow to make it work.
Speaker 2: And that's great, and they're gonna have to work with
Speaker 2: Congress do that and the people, you know, Congress has
Speaker 2: to see how this is gonna work if you if
Speaker 2: you reap as I've said earlier, when you rebuild ship
Speaker 2: building and start working these assets. I mean we've got
Speaker 2: little shipyards and and all along our coasts, all along
Speaker 2: our in the waterways, it can be making these these
Speaker 2: unmanned vessels. And that means money in Ohio means money
Speaker 2: up in the Great Lakes, means money in Washington State.
Speaker 2: You know, it means money in Oregon. Other places where
Speaker 2: these ships in Louisiana and Texas and Virginia, lord knows,
Speaker 2: or even shipyards or used to be shipyards in North Carolina.
Speaker 2: But you know there are places where these ships can
Speaker 2: be built. I think I saw one place up in
Speaker 2: Rhode Island, Warren, Rhode Island. Anyway, you know that they
Speaker 2: can be built, and it spreads the money around the country,
Speaker 2: and that, as you said, it pays well. You get
Speaker 2: you start training people to be good welders because all
Speaker 2: these all these outfits need good welders. They may already
Speaker 2: have someone who aren't working in for the major shipyards.
Speaker 2: But you know it is, it is, and as long
Speaker 2: as you can keep the money flowing, so you're not
Speaker 2: doing this stop start, stop start stuff that kills that
Speaker 2: kills every business.
Speaker 1: And again it should be a bipartisan thing. And I
Speaker 1: know that there were some things in the previous Congress
Speaker 1: that Senator Schumer, if not killed, made almost impossible to
Speaker 1: get passed because he's very insistent that jobs had to
Speaker 1: be union. These are mostly union jobs, especially in places
Speaker 1: like you you mentioned before. So it's it's an opportunity
Speaker 1: to take that optimism and do something constructive with it.
Speaker 1: What we just have to keep an eye on is,
Speaker 1: unfortunately the rest of the world, the legacy, the legacy,
Speaker 1: national security concerns continue drawing attention away. You know, the
Speaker 1: news has just been dominated by by Ukraine the last
Speaker 1: month really, and now we see Syria devolving into what
Speaker 1: all ethnic and religious based civil wars devolved into, which
Speaker 1: is an ugly, ugly blood bath. I don't see any
Speaker 1: interest in this administration or the American people of America
Speaker 1: getting involved. But you know, sometimes you don't History delivers,
Speaker 1: you delivers a different requirement for you than you ask
Speaker 1: it to deliver to you.
Speaker 3: Until I'm always worrying about that.
Speaker 1: Europeans don't seem to be able to take care of Europe,
Speaker 1: and the people in the Middle East don't seem to
Speaker 1: be able to take care of the Middle East. Uh,
Speaker 1: and our allies in the Western Pacific are actually rather
Speaker 1: small compared to the major competitor out there, So in
Speaker 1: the back of my mind that that still gives me
Speaker 1: a little bit of concern.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think it's you know, we we probably
Speaker 2: should talk about both what's happened with Ukraine, you know
Speaker 2: that they and and in Syria and with the hoo Thies,
Speaker 2: because those are those are you know, we're disgusting examples
Speaker 2: of what happens if you don't keep your eye on
Speaker 2: the ball. And if you know, the I'm glad to
Speaker 2: see the Europeans are now. I think we talked about
Speaker 2: the Europeans are now allegedly pulling up n eight hundred
Speaker 2: billion dollars or something to start reef rebuilding their military
Speaker 2: stuffs as a collective. I don't know how that's gonna work.
Speaker 2: The polls are talking uh sternly about how, you know,
Speaker 2: and they should because they're the front line. I mean,
Speaker 2: if if Ukraine fails. I don't think Ukraine is going
Speaker 2: to fail because I think things are going to go
Speaker 2: their way, but it's gonna be they're gonna have to
Speaker 2: give up something. And apparently, you know, uh Zileisky is
Speaker 2: willing to talk. We'll see how that works out. Uh Syria.
