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John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Apr 6

China could have the Baltimore ship channel fully cleared in weeks but yesterday @POTUS said yesterday for the Army Corps of Engineers it will take months 🤦‍♂️

I blame the West Point Mafia and their budget demon. Please let me explain…

Truth is bridges are an Army Corps of Engineers responsibility but they are so unprepared they gave the job to Navy Salvage to lead. Navy salvage is so broken they had to outsource it to the US subsidiary/partner of a European firm which is chartering equipment from private companies at great expense. Equipment that’s weak & small compared to what the European parent has overseas.

And it’s the Army’s own fault. The West Point Mafia has systematically destroyed our nation’s maritime strength.

When I was 10 Vinzzini taught me the first lesson of war “You’ve fell victim to one of the classic blunders! Never get involved in a land war in Asia”

Yet in my adult life the United States fought not one but two wars in Asia.

How did we pay for those? By gutting our maritime capabilities.

With Chinese military capability growing exponentially, how do you win a war in Asia? The same way we did in WW2: with ships & marines with the Army and Air Force serving a support role

Except there is a problem, the current and last Secretaries of Defense are West Pointers. The SECDEF before that was a marine but he was forced out after a disagreement with the Secretary of State who was a West Pointer

Two decades of Land Wars in asia have decimated our Maritime capabilities as trillions was rerouted into Army coffers by the West Point mafia demon in DC

And now that the land wars are over is the Army Corps of Engineers helping rebuild shipyards and bridges? Is the Army rebuilding its once mighty fleet of dredges? Is it working jointly with the SeaBees and Merchant Marine? Is it rebuilding watercraft?

No today’s West Point mafia leader Jack Reed controls the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee & has blocked the Future of the Navy Commission That Congress created to develop a Naval rebuilding strategy

Now under General Lloyd Austin & Reed EVERY SINGLE navy shipbuilding project is delayed.

The West Point Mafia has gutted every Maritime service:

Navy National Guard (Naval Militia): now only a boat service in a small handful of states

United States Navy Armed Guard: gone

US Navy Reserve: zero ships in inventory

USCG Icebreaker fleet: down to one ship

US Navy salvage fleet: mostly gone

Seabees: cut to 7,000 active personnel

Merchant Marine: now less than 80 ships in international service

MARAD Ready Reserve Fleet: small & on average age a half century old

US Maritime Service: just a handful of officers at the US Merchant Marine academy

Marine Hospital Service; gone except the uniforms

NOAA Officer Corps: down to 330 officers

Army Corps of Engineers dredge fleet: includes ancient hulls like the 57-year-old dredge McFarland

Army Corps of Engineers salvage: the last SECDEF, @EsperDoD sold all Army salvage vessels in Baltimore

Army Watercraft: gutted by at action by Esper

USCG: forced to cut 10 cutters this year alone

I could go on but I have something more important to say:

🚨 NOW THEY ARE COMING FOR THE CARRIERS AND SUBMARINES🚨

(I will post the details of the carrier and sub delays in post 2 of the thread)

If Jack Reed & the West Point Mafia wins the next war in Asia will be lost.

Problem is there is nobody to stop them because the think tanks, defense contractors and DoD civil servants know who wields the power and nobody in Navy or Coast Guard uniform has the moral courage to ruin their career by calling out Jack Reed & General Austin in the media or during a senate hearing.

P.S. why am I using quotes from the Princess Bride & making light of the problem by creating the West Point Mafia Demon meme? Because it doesn’t require a PhD to see what is happening.

The gutting of every critical maritime capability to pour money into Land Wars is something any 10 year can see is idiotic.

https://twitter.com/paulmcleary/status/1775287808724226289

🚨 Senator Jack Reed, Army General Austin and the WEST POINT MAFIA are now COMING FOR OUR CARRIERS AND SUBMARINES 🚨

They have already succeeded in cutting 14,700 sailors from the Navy next year and delayed the building of new carriers warships and submarines.

