Welcome back to the channel, man. We're dropping daily NBA 2K21 content and we're streaming basically daily for the next few days as well. If y'all new, man, you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. I just got out of Rookieville. I'm excited to let y'all know that I'm about to be exploring every small little crevice, the NBA 2K21 city. It's grand. I've seen the videos. I've seen the photos, man. And I've heard what Ronnie had to say. I'm excited to just experiment with myself and ladies and gentlemen, let's get into it. First of all, I didn't get a chance to choose. I'm a Western Wildcat. I'm literally fighting for grinding spot at Northside City Night's Heights. The guy next to us look weird. They're diamonds now. What is this? What is this? Oh, that's so cool. While you're waiting, literally the view of the whole court just changes. Does every other court do that too? Is it gonna do it with this one? That would be tough if it does it on the threes. Oh, that's tough. But can I see the other side of the court? Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm dribbling right now, man. Badge plug. Badge plug! Am I playing him or am I just shooting around?  This is so cool.  I love you guys. And you guys get on the game, it's gonna be real lit. I don't know. It's kind of just cool to have like you're in a park and then like 80% of the people you run into are just other YouTubers. It's kind of cool.  I need to go to the skate shop because I want to be able to like move quicker. Is it an NPC? Okay, guys, chat. What were we waiting for? I like the fish. She got some unique going on. She got the black, the black tank top with the overalls but the overalls like convert into like tights. And she got the running shoes on, like she going for a jog, which I'll rate the fit. I didn't want to chat. Yeah, I'm talking about, okay, who we got here? Play Daily Pick'em. I like how they put this in the middle of the park now. They used to have it like in very specific areas but there's nothing to pick because there's no NBA games. Holy, there's so much. I don't even know, where do I even begin when it comes to, is that a giant Colby mural? Oh, it's not. It's Kevin Durant. Damn, that's way less exciting. Never mind. Man, there's so much to it. All right, y'all said there's a map. Who? Who? Who? Yo, I'm about to click one of these, right? Let me find out there's a waypoint. Say waypoint. Where's the waypoint? Okay, I just said a waypoint. Where is it? All right, here's the waypoint. Now, where is it on the map? Oh, oh my God, that's dope. Okay, cool. Hey, so that's how we're gonna navigate now. Where are we on this map? So we're on the very tippity top. Let's go around and then we'll go to the middle, huh? That's the avenue we're gonna go in. Oh, hold on. No, no, no, no, I wanna dance. Hold LT and right stick gestures to perform strength. You can string together dance moves? All right, well, we got, well, we got, well, we got, we got though. This is what he got guys. This is it. This is the most underwhelming. He would kill it at a club though. You know what I'm saying? Just a vibe playing. He just bump into it.  We probably had to buy the dances now. I'm thinking about it. Hey, no cap chat. We're about to do a dance competition. It's gonna drop on the channel. Whoever string together the craziest dance moves, I'm gonna judge it with some of my dance associates. Anyone still have my idea, bro? And we're fighting. R2 is how you go, by the way, as it's like you're a car. Oh, can I jump this? That's hard. That's hard. Oh, you gotta be kidding me. We gotta find some rails, man. That's tough. Okay, cool. We got a court right here. Ronnie 2K did tell everybody that we're supposed to investigate when you see courts. No basketball owned. You do not own a basketball. Go to JT Sporting Goods. Oh my God. Am I going slower because I'm going uphill? Let me see what you're talking about though. Talk to people around the city to unlock new challenges and objectives that reward exclusive prizes. You can also find unique vendors who sell exclusive items knocked down in stores in addition to new job moves and dance moves. Hannah Silva. Hannah, that's a beautiful name, Hannah.  We can make it a date. It'll be incredible. I'll bring food. I'll bring boosts. Just me and you. I'm lost. I'm literally, I have waypoints and a map and I'm lost. Is that Kobe, the Kobe court, guys? This is where the Kobe court is. Oh my God. I'm in love. I'm in love. If they don't let me play on this basketball court right now. I don't want any hands. Oh my God. This is incredible. That was good, JT. I heard you have a basketball with my name on it. Make sure it's an EVO. I don't expect anything less. Hi, let me know if I can help you. JT's a girl? I just caught me on guard.  