Sea Control

Walker interviews US Coast Guard Commander Steven Hulse about his USNI Proceedings article “Bases on the Aleutians Islands Would Project Power Across the Pacific.” Hulse discusses his own experience operating in the Aleutians as a cutterman, and why they are still strategically relevant.

Host Walker D. Mills interviews Marine Corps Captain Colton Byers about his article for the War Quants substack, “Carrier 2.0: The Drone Carrier Revolution.” Their discussion covers salvo equations and modeling, the utility of drone carriers, and how they might integrate with a modern naval fleet.

Pieter Zhao joins the program to discuss his article, “Outsourcing Security at Sea—The Return of Private Maritime-Security Companies and Their Role in Twenty-First-Century Maritime Security.” He discusses the growing role of private maritime-security companies in the modern world and situations where they could provide maritime security. Pieter W.G. Zhao is a PhD Researcher and Junior Lecturer at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, focusing on history and international relations in the maritime domain. He is also a Nonresident Fellow at the Irregular Warfare Initiative. His doctoral research analyzes the changing dynamics in the 21st-century maritime warfare and security environment from an applied historical perspective, focusing on non-state actors and irregular warfare at sea. J. Overton is co-host of the Sea Control podcast and edited the essay collection “Seapower by Other Means: Naval Contributions to National Objectives Beyond Sea Control, Power Projection, and Traditional Service Missions.”

Commander William Spears, U.S. Navy, joins the program to discuss his article, “What Moral Leadership Looks Like,” which examines the philosophical approach of Admiral Stockdale during his time as a POW in North Vietnam. Commander William C. Spears is a submarine warfare officer in the U.S. Navy and the author of Stoicism as a Warrior Philosophy: Insights on the Morality of Military Service, forthcoming in November by Casemate Publishers. Addison Pellerano edited and produced this episode.

By Brian Kerg Major Chris Denzel of the United States Marine Corps and Mr. Sebastian Bae of the Center for Naval Analyses to discuss their experience supporting wargaming in the Pacific, specifically in support of bilateral wargames involving the U.S. and Japan. Chris Denzel is an intelligence officer and operational planner. He is currently serving as the J-52 Posture Plans Officer, U.S. Forces Japan. He previously served as the G-5 bilateral U.S.-Japan plans officer, III Marine Expeditionary Force, in Okinawa, Japan, where he ran an annual bilateral U.S.-Japan ground-force wargame. Sebastian Bae is a Senior Game Designer and Research Scientist at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA). He focuses on wargaming, emerging technologies, and future warfare. He is also an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, teaching a graduate course on game design. Additionally, he co-chairs the Military Operations Research Society (MORS) Wargaming Community of Practice. Bae served six years in the Marine Corps as an infantryman and is a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Daniel Banks joins the show to talk about this writing and research into the logistics networks, particularly the maritime and naval networks, that helped Guiseppe Garibaldi succeed in this reunification of Italy in 1860. Daniel Banks is a postdoctoral fellow in Global History and Governance at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale in Naples, Italy. He is currently working on completing a book manuscript that shows how groups of political agitators used the Mediterranean Sea's business and transport networks to foment revolutions that transformed states and empires like Italy, Spain, France and French Algeria from the 1850s to the 1870s. He can be followed on Bluesky at https://bsky.app/profile/danielobanche.bsky.social