👇👇

https://twitter.com/paulmcleary/status/1775287808724226289

Why am I able to call out the Jack Reed and General Austin when NOBODY else in DC or the DOD is?

Why can I call it them West Point Mafia without fear of repercussions? (in fairness General Berger, USMC obliquely tried last year)

Because my service was the first killed and my service has absolutely nothing left to lose. They can take nothing from me because they have completely gutted my service to the bone.

Signed,
Captain John A Konrad V
US Merchant Marine

👇TO THE BONE 👇

Read 9 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Apr 2

https://twitter.com/dgolden811/status/1775260559702655255

Hacking a ship like the Dali would be difficult but is not impossible.

A short 🧵on how to hack a ship

https://twitter.com/dgolden811/status/1775260559702655255

First we should explain why it’s difficult to do and why it’s unlikely the MV Dali was hacked.

It’s difficult because most bridge and engine control system are air gapped from the internet meaning not directly connected.

When they are connected to internet enabled devices (like when the pilot plugs his cellular connected navigation tablet into the bridge computers) that data stream is one way only.

The pilot can read the ship’s data on his tablet but not control engines or steering.

Read 39 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Mar 9

CMA, arguably the most important annual shipping conference in the USA, is just outside NYC this week and for the first time ever I'm absolutely dreading it.

Here are the top 10 reasons why 🧵

cmashippingevent.com/en/attend/why-…

1) The bad takes on the situation in the Red Sea are going to be unreal. The shipping industry does not understand naval combat operations and instead of inviting naval experts they will be having "maritime security" experts trained in piracy.

2) Despite being the most important maritime conference that includes important talks about shipbuilding and finance the US Navy typically sends ZERO officers.

The US Navy desperately needs more ships but refuses to come sit down with the bankers who attend.

Read 12 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Jan 27

https://twitter.com/auroraintel/status/1751040254214017345

It looks like the crew laid down a blanket of firefighting foam. Unfortunately the ship looks like she’s listing slightly to starboard so the foam is running down the side.

Foam is difficult to use. 🧵

https://twitter.com/auroraintel/status/1751040254214017345

Ships crew practice during firefighting training but that’s in idea situations. For obvious reasons very few crews have the opportunity to practice in real fires.

The basic STCW training class has a minimal requirement of 16-hours of firefighting training every 5 years

During this 16-hour class, the mariner gets about eight hours of classroom training and eight hours of hands-on firefighting, which is not a lot of time by our standards to master a skill that could kill you.

And only about 30 minutes of that training is using foam

Read 26 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Jan 15

https://twitter.com/lovemylife81/status/1746925017873478114

The fear mongers aren’t even bothering to pick good ship disaster photos.

Here’s a 🧵some of the best via @gCaptain

https://twitter.com/lovemylife81/status/1746925017873478114

M/V Hyundai Fortune, Gulf of Aden 2006: gcaptain.com/incident-photo…

M/V Pasha Bulker, Australia 2006: gcaptain.com/official-repor…

Read 6 tweets

John Ʌ Konrad V

@johnkonrad

Dec 17, 2023

I’m a merchant ship Captain who runs a large news company for commercial shipping.

Five years ago I had zero interest in Naval or military affairs but this guy @mercoglianos just kept calling me telling me shipping is in BIG trouble if the US Navy keeps ignoring the concerns of the security shipping industry.

I’ll be completely honest, I ignored him for years. We had the strongest Navy on earth, and nobody was close. How could this be that big of a concern?

I wasn’t completely oblivious. I’ve listened to @cdrsalamander’s podcast every week for over a decade. He gave similar warnings.

I even wrote early articles about China’s islands building campaigns and the US Merchant Marines’s aging sealift fleet. But those were mostly isolated concerns.

But Sal did not stop calling. Slowly I started putting in a heavy amount of work into naval and military research… and unfortunately I found that Sal was 🎯

It’s estimated the department of defense will spend over $1.7 trillion this year but, apart from some @MSCSealiftjob ads (which I am eternally grateful for) not a penny of that is going into my business.

