Raw Intel

Four years ago to the day, I posted the below, and did last year. As a matter of fact, I just changed “Three” to “Four” and adjusted the title from 3rd to 4th. Everything else is the same because I am still have not worked this out. There are a lot more subscribers to CDRSalamander now than then, so I want to bring it back in part for them, but on the main because, to use my dear readers as therapy, I’m not over it. As many have asked, where is the accountability? Do the people responsible have no shame? Is there nothing demanded by honor for failure, or has our system of incentives and disincentives promoted to the highest positions of people who have a value system and …

How long do you wait to see what you purchased with the lives of 17 Sailors? Back in 2015 I decided we needed a measure of time for things in the Navy, and settled on a measure of time called a WorldWar; I think "years" does not really tell the best story about how long it takes to get even the most simple ship to displace water after the "go" is given. Perhaps we need a new measurement - one that provides context. We need one defined in American terms, natch, and I have an idea. I've used it before; the time from the attack on Pearl Harbor to the signing ceremony on the Mighty Mo. That is 07DEC41 to 02SEP45. 3-years, 8-months, 26 days. Including the end date, that is 1,…

A regular topic of conversation here and on Midrats (it came up quite a bit on Sunday’s podcast with Jerry Hendrix), is the lack of discussion in the public space about the importance of a strong Navy to our republic’s economic and military security. Sure, inside our salons, slack channels, and email threads we talk to each other a lot, but we seem to have a hard time getting our message out to the general public. Sunday night’s 60-Minutes was an exception to the rule. There is a lot of credit to go around here. First of all, you have to give credit to the 60-Minutes team fronted by Norah O’Donnell and lead producers Keith Sharman and Roxanne Feitel. This two-segment effo…

Another chapter in Islam's slow war on France. You need to take time today to read a critically important article by John Lichfield. Below I will pull extensively from it, but you need to read the whole thing. On October 6, Mr Paty, 47, a much-liked history and geography teacher in a dull Paris suburb, produced for his middle school civics class a pair of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed which provoked the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine five years ago. Cartoons. History. A significance moment in their nation’s history. That is the job of a teacher. A secular teacher in a secular republic. What happens when that republic allows, and indeed encourages, the grow…

International relations are just a subset of personal relations. That is why we have summits where national leaders meet face to face, etc. At the end of the day, all the policy papers, posturing, and talking heads are secondary and supporting operations. Leaders and how they interact with each other is what makes the difference. Even in 50/50 democratic systems with party politics, the balance of a nation’s people will watch closely how their leaders, and as a byproduct their nation, are treated by friend and foe alike…but especially friends. Are they ignored by other leaders? Mocked? Dismissed? Respected? In parallel, there is another dynamic in play. Like people, nati…

It has been six weeks since we started striking drug boats, and as we hit more, so are the objections rising to the surface. That is good. A free people should discuss and argue the point. Let’s pick up from the post linked to above. Before we start, I think we need to bring an item to the center of the conversation. It is the background to all that follows and a touchstone to all arguments. This, of course, does not include the deaths caused in the drug trade, the murder, torture, kidnapping, random violence and associated companion criminal enterprises both inside and outside the USA by those who feed the demand for drugs. So far this century, over 1 million Americans …

Want to take a break from the Second Russo-Ukrainian War? Good, so do I. As we (well at least I) impatiently wait for the USS Constellation (FFG 62) and her sisters to start displacing water, it is interesting to see the design decisions other nations have made to meet their frigate requirements. As our new FFG will be the USN version of the French and Italian FREMM, it is natural to compare it to other European designs, but what about our friends in the Pacific? What are the South Koreans building? Let's take a quick side-by-side look at their Daegu-class frigate presently under serial production. Of course, different nations have different requirements, and you can s…

Earlier this week I had the pleasure of sitting down with Bill Roggio as a guest on his podcast over at FDD, "Generation Jihad." Listeners to Midrats will recognize Bill as a regular guest there over the years, usually on the topics of international terrorism and Afghanistan, but we've turned the table around this time not only as host/guest, but topic. Bill and I spent the hour discussing the war in Ukraine in a very broad manner. Give it a listen. I hope you enjoy the podcast as much as I did being Bill's guest. http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=yIl2AUoC8zA http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogspot/FAFV?d=qj6IDK7rITs http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/blogs…

Even though it shouldn’t be necessary, I guess I should start this out by saying I actually support think tanks. I have a whole gaggle of acquaintances and friends who are associated with this think tank or another. They can produce good work – and even though some have clear biases in either their mission or their people – there is good value to read from smart people you disagree with on issues of substance. As long as you know they may or may not be objective – that is fine. As always, a serious read of contrary opinion will either by the strength of their argument make you reassess your previously held position, or by the weakness of their argument, further reinforce …

No, this isn't Rep. Luria (D-VA) week on CDR Salamander, though it is playing out as such ... but my post that was going up today is going on the back burner so we can bring up this jewel ... dare I say a Salamanderesque episode as uploaded by our friend Herb Carmen from today's HASC hearing. I'll let Rep. Luria take it from here. If we could have another dozen or so like this on The Hill, that would be great. Thanks. Now, dig deep in to the point she's making here. Our Navy got in the pickle it is right now from overpromising and underdelivering; by acting like a salesman for the defense industry, vice a customer of same. More of this is needed ... and on THU w…