I just never met a person named JT that was a female. But hey, man, you know what I'm saying? You learn something new every day. I'm not gonna judge. Basketballs. What? I don't have that money. Chat, which basketball is free? Do you guys see the free one? I see the ones that cost 25,000. Do you guys see the free ones? And I'm just gonna buy this. You have one? I don't have a basketball, guys. I literally checked. Look, guys, look.  Oh, you have to equip it first. Bought the camel basketball, guys. Woo! So these are the Gatorade courts. Equip basketball. We pulled out the basketball. He, who? Boom, attack. Boom, dah! Left-handed dunk. That's kinda cool. I mean, I'm not gonna just do this for no reason. But that's kinda cool. Hmm? That's kinda cool. Yo, you mean to tell me if we're running wa- Who? Who? Yo, if we're running wagers, you can just be like, ah, yo, come to the Gatorade court. Boom. And then now you play two on twos. You can jibble around the park! Oh my God. This is so tough.  There's so much new things. It just makes me, I'm smiling, man.  Now he's jibbling again. Can you do jibble moves? You can't do jibble moves, unfortunately. You just jibble with your main hand. And I'm putting up buckets just like that, man. When Roddy dropped his video, I was impressed, but I knew that he didn't show us everything. You know what I'm saying? He kinda just teased us. Roddy teases us a lot. You know what I'm saying? He's a teaser kinda guy. But right now, man, am I impressed or what? I've never been this impressed with a 2K since like 2K16 gameplay. 2K21 Next Gen Park has got me as impressed with 2K16 gameplay. I just hope the gameplay of this game can live up. If you imagine this gameplay as good as 2K16, this game set match, fellas. Oh, oh, this is the thing he was talking about! Let's grind the rails!  Ha ha ha! I love that! Someone is like, now we wanna make this realistic. You know what I'm saying? Let's board up, right guys? And let's see if we can hit this. Ollie! This is a basketball game, ladies and gentlemen. Can you Ollie from this direction?  Oh, they actually let me go pretty far! Let's pull them out. Ollie, baby! Oh, that's hard. That's so hard! And then let's continue to Ollie this direction! Damn! Oh! I'm getting good at this whole skateboarding thing, man. Okay, so there's a whole bunch of different store fronts here. They got the wheel spot. Let's pop in here real quick and see what kind of rise they got. So these are locked. The trikes are locked and the choppers are locked, but the BMX bikes aren't. They got bike parts.  You can customize your, oh, they're just colors. They have different handlebars, not just the colors. Damn! 70,000 for a bike. I'm gonna head back out of here real quick, man. You keep that bike right where it is, man, cause I'm not dropping 70,000 on it. I'll tell you that. Oh, this is rookie kingdom. Look, look, look, look, look, guys. So I guess that's all the way here on this side of the map. And you can see these peasants playing in rookie dumb. So they got the embellish. Y'all can get your bust down. 20,000, this is fake. This is fake. It's too cheap. This is the Cuban, okay? Yo, who's buying a goddamn bronze chain for the same price as a gold Cuban? These are fairly cheap, but these real? Watches, these are mad cheap. Mad cheap. I'll get this one right here. Yeah, I'm gonna put diamonds on it later, guys, when I get my funds up. Mexican grill, they just put random signs everywhere, huh? Over here, they got the wreck. I guess all the main game modes are, okay, I wanna walk in here just to see. Hopefully it doesn't throw me into a game. There's no way. This is the waiting room for the wreck? Oh my God. So you could just chill here and wait for, wait with your friends, I assume. And then when it's ready, you just hop into the locker room. And then now you're waiting for teammates. Now, 2K, please tell me that you give people an option to click circle this year if they don't wanna wait forever. Oh my God. Alrighty, fellas, okay, well that was the wreck. That all the way up there is the my team thing they decided to put in the park for some reason. Pink diamond plaza, and you know, very, very up tippity-top at the top right of the screen. You could see a crescent moon, almost a half moon, guys. It's almost a half moon. Oh, okay, so this is where the city hall is. So this is where I'm gonna be made a north side city night's heights real soon, guys. Affiliation transfer request. Actually, you know, Grinig told me not to do that because he already went down to a rookie, and I don't wanna make that mistake and end up in rookie them.  