US Naval History Podcast

This episode  tells the story of the the submarine force during the Cold War, where it was the coldest of cold forces, often operating in the Arctic waters off the Soviet coastline and far from the traditional Cold War hotspots. This is the story of a conventional force turning into a nuclear one, led by Admiral Rickover, with all of the genius and eccentricities he brought with him. Under his watch, the submarine force was transformed into the nation's primary nuclear deterrence shield and a covert espionage platform that spied on and played deadly games of cat-and-mouse with their Soviet counterparts.   Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

I have gotten a few questions which amount to "what will happen if China invades Taiwan?" and this is my attempt at an answer. It's obviously a lot of guesswork, but I think that it is fair to say that a massive worldwide economic and geopolitical upheaval is likely. Supply chains will be massively disrupted and a deep recession or even Great Depression 2.0 are likely outcomes. If China does manage to take Taiwan, they will probably face a insurgency that I'm sure the US government will be happy to help along, in addition to dealing with massive sanctions.  The second half of the episode is a guest post by the excellent podcast ChinaTalk. The episode talks with Michael  O'Hanlon, a senior fellow and director of research at Brookings where  specializes in U.S. defense strategy, the use of military force, and  American national security policy about:  The limits of scenarios that predict the outcome of a China-Taiwan conflict. What are intercontinental rail guns? How sports teams that play each other in the same year can have different outcomes - and what this says about predictability. Given all this, what’s the point of modelling exercises? Go subscribe to ChinaTalk if you have not already, it's a great podcast for anyone interested in Chinese-American relations.  Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

In this episode I talk with Ian W. Toll, one of if not the best American naval historian, about the road to war decision making by Japanese leaders, the lessons learned and how they were applied by US and Japanese naval leaders during the war, and the strategic calculus of Japanese, American, and Soviet governments in the final year of the war. We discuss how each of these topics may parallel decision making by American and Chinese leaders in the run up to a potential hot war and any decision by the CCP to invade Taiwan, and the lessons we can draw from WWII to any near-future Pacific conflict. We close on a discussion about the applicability of a haunting possibility: that in the event of a Pacific conflict between the US and China, the United States Navy may find itself in the role of the Imperial Japanese Navy during WWII: better trained, well prepared at the outset, but lacking the industrial strength to sustain a war of attrition, and thus doomed to lose the long war. Ian Toll's books (click here) Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

In  this episode I talk with Professor David Silbey about the strategic rationale behind the Spanish American War, the Philippine Insurgency and the anti-guerrilla tactics the army honed on the frontier against Native Americans to fight the insurgency, and the boxer Rebellion in China. We discuss how the Boxer Rebellion echoes in Chinese policy towards the world today and dive into some of the strategic calculus that the Chinese government and military may be making today, and why they feel they need a navy and zone of influence.  Tune in for a fascinating discussion.  David Silbey's books (click here) Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

In this episode I talk with historian Eric Jay Dolin about his research on the first decades of America's relationship with China as a new nation. It is the story of global markets, exploration, desperation, drugs, and war which set against the course of America's rise and China's decline in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, setting the stage for this third season of the US Naval History Podcast.  Eric Jay Dolin's books (click here) Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

On September 29, 2006, Michael Monsoor and three SEAL snipers watched vigilantly for enemy activity from their rooftop post in Ar Ramadi, Iraq. When a grenade thrown from insurgents bounced off Michael's chest, he could have escaped. Instead, he threw himself onto the live grenade, shielding his fellow soldiers from the immediate  explosion. Michael died thirty minutes later, having made the ultimate  sacrifice. This is a somewhat unusual episode of the US Naval History Podcast- it is the first time I am not covering a specific era but a person, and the first time I have guests on the podcast. this episode discusses the life, mission, and ongoing legacy of one of our nation's great heroes is Rose Rea, co-author of Defend Us in Battle and retired US Navy CAPT Scott Smith who previously the commissioning Commanding Officer of the USS Michael Monsoor, one of three ultra-modern Zumwalt-class guided missile destroyers.  Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

This episode tells the story of the the Vietnam War brownwater operations, the fighting in the marshes, rivers, the deltas, and creeks of North and South Vietnam. This is also the story of the birth and formative operations of Navy SEAL teams in Vietnam, from daring POW rescue operations, to hostage snatch-and-grab operations taken beneath covering naval gunfire from destroyers offshore.  This is that story... Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

