We discuss the Vietnam-era drone, the QH-50 DASH, with Peter Papadakos – engineer, historian, and son of the DASH’s inventor. We go through the program’s origins, its original purpose, the field modifications made by enterprising Vietnam-era officers, and the challenges that came with its operation and the institutional resistance to its use. This podcast was inspired by BJ Armstrong’s Armed Forces Journal Article, Unmanned Naval Warfare: Retrospect and Prospect.
This week Natalie Sambhi interviews fellow Aussie Laura Spano, Arms Control Manager with the Centre for Armed Violence Reduction and Pacific Regional Coordinator for Control Arms. They discuss small arms flows globally before focussing on the impacts of illicit arms flows, as a result of weak maritime security, into the South Pacific Islands—a region of great strategic importance to Australia. Laura explains the Arms Trade Treaty and how UN regimes on arms control are essential for development in Australia’s closest region.
CAPT Jim Raimondo of the United States Navy joins Sea Control for a discussion on Navy Fitness Reports (FITREPS) as well as his time working on Iraq, Iran, and Russia. CAPT Raimondo is a Federal Executive Fellow with the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy as well as a fleet representative for the U.S. Naval Institute. He is participating in a Navy working group examining reforms to FITREPs. He formerly served as the senior EUCOM representative in the Pentagon and as an planner for the 2011 transition in Iraq.
Professor Thomas Nichols, Naval War College Professor, joins us to discuss the topic of his article, “The Death of Expertise,” and the utility and interplay between new ideas, expertise, and the kinds of knowledge used by and found in the professional space and life in general.