Though I blend in well with the populations of Europe who have ready access to the North Sea, my bloodline has been unconnected to Europe for four centuries. I am an unalloyed North American, yet as our culture is an offshoot of Europe, I keep an eye on the goings on there. You have to as Europe continues to be a source of conflict. Their waring ethno-states generate more national security problems than can be consumed internally. That manages to bring North America in to their scrimmages. Beyond and more impactful today than military , Europe is a source for trends that impact cultural, social, economic, and military change throughout the globe. China is trying to c…

Deer hunters who own their own land and hunt it for years on end know a fun little detail few others know. Deer trails are a constant, regardless of what is happening on the land. They remain on their track for ... well ... perhaps centuries. You can have a deer trail you've hunted in second growth forest and then have either timber harvest or fire remove all the trees on that parcel. Even though the land is barren, the deer will use the same trail, only slightly modified if an obstacle like an old fallen tree is gone, but besides that, the track remains unchanged. As the now barren land transitions over time from forbs, to scrub, to brush, and back to forest over a decad…

Lithuania has a tough history, but they are a resilient people. Only 2.8 million souls in a bit of cold, flat, damp land on the Baltic roughly the size of West Virginia, but they exist as other peoples have vanished. They know tyranny, and they know the importance of letting small nations know that they don't stand alone. How much support will brave little Lithuania get from her NATO allies? China has told multinationals to sever ties with Lithuania or face being shut out of the Chinese market, a senior government official and an industry body told Reuters, dragging companies into a dispute between the Baltic state and Beijing. China downgraded its diplomatic ties with …

The Navy wants to talk some more about unmanned systems, the unknown war we have been fighting for years along the bleeding edge of Islam in Africa seems to be going nowhere we want it to go, China decides to let the mask slip at last, in the mandated extremism training The Pentagon realized the military reflects the nation it serves and not the readers of The Washington Post ... and we still don't have any Service Secretaries nominated. This week produced more news than can be covered in one Midrats, but we're going to try. This Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern come join us for a Midrats free for all. Open topic, open chat, open phones. If you use iTunes, you can add Midrat…

Labor Day is behind us, school is in session, and winter is coming. That can mean only one thing - it’s time for a Midrats mid-month melee! For the full hour LIVE this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern, we will take a bit from the headlines, a tad from the history books, and whatever shows up in the chat room or the studio line. From DC to Ukraine, to the other side of the International Date Line, we’ll try to squeeze it in. We'll distribute your defense, integrate your lethality ... whatever it takes. As with every melee, if it is interesting and in the maritime or national security arena - we’ll take it on. Open chat, open phones, open topic - come join us live if you can, but …

It’s time to catch up on the latest issues on the maritime and national security front and get out of the summer heat. Midrats goes LIVE today at 5pm Eastern in our free-for-all format. Hop in the show chat room and offer your topics and question…or observations of the topics we’ll discuss. You can join live at this link, but if you are reading this after the show, just check this Substack post later Sunday when I’ll update this page with the podcast. COME JOIN US! Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article

If you need to take a break from getting the house ready for Thanksgiving (well, I do), then I’ve got just the thing for you … a LIVE Midrats Podcast Free for All! Sunday from 5-6 pm Eastern, Mark and I will be going live to cover the national security waterfront. You can join us live at this link. If you are reading this after the show or on email, just refresh the Substack page later on Sunday night, and all the links for the recorded podcast will be here. Better yet, if you don’t already, follow one of the links on the page to subscribe to the Midrats Podcast so it is always available for you. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new post…

The 2020 election is over … well, mostly over. Though there are a few threads to clean up, the fabric the next few years natsec policy will be sewn from is pretty well known – so where does that lead us? We’ll get to that – but once again we need to invest some time to talk about Midrats’s contribution to NavyCon! EagleOne presented a segment for NavyCon2020A, we we’re going to talk about that a bit … and then we’ll pick up where our pre-election left off. Come join us for the full hour this Sunday from 5-6pm Eastern as we discuss this and more with an open chat room and open phones if you want to join in. It will be an open topic, open phones free for all ...…

At the end of last week, things were a’buzz’n about ‘ole silent-but-deadly…MINES! There is a lot of bad and in some places intentionally misleading reporting from traditional media on down over this weekend, so let’s do a quick summary. The NYT got the ball rolling. Iran has begun laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf channel that carries 20 percent of the world’s oil, according to U.S. officials, an effort that could further complicate American efforts to restart shipping there. While the U.S. military said it had destroyed larger Iranian naval vessels that could be used to quickly lay mines in the strait, Iran began using smaller boats for the operation…

One of the original member of our front porch passed away a few days ago, Byron Audler. A yard bird and great supporter of our Navy. Good friend to the blog through the years. I had no idea he was so sick. I should have checked in more often. Thank you Byron. You left a great legacy. Leave a comment Share This Substack is reader-supported. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. View the full article