When I started the podcast, the vision was a discussion forum for maritime issues with a bias towards defense and foreign policy. As Mahan’s vision for securing sea lines of communication for global trade, the name Sea Control felt like a historically and conceptually appropriate hat-tip to our own humble line of communication for trade in maritime ideas from around the Free World. Mahan’s term also hit the sweet spot for topical focus and latitude. Granted, at the time we were more of a podcasting “Fleet in Being” – but we left room to dream!
– Matt Hipple, former CIMSEC President and Sea Control founder.
What’s in a logo?
When we relaunched the podcast in January 2020, part of the pitch was a broad approach to maritime security. Episodes would pivot from force-on-force comparisons of the US and Chinese navies in the South China Sea, to lawfare, governance in the Gulf of Guinea, deep policy discussions around the Bay of Bengal, regulation of IUU fishing, to trade and freedom of navigation. The podcast would also reinforce that the ‘I’ in CIMSEC stands for International, moving around the globe to address topics from Africa to the Arctic. That international focus is only amplified by our podcast hosts’ locations on the US West Coast, in South America and in Europe.
There are a number of deliberately chosen elements brought together to tell a story of as many aspects of modern Sea Control, both the concept and the podcast.
The new logo is intended to depict a modern convoy operation. The large merchant vessel represents the importance of sea lines of communications. Despite its position in the background, it’s the largest single element pictured, mirroring the massive role maritime trade plays in the modern world.
A destroyer is pictured in the foreground, aggressively maneuvering through the convoy to position itself as an escort for the merchants. The destroyer is representative of the navies tasked to establish Sea Control or wrest it from a determined enemy.
Overhead is a modern maritime patrol aircraft, the P-8 Poseidon. The P-8 is a modified 737, employed here as part of the protective umbrella for the convoy, deploying sonobuoys to track enemy submarines, and using its surface search radar to scan the sea ahead of the destroyer and identify other threats. The P-8’s predecessor, the P-3C Orion, played an outsized role in maritime security over the last four decades, deploying under multiple flags to protect sea lanes against peer navies and pirates alike.
The convoy is transiting an unnamed chokepoint. Land is visible in the background, a reminder that Sea Control isn’t an end unto itself, but rather, to quote Capt. (ret) Wayne Hughes, “The seat of purpose is on land.”1
The new logo was designed by Evelyn Jhonson. She can be reached at evlynjhonson910@gmail.com.
Endnotes
- Hughes, Wayne P., and Robert Girrier. Fleet Tactics and Naval Operations Third edition. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 2018.