Speaker 2: You know, anybody who didn't see what was going to
Speaker 2: happen when they when a bunch of former what was
Speaker 2: it good that I Islamic state people take over a country?
Speaker 2: UH wasn't paying attention. I think you know that that
Speaker 2: they're committing what what what's the word sectarians to sectarian side?
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're they're not they're not playing well with their neighbors,
Speaker 1: and that that whole thing spirals and there's really it's,
Speaker 1: at least from an American point of view, that's never
Speaker 1: been our sphere of influence. I think the big secondary
Speaker 1: impact that you're going to see here is another migration
Speaker 1: wave of people who were once in the safe part
Speaker 1: of Syria are going to want to leave. And the
Speaker 1: entire Western European political system, decades in the making, was
Speaker 1: always fragile, but it's been knock sideways by the migration
Speaker 1: that's already taking place, and so there is going to
Speaker 1: be a knock on effect in Europe, and we've got
Speaker 1: a lot of elections coming here in the next year.
Speaker 1: Western Europe might be looked very, very different Central Europe.
Speaker 3: When we look at the.
Speaker 1: Former Warsaw Pac nations in the Baltic republics, they have
Speaker 1: some of them have taken quite a bit of grief,
Speaker 1: specifically Hungary and Poland by not taking in a lot
Speaker 1: of those migrants from the last wave, they don't have
Speaker 1: those same stability issues. So I think if this next
Speaker 1: wave from Syria starts to come out, or if Turkey,
Speaker 1: I think Turkey's holding that whole hosting more than a million,
Speaker 1: I think it might be up to two million or
Speaker 1: more Tarian refuse to big chart, they may very well
Speaker 1: point them northwest as well. That's something in the back
Speaker 1: of my head from Syria that I'm more worried about
Speaker 1: than anything else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I can see a situation where, uh,
Speaker 2: you pointed out in one of your posts somewhere maybe
Speaker 2: on x that it looks like israel Is is providing
Speaker 2: kind of a Dru's homeland safe area. Yeah, and I
Speaker 2: would not be surprised at all if if Israel says
Speaker 2: you know, if you can get here, we'll protect you.
Speaker 2: And then the US I hate to do this because
Speaker 2: we don't really need to be there all the time,
Speaker 2: but you know, then then the UN US protecting forces
Speaker 2: could come in there and help Israelis protect the Drews
Speaker 2: in Syria in their own chunk of Syria, the Drews homeland.
Speaker 3: I think you call.
Speaker 2: It just kind of kind of like we did with
Speaker 2: the Kurds in the northeast corner of.
Speaker 1: Irrect Yeah, and they're I mean, the Drus have there's
Speaker 1: actually a not insignificant I think it's one percent of
Speaker 1: the overall population. It's not insignificant because they serve a
Speaker 1: lot in the Israeli military. There are the Drus are
Speaker 1: religious minority in Israel, and they do really well in Israel,
Speaker 1: and they are concentrated in that southwest corner, though they
Speaker 1: they're scattered up and down the coast, and they have
Speaker 1: a history of being persecuted. Right now, it looks like
Speaker 1: most of the hate is going towards Assad's religious minority,
Speaker 1: the Ala White Shias. But from what I've seen, and
Speaker 1: there's a lot of iffy reporting out there, but there's
Speaker 1: not much good reporting coming out either.
Speaker 3: But the way these.
Speaker 1: Things go, they're going to go after the Christians, They're
Speaker 1: going to go after the Shia, They're going to go
Speaker 1: after the Drus, because that's what they do. They always have,
Speaker 1: because they're religious fanatics. The you know, it's not soony
Speaker 1: against everybody, and which is unfortunate because some.
Speaker 3: Real modern.