Where is the pro-am arena? I'm looking for the pro-am arena. Man, just the scale of this place is truly massive. A lot of these buildings aren't really anything, but. All right, so we just completed making a pro-am team. I kinda wanna just jump in. I'm hoping that I actually don't know what I'm expecting at all. So I'm about to find out. New to NBA 2K, whoa, is the pro-am league night. Gather your team on league nights to play ranked games and move your way up the season ladder. No. You mean to tell me it's only ranked on certain days? Is there a reason I can't go on this side here? Is this like practice and that's like game? Is that how this works? Okay, okay, okay, okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're coming up on the Gatorade facility. Keep in mind the rent accords are on the top floor here. I muted it for your convenience guys, but there is horrible music playing. The gym is bigger and there's more equipment, I guess, because the city's gonna host way more people. And over here is the rents accords that hopefully you don't have to pay VC for. I'm very curious what happens when I walk up here. Very curious, because you don't even need these to play games with people no more. Gym rentals, welcome to the Gatorade Gym Rental Courts. Here you can rent any of the available courts for the amount of time you choose. Practice by yourself, get your friends over for a scrimmage or shoot around. Interact with rental boards and the courts, enter, okay, okay, okay. And it's open? Can I pull out my basketball? You can't, okay. All right, okay, talk to me now. It says rent the courts. Am I paying for this or what? What's happening? I don't understand how this works. So there's one court, there's two court, three courts and four courts. Jesus, this is like a dream, by the way. Imagine you lived in a city that just had this downtown. Wait, wait, wait, I didn't even get a chance to see what I did. Okay, that's going for 30 minutes. I'm gonna rent all these courts, they're gonna be mine. Your rental will end in, okay, hold on. We're waiting for the other rental to finish up. I guess you can't hog all the courts, that's good. That'd have been a problem if people just did that to be toxic. Okay, cool, rent this court. 30 minutes is 20. We have to pay?  Just call it rent a court, bro, but it doesn't cost you nothing. Now this is irrelevant VC amounts. 154 hours is irrelevant. But we gotta pay, though? Come on, 2K, I knew that was gonna be corny.  Is y'all not gonna make VC off me spending 20 VC? Then that's nothing to y'all. But it ruined experience, though. So I guess you can just invite however many friends and these are private courts, I assume, right? Because the random garage courts throughout the city, those is regular courts anybody could hop on, but these are supposed to be private. So I guess that's how you separate what these purposes are for. Oh, and these are where the statues are. Look, okay, this is the statue for the Northside City Night's Heights. This is the statue for the East-B-Side, B-Side. And then on the other side, I'm assuming this is where the others two are. Okay, damn, Swag's got a big facelift. Just like a red carpet just to get in this. All right, I'll let you know, baby. Black Lives Matter, eyewear, tie-dye. A lot of this stuff is locked. Face masks, okay. Somebody asked about the face masks. Cool, let's go to DJ Station. 250,000? They must think we're millionaires. I swear, in two cases like now, these guys is all millionaires, bro. That's why I was gonna charge 250,000 for this DJ Station. Face masks, I guess these are new. Between 5,000 and 7,500. I guess depending on whether they're custom or generic. Oh, hold on, we got a backpack just to pop up right here. This used to be in Swag's, wasn't it? I guess they just separated it. This is my team.   So, I have no interest in entering my team. But it does look dope up there though. You know what I'm saying? I like the integration. They're trying to get my team players to play Park and vice versa. So, oh, this is the Dwarag section. So, I guess they got all the kiosk right outside the event center in the city center. She's selling Dwarags, guys? I just don't think she's like the prospective customer for Dwarags. Maybe she's trying to keep the moisture in her hair. I don't know, 15,000. These are the same Dwarags I was in current agenda. I don't think there's anything different. I don't know, they got two-tone Dwarags. I mean, I don't know. I didn't even buy the Dwarags last year, so. NBA Store is gonna be the same thing. But just for content purposes, I will investigate. And I see this guy just came, and grinding, jerked out, hold on. Hey, Grindy, I see you spend a bag. I played that up here two years twice. You said what agent? I see you spend a bag at the NBA store, man. I like that, I like that.  