U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report, 25 January - 22 February 2023

Paragraph 2.A. is worth noting, aee also Worldwide-Maritime Port Vulnerabilities - Foreign Adversarial Technological, Physical, and Cyber Influence and LOGINK: Risks from China’s Promotion of a Global Logistics Management Platform (pdf)

Chinese control over shipping information in LOGINK could also enable Chinese military planners to conceal PLA actions and disrupt U.S. military operations. As U.S. Naval War College assistant professor Isaac Kardon explains, “If you control the information, you can move things around without others knowing, or jumble up someone else’s information.

U.S. Navy Office of Naval I... by lawofsea

Interesting graphic from the first link above:

Saturday Is Old Radio Day- Agatha Christie "The Body in the Library" Miss Marple (1999)

Friday Film- U.S. Navy: Guardian of Freedom Through Control of the Sea Lanes (1963)

Weekend Film: Sea Power: The Navy and the Missile Age (1950s)

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: The Whistler "Seven Steps to Murder" (1947)

U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report, 11 January - 8 February 2023

U.S. Navy Office of Naval I... by lawofsea

Life Lessons

Glenn Reynolds hit on it The Power of Old Men:

That shouldn’t be a shock, given that old men teaching young men – especially about arms and such -- has been the norm for nearly all human societies before ours. And it’s not as if it doesn’t happen anymore, though you have to read the reporting of people like Salena Zito to hear much about it.

Grandfathers are harder to come by, nowadays, in a society where fathers are in short supply. And old men who want to teach young men are now viewed with more than a tinge of suspicion, something a cynic might say is not entirely based on a concern for the welfare of those young men. Boys, young or teenaged, are now mostly taught by women, and by “mostly,” I mean “overwhelmingly.”

But Patrick McManus got there first:

“Every kid should have an old man. I don’t mean just a father. Fathers are all right and I’m not knocking them, since I’m one myself, but from a kid’s point of view they spend entirely too much time at a thing called the office or some other equally boring place of work. If you’re a kid, what you need is someone who can take you out hunting or fishing or just poking around in the woods anytime you feel the urge. That’s an old man. Doing things like that is what old men were designed for.” -Patrick McManus “The Theory and Application of Old Men” A Fine and Pleasant Misery, 1981

Both McManus and Reynolds benefited from a far less urban and suburban world, where the young boys and old men could wander in woods, shoot guns safely, and learn life lessons from men who had been to war and killed other men. That killing was rarely discussed, and most the stories told were of the foibles of young officers and inexperienced youth having to grow up too fast. But the lessons in gun safety and when not to shoot or the reasons for "catch and release" were priceless.

Times have changed from when I could get on a bike in a small town in Nebraska and strap my .22 to my back and ride down to the town dump to shoot rats or pedal out to a farm and seek permission to hunt in the woods along the fields. No police officer ever interrupted my travels and it was before "Karens," so as long as I obeyed the safety rules taught by my father, everything was good.

It also was on fishing trips with my dad that I learned how his being a white officer in the 10th Cavalry - in which all the troopers and NCOs were African Americans - had taught him to hate prejudice in all forms. Are there better lessons for a father to teach his children?

So where are youth of today getting their "old man" guidance?

Saturday Is Old Radio Day - "The Invader" Escape (1953)

Friday Film - "The Northern Road to Tokyo - WWII U.S. Navy Seabees in the Aleutians

On Midrats 5 February 2023 - Episode 647: American Realism in the Russo-Ukrainian War with Rebeccah Heinrichs

Please join us at 5pm on 5 February 2023 for Midrats Episode 647: American Realism in the Russo-Ukrainian War with Rebeccah Heinrichs

What path best enhances American security and prosperity, along with her allies, when it comes to the Russo-Ukrainian War?

Are American's interests best promoted by more support of Ukraine's ongoing fight for her independence, or by backing away to let things take their natural course?

Isolationists, realists, and idealists are all trying to make their case as to where to go next as the war moves in to its second year.

What are their arguments, and for those who say they promote a "Realist" policy - how do they define Realism?

Our guest for the full hour to discuss this and related issues she raised in her latest article in National Review, "Who are the Real 'Realists' on Ukraine?" will be Rebeccah Heinrichs, senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

If you do miss the show live, you can pick up this episode and others and add Midrats to your podcast list simply by going to you use Apple Podcasts here. Or on Spreaker. Or on Spotify.