Speaker 1: Muslim nation is our majority Sunni. But it's complicated that
Speaker 1: the Drews. They're a responsible community, and if they didn't
Speaker 1: have the protection of Israel, they might be forced to
Speaker 1: do something on their own. And there are worse things
Speaker 1: to do than for Israel, and eventually the international community
Speaker 1: to go, Okay, y'all are going to do what you're
Speaker 1: going to do, and the rest of Syria, these people
Speaker 1: want to be left alone. You can leave them alone.
Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with that. I don't think.
Speaker 1: I don't want US military to be there because it
Speaker 1: will be another one of those things at twenty five
Speaker 1: thirty years from now. Are we still going to be there?
Speaker 1: Are we going to carve out a I think we
Speaker 1: have a course of precedence that if we wanted to
Speaker 1: carve out a Druze state, say okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: build up your military. You got to defend your The
Speaker 1: Druids proved in the Lebanese Civil War that they can
Speaker 1: hold their own with the gun in their hands, So
Speaker 1: I don't it's just you just hate to see this
Speaker 1: kind of medieval barbarism taking place in the twenty first century.
Speaker 2: When one of the tenets of your religion, though, is
Speaker 2: anybody who doesn't have the same doesn't belong to the
Speaker 2: same sect as you, is evil. Your life is based
Speaker 2: on that. That is a really tough nut to overcome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is, and it's not. There's no religious component
Speaker 1: to it. But the Ukraine situation I saw earlier today
Speaker 1: and again there are you know, you have to make
Speaker 1: sure where you're getting your information from. But you mentioned
Speaker 1: going to the bargaining table if you can get the
Speaker 1: Russians to the table. No guarantee that the Russians will
Speaker 1: want to come to the table if they think they
Speaker 1: have the upper hand. Is one of the negotiating pieces
Speaker 1: they got was the Ukrainians, you know, bid off a
Speaker 1: chunk of curse and Russian territory. But that pocket seems
Speaker 1: to be, if not collapsing, deflating. This might be a
Speaker 1: better way of putting it. So if the Russians can
Speaker 1: in the North Koreans that are also they have I
Speaker 1: think the northwest corner of that front. If the North
Speaker 1: Korean and the Russians can push the Ukrainians out of
Speaker 1: Russian territory, then that makes the Ukrainian table a little sparse.
Speaker 1: One interesting take on this whole thing that sounds right
Speaker 1: to me is what the US might be trying to
Speaker 1: do is to entice the Russians who don't want to
Speaker 1: come to the table to come to the table. Is
Speaker 1: to try to create the conditions where they feel welcome
Speaker 1: and supported to get to the table. But if the Russians,
Speaker 1: and there's been some statements that back this up in
Speaker 1: the last seventy two hours, but if the Russians absolutely
Speaker 1: positively refuse to come to the table, then and if
Speaker 1: anybody is negotiated with real estate developers, they'll know that
Speaker 1: they'll get friendly, and then they won't get very friendly.
Speaker 1: That it might be a situation where we could find
Speaker 1: the Trump administration giving Ukraine the weapons and support that
Speaker 1: would be far beyond what anybody would have thought even
Speaker 1: the bite of administration had been. Because I don't think
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration wants to be seen as responsible
Speaker 1: for the falla Kiev. Time will prove me right or wrong,
Speaker 1: but that would be a big mark in the l column.
Speaker 1: The Europeans, they've had their meetings, but I don't see
Speaker 1: how you get that group of people to respond in
Speaker 1: a timely manner to what really is a now crisis.
Speaker 1: Now defined is the next six months to try to
Speaker 1: get the Russians to the table, because we're gonna have
Speaker 1: our muddy season, and then when summertime comes and the
Speaker 1: ground hardens up again. I think in most years it's
Speaker 1: by mid May if the Russians feel like they've got
Speaker 1: the wind their back, they may decide, okay, we'll come
Speaker 1: to the table. But it's when you beg for me
Speaker 1: to come to the table because I'm want to take
Speaker 1: more land. We'll just have to see. But the Russians,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about here for the very long time,
Speaker 1: the decade and a half we've been doing mid rats.