Did you figure that out? Hey, since everyone's asking for the hairstyles, I'm about to change my hairstyle, so I'll show you guys. Boom, boom. I'm gonna head back to the Northside City Nights Heights. I'm gonna get jerked out, man.  They added some new hairstyles, or at least some that I don't recognize. But they're largely hairstyles that they just brought back. Oh!  I don't know how to do tricks, man. Man, I didn't sleep at all. No cap, guys. I just been awake this whole time, working on thumbnails and titles, and it's 7.30 a.m. right now, man. I appreciate y'all being here, though, for real. I'm gonna start streaming two, three times a week. By the next stream, I have the membership set up, have emotes and all that for the people who wanna join in on that. I'm uploading twice today, twice tomorrow, and then daily past that. So the grind is gonna be real. Y'all knew subscribe. Yo, do not make this. I swear, agent, I will unsubscribe, bro. I will unsubscribe. Oh. Dude.


Have you ever come home at the end of a long day to find an injured cat? If you've lived with cats for any length of time, you'll no doubt have a story or two to tell. Whether it's a swollen face, a bleeding ear or impressive limp, feline injuries are common even for indoor kitties. Learn the basics of cat wound care to help your cat immediately after an injury and while she's recovering from veterinary treatment. Common Cat Wounds Your cat is bound to get into trouble every now and again. All animals, humans included, are susceptible to injury. And for cats, minor injuries are fairly common. How common depends on their activity levels and environment. If an injury occurs, you shouldn't panic. Nor should you just ignore it. Even small wounds can be breeding grounds for bacteria and viruses. Left untreated, a minor issue could become a severe health complication. Because of this, you should be on the lookout for the most common types of cat ailments, including. Cat spots. Insect bites. Skin rashes. Ulcers. Cat burns. Scratches. Cuts. Scrapes. Cat abscesses. As a responsible cat owner, periodically examine your pet for signs of injury, which include. Bleeding. Swelling. Missing hair. Torn skin. Limping. Tenderness or pain. Recognizing an injured cat. The hardest part of feline injury management is cat's tendency to hide their pain. That's because their wild side is programmed to avoid showing weakness. Think about it, a visibly injured cat is a magnet for predators. Signs of pain and injury may be obvious, like bleeding, limping, and swelling, but they may also be more subtle, like hiding, lethargy, and diminished appetite. If your cat isn't visibly hurt but is still acting oddly, examine her more closely for signs of an injury. What to do if your cat gets hurt? Indoor cat injuries are typically sustained from athletic misadventures, failed jumps or falls, furniture accidents, dashing under a rocking chair or recliner, burns, stove or heater mishaps, and door slam injuries. You might be present when the accident happens, or you might come home to find an injured pet. As soon as you spot an injury, call your veterinarian or local animal hospital and let them know you're on your way. Avoid every feline injury like an emergency. Even the most superficial wounds require immediate attention, and with cats, you never know how painful and complicated a simple limp might be. Almost all injuries heal faster with earlier veterinary intervention. Cats fighting. Cats are instinctively very territorial. They fight with other cats to protect their territory or to acquire more territory. As a result, fight wounds are common in cats. In cats, over 90% of infected wounds result from cat bites sustained during a fight with another cat. Dog, rat and other rodent bites can occur but they are much less common. Fight wounds frequently result in infection that can make cats quite ill, especially if left untreated. Fight wounds are more common in male cats than females and are most frequent and intact, unneutered, males. Follow vet instructions for cat wound care. If your injured cat comes home with stitches, a surgical site, or an open wound to care for, there are clear rules you should follow. Listen to your vet closely. The first step is keeping your pet from licking or scratching her wound. If she is sent home with a protective collar, do not remove it without a discussion with your vet. You should only loosen your cat's cone or collar if it is clearly restricting her breathing. If loosening a collar allows your cat to wiggle out of it, call your vet immediately. Vets belabor this point because a collar is often the only thing keeping an injured cat for making her wounds worse. If your