To Provide and Maintain a Navy: An Interview with Dr. Hendrix

Professional Military Education

This episode of the PME Podcast focuses on the U.S. Navy. My guest is Dr. Henry “Jerry” Hendrix, and he is the author of a book called To Provide and Maintain a Navy. In this interview, we discuss the many challenges that the U.S. Navy faces. Dr. Hendrix thinks that America needs to get serious about the threats from Russia and China in the maritime domain. He argues U.S. defense policy has been too land focused and neglected maritime strategy.

Additional topics include the following:

• The link between the concept of the “free sea”, natural law, and individual liberty
• Current laws of the sea to include the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS)
• How America’s strategic outlook has shifted from being Naval focused to “continental” focused
• The evolution of both China and Russia’s ambitions from territorial to maritime
• The development of China’s Navy and their goal to become a “blue water” Navy
• The decline of the U.S. Navy in the post-Cold War era
• U.S. shipbuilding infrastructure relative to China’s shipbuilding infrastructure
• How the U.S. industrial base consolidated in the post-Cold War era and the impact that the shrinking industrial base has had on America’s ability to re-build a Navy
• Dr. Hendrix sees our Naval policy and America’s overall national security policy as being fundamentally “unserious”
• The tactical and strategic challenge that the Navy faces specifically as it relates to Anti-Access Aerial Denial (A2AD) weapons

Dr. Hendrix book is To Provide and Maintain a Navy

Dr. Hendrix has a Twitter account @jerryhendrixII and can also be found at the Sagamore Institute

Two of his recent articles can be found at National Review and Foreign Policy.

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