Speaker 1: The Russians don't think like Western Europeans or North Americans.
Speaker 1: They have their own history and their own own habits,
Speaker 1: and it usually leads more towards a robustness and a toughness.
Speaker 3: That is really hard to appreciate. From our seat.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, as you're right, time will tell. By the way,
Speaker 2: did you happen to see the news on the alleged
Speaker 2: North Korean nuclear boomer?
Speaker 1: I saw that briefly. In the first thing I thought
Speaker 1: of is I hope they have some idin pills with them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's interesting. I'm sure it's probably on parcause
Speaker 1: I think they're a ballistic missile testing vessel as an
Speaker 1: old golf class diesel, it's probably, let me see, I
Speaker 1: can pull this out of my brain as a JO
Speaker 1: type one Soviet nuclear vessels where they were the hens
Speaker 1: Hotel Echo in November, So they're probably as functional as
Speaker 1: a echo class SSGN and they're what was it Yankee
Speaker 1: one was at their first ballistic missile submarines as we
Speaker 1: would define it. So yeah, maybe North Korea has joined
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty five. I don't know, but I'm not surprised.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised at all that North Korea would take
Speaker 1: that step. It's not just a hermit kingdom. It's a
Speaker 1: military that has a nation to go with it, so
Speaker 1: they can expend what little money they have on that capability.
Speaker 2: Well, it sure does complicate the picture in the and
Speaker 2: that part of the world. If they have this thing,
Speaker 2: and I guess it's not been launch shit, so and
Speaker 2: it's supposed to carry about ten missiles. Don't remember what
Speaker 2: the rate of their ballistic missiles is, but I don't
Speaker 2: think it's that great. But you know that can see
Speaker 2: they're thinking, well, gosh, we could just we could sail
Speaker 2: this up to Alaska and do a lot of damage,
Speaker 2: and what fun would that be?
Speaker 1: But I can you know, if you put on that
Speaker 1: very large North Korean hat, I can see the brief
Speaker 1: for this is they have nuclear weapons, but their land
Speaker 1: based ballistic missiles aren't what one would call survivable. So
Speaker 1: if you have a nuclear deterrent that can't survive a
Speaker 1: first strike, you're almost encouraging attack more than anything else.
Speaker 1: They have to find some way in their relatively small
Speaker 1: country to get something that at least seems more survivable
Speaker 1: to a first strike. I don't think in twenty first
Speaker 1: century a submarine as loud as a as a Yankee
Speaker 1: one or an echo would do that for them. But
Speaker 1: I could definitely see the brief for them trying. But
Speaker 1: you know, a few things in life I think are
Speaker 1: more frightening than a North Korean submarine going sink or
Speaker 1: that being said, they did blow a South Korean corvette
Speaker 1: out of the water, so they know how to shoot
Speaker 1: a torpedo.
Speaker 2: They've been really good at small submersionable operation. Of course,
Speaker 2: we don't know how many they lost on the way
Speaker 2: to sink one true South Korean destroyer, but you know,
Speaker 2: but it's a step up if you decide you're going
Speaker 2: to make it. You know, six thousand ton or seven
Speaker 2: thousand ton submarine that's powered by a reactor probably helped
Speaker 2: develop pilot Russians or the Chinese.
Speaker 1: But I remember the mid nineteen nineties that North Korea
Speaker 1: did their first nuclear reactor for quote civilian purposes hopefully
Speaker 1: how'd that work out? Well, it's a breeder reactor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's nice. So that they have an ability to build
Speaker 1: nuclear power plants, and evidently they've reached the ability to
Speaker 1: to miniaturize it enough for the submarine program. And I
Speaker 1: just I just have to think their sub safe program
Speaker 1: and their nuclear power program is it has to be
Speaker 1: relative to the old Soviet program, what the old Soviet
Speaker 1: program was to the American program when it comes to
Speaker 1: safety and reliability. Just the idea of a nuclear power
Speaker 1: North Korean submarine going getting underway in some of the
Speaker 1: world's most delicate fishing grounds, especially the Japanese, that they
Speaker 1: can't be happy with it, But uh, North Korea, child
Speaker 1: of the Korean War, it is what it is.
