Fall Maritime Free For All - on Midrats
all you need to know for the navalists, professional or rank amateur
Fall is in the air ... so Sal and EagleOne return to the podcast to get you caught up now that FY24 is behind us.
We'll cover the waterfront.
Links mentioned during the show that also gives you a good idea what we wind up chatting about:
Ukraine’s repurposed agricultural drones in to bombers.
Role of the U.S. Merchant Marine in National Security; Project Walrus Report.
Sine Qua Non of U. S. Sea Power: the Merchant Ship, By Rear Admiral John D. Hayes, U. S. Navy (Retired), Proceedings, March 1965.
America Needs a Cabinet-Level Maritime Department, by Jimmy Drennan
"The great majority have never seen an ocean; to the affluent among them, it is an obstacle to be crossed by aircraft in a few hours. Those who do embark upon it are, for the most part, in uniform. "
This quote from Admiral Hayes describes americans even now...how many even know a shipping
container comes over water? ONLY when there are issues does it dawn on folks that "stuff" from
overseas. I did some contact for a regional retailer on the West Coast two years ago when issues
with getting all their Chinese made junk through the port in Seattle ran into a snag... "Its stuck on
a SHIP...?" To fix this would require an UTTER ground up reorientation of public perceptions and
a RAZING completely and rebuild of the countries national leadership...nothing less....
Nice speech by the SecNav. However, a strategy without resources is just empty words on a piece of paper.