From showing the flag in the Mediterranean in the first decades of our republic's history, through Teddy's Great White Fleet, to FONOPS in today's South China Sea - "being there" is a little understood strategic mission.

What is its history and utility in the 21st Century?

Our guest for the full hour will be Dr. James Holmes, returning to Midrats to discuss this and related issues.

Dr. Holmes is a professor of strategy and holds the J. C. Wylie Chair of Maritime Strategy at the Naval War College. A former U.S. Navy surface-warfare officer and combat veteran of the first Gulf War, he served as a weapons and engineering officer in the battleship Wisconsin, engineering and firefighting instructor at the Surface Warfare Officers School Command, and military professor of strategy at the Naval War College. He was the last gunnery officer to fire a battleship’s big guns in anger.

The book he co-authored with Toshi Yoshihara, Red Star over the Pacific, now in its second edition.