This episode tells the story of the the Vietnam War at sea, of the most intense air battles of the Cold War, of bombardments against the Vietnamese coastline, and the politics  and history behind a war that was unpopular from day one and split the nation in two.  ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/vietnam-bluewater-operations/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ Right after the end of World War Two, the Viet Minh, a communist-led anti imperialist party and army led by Ho Chi Minh claimed control of almost all of the country in the power vacuum immediately after the Japanese surrender. A year later, in 1946 the revived French government sent troops back to occupy its former colony of Vietnam and crushed Ho Chi Minh’s new government, forcing his military to abandon the cities for the jungles, mountains, and countryside. Based on anticolonial principles the United States had initially opposed the French recolonization of Indochina but the victory of the communist just north of Vietnam in the Chinese civil war drove the Truman and Eisenhower administrations to support the French in their war against the Viet Minh. The French were defeated, but we soon took their place. This is that story... Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

This episode finishes the story of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev brought the world to the brink of nuclear annihilation.  ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/the-cuban-missile-crisis/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ With the benefit of secret tapes which revealed the tense decision-making of President Kennedy and his advisors, as well as the secret archives of the Soviet Union that opened up after the end of the Cold War we know that General Maxwell Taylor, Kennedy’s Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the highest-ranking officer in the United States military, advised Kennedy to launch massive airstrikes against Cuba with no advance warning in order to disable the Soviet nuclear weapons in Cuba before they became operational and a threat to the US homeland. We also now know that some of the missiles were, in fact,  already operational and ready to launch on short notice. The Air Force Chief of Staff, General Curtis Lemay told Kennedy, quote, “we don’t have any choice other than direct military action.” Of course, with 20/20 hindsight, we did. Had different choices been made then by President Kennedy, you would likely not be listening to this podcast here today. There probably would not be any podcasts at all. There may not be many humans left at all.  October and November 1962 of the Cuban Missile Crisis were probably the most dangerous days in recorded human history. This is the story. Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

This episode starts Season 2 of the United States Naval History podcast, covering the Cold War, an era of small wars and big bombs looming over a geopolitical tinderbox balanced between east and west, between totalitarian communism and more or less liberal, more or less democracy.  ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/the-korean-war/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ The Korean was a conflict which ripped apart WWII alliances for good and sent American GIs and sailors into direct, meat grinding conflict with their North Korean and Chinese counterparts just five years after the horror of WWII. This episode tells the hot beginnings of the Cold War, of one of the most ambitious and successful amphibious invasions of all time, of the United States Navy’s role in the conflict, and the stories of several veterans who survived the fighting there more than seventy years ago.  Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Buy The Shores of Tripoli game! It's really good! https://www.fortcircle.com/games/

This episode finishes the story of the greatest naval war in world history, stretching across tens of millions of square miles of ocean, involving thousands of warships, dozens of carrier battles, submarine ambushes, bloody beach landings and harrowing night actions on land and at sea. ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/wwii-in-the-pacific-part-2/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ Listen to the story of the assassination of Japanese Admiral Yamamoto, how American submarine warfare succeeded where German submarine warfare failed, the Gilbert and Marshall Island Campaigns (including the bloody assault on Tarawa), the Mariana Campaign, the Battle of the Philippine Sea, and finally bombings and geopolitics which eventually forced Japan to accept surrender.  Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

WWII in the Pacific tells the story of the greatest naval war in world history, stretching across tens of millions of square miles of ocean, involving thousands of warships, dozens of carrier battles, submarine ambushes, bloody beach landings and harrowing night actions on land and at sea. ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/wwii-in-the-pacific-1/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ This episode starts with some background on why the Japanese launched the attack on Pearl Harbor before talking about the attack on Pearl Harbor itself.  Learn about the Doolittle Raid and hear part of an interview with James Doolittle on the raid's effects.  Next up is the Battle of the Coral Sea, which first action in which aircraft carriers engaged each other and the first in which the opposing ships neither sighted nor fired directly upon one another. The Battle of Midway, one of the most consequential naval battles in world history, tuned the tide in the Pacific as three American carriers faced off against four Japanese attacking carriers.  And finally, the Guadalcanal campaign checked Japanese advances in the South Pacific.    Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

Starting more than two years before the United States entered WWII following the attack on Pearl Harbor, this episode tells the story of WWII in the Atlantic and Mediterranean theaters, covering the Battle of the Atlantic, the Sinking of the Bismarck, the breaking of the Enigma codes, and all the way up to D-Day, the invasion of northern France on June 6th, 1944. ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/world-war-ii-in-the-atlantic-and-mediterranean/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