kitty has bandages, they must remain clean and dry. Any wrappings that become saturated with drinking water or urine or smeared with stool or litter must be replaced within a few hours at the most. Your vet may teach you how to change wrappings yourself, or they may ask you to bring your cat back for a clean bandage. Look out for swelling that may indicate bandages and wrappings are too tight, but never remove them on your own unless you've been instructed to. If the area around a bandage appears swollen, red, or oozing, it's time for an immediate check with the vet. Finally, follow the directions on any medications to the letter. If you have questions about whether they're appropriate or necessary, call your vet to discuss them before taking matters into your own hands and discontinuing the medications or changing the dosage. You should never give your cat human medications or anything she has not been prescribed without your vet's advice. Hello. This video is sponsored by Beemix Pets. Are you looking for high quality cat collars at an affordable cost? Check out BeemixPets.com. Use coupon code KittenLife to get 20% off. Keeping an eye on your feline patient. Recovering cats should be monitored for overall behavior, elimination habits, and appetite. Signs that your cat isn't recovering well include. Lethargy. Hiding. Diarrhea or constipation. Urinating outside the litter box. Vomiting. If she shows any of these signs, take her back to the vet for another check. Any evidence of self-trauma should be grounds for calling your vet, as well. Cats can use their raspy tongues and sharp claws to remove their stitches or induce an infection. The signs of an infected wound may include a foul smell, redness, discharge, or swelling. Nutrition for injured cats. Cats have special considerations when it comes to nutrition after an injury or surgery. Many will refuse to eat, making a nutritious diet especially important. Your vet may recommend a therapeutic food for immune support or extra calories while your pet is recovering. Your cat may also need special food if she has an upset stomach or gastrointestinal issues after an injury. It's important to go out of your way to ask your vet to make specific recommendations for feeding an injured cat. They can take her injuries, medications, other health conditions, and eating preferences into account. Cat Wound Care at Home. People who love cats often want to play a more direct role in treating injured cats. Vets often applaud a desire to learn more about cat wound care, but many strongly recommend giving a professional the opportunity to weigh in. Having a vet-direct pet parent's home care efforts can keep them from inflicting accidental damage. If you feel up to the task of treating minor cat injuries at home, here are some pointers. Clean minor wounds with warm water and dry them with a clean kitchen towel or a wad of soft paper towels. You can use a mild saltwater solution, but petful advisers leaving the disinfectants on the shelf since some can delay healing and others are toxic to cats. Deep injuries may improve with soaking or hot compresses. Apply a clean kitchen towel as a compress or soak the injured area in a warm Epsom salt solution for 5 minutes. Only apply topical creams and salves with a recommendation from your vet. If your cat negatively reacts to you trying to treat her by scratching or biting at you, it is likely best to just bring her into the vet and let the professionals perform the examination and treatment to avoid exacerbating the issue. As always, call your vet if you have any doubts. Remember to watch out for the signs of an infection or digestive issue, and be sure not to overlook any subtle evidence of pain or discomfort.  Is any other medication required? Most likely your cat will be given a course of antibiotics, especially if the wound is infected or suspected of being contaminated. No topical treatments should be used, unless specifically directed by your veterinarian, as some seemingly harmless chemicals can actually damage tissues and delay wound healing. Far. After the cleaning, it's time to jump-start the healing process and help prevent a potential bacterial infection. You can do this by applying a wound and infection antimicrobial treatment product that's made for cats, such as the vetaricin plus feline antimicrobial hydrogel. This can help clean and adhere to the wound site, providing an extra layer of protection and healing. Simply spray it directly onto the cat's scrape or onto the dressings before applying them to the wound. If you enjoyed this video, kindly press the like button. Also don't forget to subscribe with notifications on, so that you don't miss out on videos like this. Thank you for watching.


