Episode Notes:

Steve Walsh talks with Jonathan Panter, executive editor of Cogs of War at War on the Rocks and a former surface warfare officer (SWO), for a first-hand account of life in the surface fleet. Drawing on tours aboard an amphibious assault ship and a guided missile cruiser, Panter explains how surface officers learn their trade and why combat in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf is forcing hard questions about trading costly interceptors against cheap drones.

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