Saturday Is Old Radio Day- "The Red Raincoat" Casey, Crime Photographer (1946)

U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report, 28 December 2022 - 25 January 2023

U.S. Navy Office of Naval I... by lawofsea

Saturday Is Old Radio Day - Suspense "The Customers Like Murder" (1943)

On Midrats 29 January 2023 Episode 646: The People's Liberation Army Navy in 2023, with Toshi Yoshihara

Please join us at 5pm on 29 January 2023 for Midrats Episode 646: The People's Liberation Army Navy in 2023, with Toshi Yoshihara

From a navy of peasants to professionals on par with any Western navy; from coastal patrol to global reach, the slow and steady growth of the People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) crept up on some policy makers in the last decade, but as the PLAN eclipses the United States Navy in numbers and is accelerating their industrial capacity and capabilities, the decades of the American uncontested dominance at sea is no longer granted.

Returning to Midrats to discuss this and the larger trends he raises in his new book,Mao's Army Goes to Sea: The Island Campaigns and the Founding of China's Navy, will be Dr. Toshi Yoshihara.

Toshi Yoshihara is a Senior Fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). He was previously the inaugural John A. van Beuren Chair of Asia-Pacific Studies and a Professor of Strategy at the U.S. Naval War College.

In addition to his latest book Mao’s Army Goes to Sea: The Island Campaigns and the Founding of China’s Navy, he co-authored, with James R. Holmes, the second edition of Red Star over the Pacific: China's Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy. He currently teaches a graduate course on seapower in the Indo-Pacific at the School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University.

If you do miss the show live, you can pick up this episode and others and add Midrats to your podcast list simply by going to you use Apple Podcasts here. Or on Spreaker. Or on Spotify.

U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report, 21 December 2022 - 18 January 2023

U.S. Navy Office of Naval I... by lawofsea

Crim

Saturday Is Old Radio Day - Philip Marlowe "The Big Step (1950)

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Friday Films - What the Navy Does and Some History

On Midrats 22 January 2023 Episode 645: The Navy’s New Mission with Bryan McGrath

Please join us at 5pm EST, 22 January 2023 for Midrats Episode 645: The Navy’s New Mission with Bryan McGrath

Officially the Navy may have a “new mission” but it is just putting in to law what has been in existence since the first Stone Age man outfitted his fishing canoe as a war canoe.

In a modern society, words mean things and even what is self-evident must on occasion be put in writing.

What is “Title 10?” That is what tells our Navy what it’s mission is.

We now have new Title 10 language, in Section 8062(a):

“The Navy, within the Department of the Navy, includes, in general, naval combat and service forces and such aviation as may be organic therein. The Navy shall be organized, trained, and equipped for the peacetime promotion of the national security interests and prosperity of the United States and prompt and sustained combat incident to operations at sea. It is responsible for the preparation of naval forces necessary for the duties described in the preceding sentence except as otherwise assigned and, in accordance with integrated joint mobilization plans, for the expansion of the peacetime components of the Navy to meet the needs of war.”

What’s different?

As our guest stated earlier this summer:

“…the peacetime value of the Navy is no longer negotiable, it cannot be minimized, or at least it cannot as easily be minimized. As I said earlier, this is NOT an increase in the Navy’s mission set, it is a codification of the Navy’s mission set. The Navy has been promoting the national security interests and prosperity of the United States in peacetime since its inception, but only now (if passed) will the law actually reflect this.”

Don’t miss this Sunday’s Midrats where almost exactly 13 years since his first appearance, Bryan McGrath, Managing Director of The FerryBridge Group LLC. returns for the full hour to discuss this and more.

If you do miss the show live, you can pick up this episode and others and add Midrats to your podcast list simply by going to you use Apple Podcasts here. Or on Spreaker. Or on Spotify.

(U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Justin McTaggart)

U.S. Navy Office of Naval Intelligence Threat to Shipping (WTS) Report, 14 December 2022 - 11 January 2023

U.S. Navy Office of Naval I... by lawofsea

Saturday Is Old Radio Day: The Cisco Kid "Chain Lightning" (1953)