What's up guys good morning We got a little bit of snow last night not much a little bit. It was not on the radar But I could hear it hitting the roof and kind of sliding off the roof last night I just shut the heater off at night because I'm warm enough in my sleeping bag So it wasn't really melting or sticking to the roof, but it turned out to be about an inch It's kind of turning to like rain heavy wet air right now. So I'll put the rain jacket on About to have some breakfast Gonna drive a slaw a small breakfast into me this morning a couple pieces of toast Some hot coffee and get after it for for some big pike They should be biting a little bit better today, even though yesterday was a great day in my opinion This is the second day of the trip Technically the third day because the first day I came out and set up but yesterday was the first day fishing Six in there 21 degrees right now. It's still spitting a little bit out there Camera stuff auger battery bait traps Think that's everything electronics jig rod Yeah, we should be good to go for band marker. There's a big old China He's probably six seven inches Here's a tip for you guys if you're ever using big bait or actually for any bait When you go to hook it don't do it over or near the hole just in case he slips out or jumps out of your hand And goes down then you're giving the fish a free meal and with the cost of shiners nowadays It's pretty expensive, and I don't know if you could see that But there's a big scale on the point from where I came out It's really important to remove those scales off the tips regardless of what size hook or bait you're using Because those scales are so hard that could prevent you from driving that hook home and setting that hook on a big fish I've seen guys lose giants and still have that scale on on the tip So there's a tip that might might land you a big fish a Lot of guys that that go for these big pike. They like to set right on the bottom. I prefer to Put that shiner up a little bit give it in put it up in the kill zone where it's way more visible You know shiners They know where the kill zone is They don't spend any time there They're either way up top in the surface of a pond or they're way down bottom in the grass and the weeds They're not hanging out in that middle or up off the bottom in the kill zone So part of the reason why I put them in the kill zone one is so they're super visible if any pike swims by and he's 30 feet away He's gonna see that where if it's on the bottom or real close to the bottom That shiner could be hiding behind some grass or it could be hiding behind some structure But whereas I'm putting them up higher. He can't do that.   All right, there's four traps in I Think I'm gonna jig a little bit today, so I can't put a fifth line in the fifth line is gonna be my jig rod Let's go All right coffee and a couple jig rods and we're ready to go This is really light line. Oh, there he goes All right first one on the palm rod I Don't know if you're supposed to try to reel them in or just hand line them But hand line and seem to be the best option in that case This thing is gonna be a weapon on smelt.  I think this is three-pound test Got him There he is guys got him on the palm rod That is the ultra light Popped right out. Oh, that's not a bad one. Third time's a charm. Oh, it's not very charming man, there is Oh, nice one What is this? He's fighting pretty good. Oh Rock bass, baby There it is. Oh Got him good. Wow Rock bass Guys, I know you guys that are viewing this from other states you You hate these things or you get a billion of them, but here in Maine This is the only place that you could find them. They're not even supposed to be here People don't even know they're here and that is a Staven nice rock bass.  They're pretty good eating Let's get rid of him see if there's more down there I just located this rock with the life scope I was set up over there and I put the life scope down and looked ahead and 40 foot away I found a really nice boulder that had some panfish on it So I brought a a trap over with a big shiner in case there's a pike near it You know pike relate to structure like everything else and then I dropped this jig down and just as soon as I dropped her Down got that baby. Let's see if we can get another one. They school off their school and fish Sweet. Yeah another fish down there Not sure if it's a rock bass or a oh here he comes There's two or three down there. So maybe we'll get one to go There's one on it. Got him Got him.  