After WWI ended in November of 1918, the victorious world powers looked around realized that even the winners were losers. Yea, Britain and France gained a bunch of colonies and protectorates from the defeated Central Powers, and yeah they were theoretically going to get a reparations payday down the road, but HOLY SHIT, if you’ll excuse the language, it was not freaking worth it. France alone suffered over a million killed in action with another more than four million wounded. Europe’s economy was destroyed, governments had taken on mind-boggling amounts of debt to fight the war, and the fundamental problem of Great Power competition which led to the war had not been fundamentally altered. ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/interwar-period/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ The Interwar Period is the roughly twenty-one-year period between the end of WWI in 1918 and the start of WWII proper in 1939. During this period, we obviously had the roaring 20s followed by the Great Depression. This episode will cover four topics: first, the Washington and London Naval Treaties which laid out the sizes and types of navies each major naval power could wield; second, the technological shifts the treaties accelerated, specifically the development of aircraft carriers and naval aviation; third, the war planning the United States was doing during this period, and last just a little bit about what the Marine Corps was doing during this period and how that would prove to be significant during WWII. Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

At the end of the Civil War the United States was (very briefly) a world-class naval power. But in the midst of a worldwide naval revolution, the United States failed to invest in this technological change after the war ended and quickly fell behind as the country focused on westward expansion.  In the nick of time, Congress invested in the dilapidated United States Navy and began the process of creating a force to again be respected. In this episode, the United States will emerge as a world power and strip Spain of the last vestiges of empire in lopsided Spanish American War.  ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/the-new-navy-the-spanish-american-war/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ Please rate, subscribe, and spread the word about the podcast! Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

Civil War was a titanic conflict. The Navy began the Civil War with only 42 ships in active service and orders to blockade 3,500 miles of coastline and seize control of the South’s rivers. Over then next four years the Union navy would swell to almost 700 warships, lead the world technologically, and play a vital part in reuniting the nation in the bloodiest war the United States has ever fought. The war can also be thought of as the first modern war, a total war where technology, industry, and joint operations played decisive roles and marked a clear transition from the Napoleonic era of horse and infantry line tactic warfare, into the era of screaming shells, trenches, and the scorched earth of the 20th century. ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/civil-war/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ Please rate, subscribe, and spread the word about the podcast! Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠

So long as the Sun shall warm the earth, let no Christian dare come to Japan; and, let all know that the King of Spain himself, or his Christian’s God…if he violates this command shall pay with his head. -Shogun’s Edict of 1638 ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/perry-opens-japan/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ For more than two centuries before Perry arrived Japan was a closed land to Westerners. But a confluence of money and world politics led President Fillmore to send Mexican-American War veteran Matthew Perry to Japan with instructions to open the country to American commerce and sailors. Perry got the job done and ushered in the Meiji Restoration, an era in Japanese history where the country transformed itself at breakneck pace from technological backwater to great power. The ripple effects of this opening were felt most strongly in 1941 when a rising Japan contested the United States Navy for control of the Pacific, and continues to be felt today as our ally in the United States' emerging contest with China. Email me at: ⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠ @USNavyPodcast⁠

This week's episode is about the Navy’s role in the Mexican American-War before circling back to talk about a couple piracy smack-downs, trade, and the Navy’s role as the game-changing naval revolution that the steam engines proved to be during this period.  ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/the-mexican-american-war-and-age-of-steam/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ Email me at: ⁠⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠⁠ @USNavyPodcast⁠⁠

Featuring bloody battles, heroic victories, and a few embarrassing defeats! ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: www.usnavalhistory.com/the-war-of-1812/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ After fighting the Quasi-War with France over the rights of American sailors and merchants at sea, we were now facing the same issues with the British. This episode traces the events leading up to the War of 1812, sometimes referred to as the Second War of Independence, against the Royal Navy which was in its wartime 1,000-ship prime and tells the story of how we "won" (ok, tied...or actually just didn't completely lose) this Second War for Independence thanks to the United States Navy.  Email me at: ⁠⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠⁠ @USNavyPodcast⁠⁠

Right as we gain our independence, the Napoleonic Wars break out in Europe leading to a brief, undeclared war against our former ally France. Following the Quasi-War, you'll hear about US Navy actions in the Barbary Wars against the pirate states of North Africa featuring bribery, coups, battles, and the story of what legendary British Admiral Nelson called “the most bold and daring act of the age.” ⁠Get the (free!) transcript, (free!) bonus content, and sign up for the (free!) newsletter here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/the-quasi-war-and-1st-barbary-war/ ⁠Support the show here: https://www.usnavalhistory.com/#/portal/signup⁠ Email me at: ⁠⁠usnavalhistorypodcast@gmail.com⁠⁠ Follow me on IG: ⁠⁠@USNavyPodcast⁠⁠ Follow me on Twitter:⁠⁠ @USNavyPodcast⁠⁠