Speaker 3: They do what they want to do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're they're pretty impressive in their pent too, to
Speaker 2: be a world power from a from a tiny little
Speaker 2: foothold in the northern part of the peninsula.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The the one thing they're not very sophisticated with though,
Speaker 1: it appears from what we've the reports we've gotten from
Speaker 1: from Ukraine, because they haven't North Koreans. I mean they
Speaker 1: I could after Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, they went over there
Speaker 1: and chained trained a brigade that went offen committed war crimes,
Speaker 1: but they haven't really had much experienced fight a war
Speaker 1: since the Korean War that in this final years mostly
Speaker 1: fought by the Chinese. They tend to be very as
Speaker 1: you would expect from that type of culture, not very flexible,
Speaker 1: very static, very archaic, and I think that they will
Speaker 1: probably continue with that habit at sea should war come.
Speaker 1: But in nuclear weapons, especially in that small peninsula, they
Speaker 1: don't have to be that accurate or that sophisticated. If
Speaker 1: for some reason that the Hermit Kingdom decides they wanted
Speaker 1: to go master armed arm and turn the keys it,
Speaker 1: it could be kind of scary. And war has a
Speaker 1: tendency to focus the mind, so to speak, and everybody
Speaker 1: likes to.
Speaker 3: To stomp on the Russians. But I think one of the.
Speaker 1: Undertold stories, and before the war even started we talked
Speaker 1: about it on mid Rates more than once, is how
Speaker 1: And because of the nature of it, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like anti submarine warfare. You really don't want to talk
Speaker 1: about it too much, and the stuff you do want
Speaker 1: to talk about you can't get too because it's highly
Speaker 1: classified ASW and electronic warfare are too those areas and
Speaker 1: a couple things have come out recently and it's hard
Speaker 1: to avoid that the Darwinian action that we're seeing in
Speaker 1: electronic warfare in the Russia Ukrainian war. I really hope
Speaker 1: our electronic warfare community here is absorbing every bit of
Speaker 1: lessons learned. You can that there was a recent discussion
Speaker 1: about starlink that and how dependent the Ukrainians are on
Speaker 1: it because the Russians have pretty much jammed most of
Speaker 1: the rest of the electromagnetic spectrum in the Ukrainians also
Speaker 1: have gotten very good at it, which is why we've
Speaker 1: started to see the growth of these fiber optic run
Speaker 1: first person video drones. And there was a really neat
Speaker 1: video of a Ukrainian soldier crossing a field picking these
Speaker 1: things up like so many pieces of fishing line that
Speaker 1: were just crisscrossed all over the field. What a big
Speaker 1: mess that is. But to be to have to go
Speaker 1: to why are guided? That just tells you how much
Speaker 1: the electromatic magnetic spectrum is becoming compromised, which for military
Speaker 1: like hours that is very dependent on C two reach
Speaker 1: back data and even more than voice, that could be
Speaker 1: very humbling if those lessons and techniques are put opposite
Speaker 1: our lines at some point that the Ukrainians and the
Speaker 1: Russians are really refining in a Darwinian manner to the east.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't think we can train the drones to
Speaker 2: recognize lashing light and semipur signals to take their orders. No, well,
Speaker 2: we've I think we've run run another hour by our
Speaker 2: were all by ourselves, So we should probably say good night, Gracie.
Speaker 1: Good night Gracie, and hey, thanks everybody who's joined us
Speaker 1: over on x all thirteen hundred of you, and also
Speaker 1: everybody that's joined us here as well and hopped in
Speaker 1: the chat room. Really appreciate you all joining us and
Speaker 1: keep an eye on us. We're going to keep coming
Speaker 1: this spring until next time. I hope everybody has a
Speaker 1: great Navy Day.
Speaker 3: Cheers,