Jonathan interviews scholar Andrew Blackley about his new book Wielding the Trident: Admiral Raymond A. Spruance and America’s Victory in the Pacific. The two discuss Spruance’s career and his contribution to Allied victory in the Pacific War.

Host Brian Kerg talks with Jason Wang and Marvin Bernardo to discuss their report, “Everything Everywhere All At Once: The Growing Complexity of PLA Amphibious Exercises,” published by the Naval War College’s China Maritime Studies Institute (CMSI). Jason Wang is a national security researcher and COO of ingeniSPACE, a Silicon Valley geointelligence analytics house. Marvin Bernardo is a PhD candidate at the National Jung ju University, Taiwan, and serves as a maritime domain analyst at ingeniSPACE. The report was also co-authored by Andrew Erickson and Pei-Jhen Wu.

Dr. Michał Piekarski joins the show to discuss his chapter “From Cold War Warriors to Blue Water Ambitions: Evolution of Polish Maritime Strategy in context of NATO Enlargement” which is Included in the newest book in the ISPK SeaPower series “Guardians of the North Atlantic”

Host Brian Kerg talks with LtCol Bobby Fowler, USMC, to discuss his Marine Corps Gazette article, “From Patrol to Protection: Operationalizing Marine Military Police for Base Defense.”

Conrad Waters, editor of the Seaforth World Naval Review joins Jonathan to discuss the 2026 edition. The two discuss naval developments over the last year and how things look in the upcoming year.

Rae Baker joins the program to discuss all things maritime open source intelligence, including her book “Deep Dive: Exploring the Real World Value of Open Source Intelligence.”

Ian Brown joins the program to talk about his book - Snowmobiles and Grand Ideals John Boyd's Vision for Thriving in Chaos, and John Boyd’s continuing relevance to current events.

Host Brian Kerg talks with TH Schee to discuss his work supporting Civil Defense in Taiwan.

Tom Duffy joins the program to talk about his chapter "NATO Maritime Strategies and Naval Operations since 1985: Multilateral Naval Arrangements in the “Tanker War”” which is included in the new book from the ISPK SeaPower series titled Guardians of the North Atlantic: NATO Maritime Strategies and Naval Operations in Turbulent Times. He discusses similarities and differences between those Persian Gulf naval operations from the 1980s, and today’s Operation Epic Fury.

Brian C. Chao professor of national security at the Naval War College joins Jonathan on the podcast to discuss his new book Continental Powers and Naval Development: Strategy Coherence, Threat Diffusion, and Success at Sea.