My business makes money by focusing on commercial shipping concerns but I began to realize tsunami was about to capsize the industry. That tsunami would land at the crossroads of shipping and naval affairs.

So that’s where I have focused my efforts these past few years.

Why? A few reasons

1) Sal became a close friend and I enjoy working with him on hard problems

2) Sal is smarter than me, and much better informed on the topic.

3) it’s in impossible problem and extremely complicated problem to solve.

4) I tried, but failed to find anyone willing to work full-time on the project with Sal.

5) We failed to convince most people that this days was coming but the best and the brightest naval and military minds - people like @brentdsadler @NextNavy @JerryHendrixII @Admiral_Foggo @stavridisj @Lazarus_Navy @HunterStires @GordianKnotRay @cgberube @WWATMD @naval_gazing @salisbot @SebastianBae @CTReese2 @MAGTravF @ElbridgeColby @JoshuaSteinman @MaritimeAmerica @TrentTelenko @TPLevine85 @BDHerzinger - intellectual giants slowly started seeing what we were seeing and encouraged us to push on.

Some like @brentdsadler @JerryHendrixII started working with us on the issue! We even found a few like @GordianKnotRay @SobinNeil working on the same problems independently.

This was important confirmation that we were not wasting the only resource that truly matters.

6) I honestly could not think of anything more important to world, peace, and security than this project. Billions of people have been lifted from poverty from low cost and efficient shipping. Without it those people will starve and the world will slide back into the dark ages.

So I went all in.

Fortunately, for us - but unfortunately, for the rest of the world - this week’s ship attacks in the Red Sea are confirmation that @mercoglianos predictions and concerns were bullseye accurate.

But there is still a lot of work to do. we have an extremely powerful and connected network that is gaining enormous traction in policy circles and online but the large majority ( well over 99%) of both the public and policy influencers still think we are overreacting.

Despite the thousands of pages and hours of video @mercoglianos has documented still nobody like Peter Thiel is writing him a check to fix these problems.

But that’s OK because it is coming. Coming quick.

Why am I writing all of this??

Because what Peter Thiel says below is 100% accurate. Despite the fact that the prom we are working on, could lead to massive famine, energy, shortages, and even world war. Even though the majority of my own shipping community and the defense industrial complex still think we far out in left field with our concerns. Despite all of this, I go to bed each night with deep satisfaction that my efforts are making a difference. /1

This is all a distraction for my company, which profits when I focus on shipping - not naval - matters but I am confident that profits will follow hard work and - most importantly - I go to bed each night with a DEEP sense of satisfaction.

The key to life is:

Take close care of family then work hard on the most difficult problem you can find.

P.S. this is not my first rodeo. I I saw out the most difficult problems in the Maritime. We’re all when I was a captain and Macke gave me the taste of satisfaction.

Then - after the deep water horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico - every single person told me that understand the story was too complicated a problem to solve.

But Tom Shroder - former editor of the Washington Post magazine - Told me we could do it by focusing on the people who had stories to tell.

And he was right.

The book led to serious changes within the industry, reviews I am extremely proud of, bestselling status, and is still taught in some of the top colleges in the station.

None of this is to brag . It is instruction on how to live a fulfilling and consequential life.

Go find the hardest problem you can find and the smartest person working on it. Help them succeed and follow their lead.

It’s as much about the person as it is the problem.

Do you want to make a real positive difference in this world go find your Dr. Sal @mercoglianos and work hard to lend them a hand.

P.S.2. Despite many of the best naval minds, encouraging us that we are on the right track and despite the fact that. @mercoglianos’ hypothesis is coming true. And despite the fact that people like @maphumanintent (mastermind behind the Fufeng scandal) applying leverage I did not know existed.

Despite all of that, it is extremely difficult to convince people that we need to act right now.

And that’s what I enjoy most about this problem we are working on. Like a great book or video game it just keeps getting harder and more complex the further we press on.

I would not have it any other way.

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