Oh, yeah There it is That's the state record rock bass right there, baby Woo one of these years the state's gonna recognize me catching these things. Look at that slab. He is chunky Sweet big old red eye on them They don't quite have the red eyes that they have in the summer I ought to get the other camera show you what what I'm looking at. All right, there's that big rock That's actually my shiner and my weight and the rest of these are probably rock bass If they're not crappy Let's get down there and see if we can start a feeding frenzy. There's two. Oh, I missed him. Shoot He's all over. There's about 10 of them there. These might be crappy They could be rock bass About to find out there he is Got him. Got him another rock bass Another good. Oh, no. I thought it was a rock bass Shoot What are you doing in here crappy You won't see a guy more excited over a rock bass than me probably The biologists been out here trying to catch these things too and they haven't had any luck They've been behind me a couple times Pretty plump That's what they look like guys if If you live in Maine and you've never seen one before The closest I ever caught them before here was Lake Champlain And you know a lot of staters will tell you they're menace, but I I like them. They're good eating them. They're pretty aggressive. They're fun to catch. They give you a heck of a fight on a jig rod But they kind of look like Somewhere in between a crappy and a largemouth, I guess I probably got to get a little closer to that Rock Rock is About 11 foot away from this Close right here I think I'll swap these two All right, I think he's on Got him Got him. He feels heavy Feels like another rb Come on, baby Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah Rock bass Whoo, I love it That is awesome crushing these rock bass Nice big old slab of meat right there guys Wow That's uh, that hole's eight inches. So he's He's over 10 Slamming the rock bass Never would have found these fish without the life scope and I I didn't see them on the life scope I saw the the thing that gave them away was that one rock. There's a piece of ledge right there In probably 23 to 25 foot of water So I wanted to come over here and set up near it for pike and see what kind of panfish were on it and Man Got into the rock bass. This is definitely the newest invasive species for the state of Maine As far as I know, I was the only guy that ever caught them ice fishing that video you saw with the New state record where the where the game warden came out and checked them out and said, yeah, that's state record But we don't really recognize them yet as a state. So As soon as I start recognizing them Hopefully I get the state record for a day or two Because I just beat my state record for the last time right there by them That's like an 11 inch rock bass Guys, it's midday and I have not had a single flag Sometimes that happens when you're fishing big bait going after big fish It's definitely had something to do with the storm Some storms you could just pound the fish some storms aren't aren't as productive I moved the traps a couple times. I know a couple of them are in perfect money spots. So I know it's just a matter of them not feeding right now. Maybe they fed last night. Maybe they're gonna feed this afternoon. So Got the hopes that they're gonna feed this afternoon in the meantime I'm having a blast going around and popping some Crafty and yellow perch and rock bass. That's unbelievable. I've hit the states top three most wanted invasive species in two days I got two out of three today and just looking for another northern pike today What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab some lunch throw a couple hot dogs in the old gullet And then I think I might go after some jumbo yellows.  Maybe I'll do the rock bass first and some still set up over there on that rock and Oh Yes, sir. We got a flag up just went up. I just looked out there I knew driving a hot dog into my gullet would help All right, what do I need? I got cameras I got my catch bag. I got an extra shiner All I need is a little courage and go catch me a giant. Let's go fellas any hot dogs in there All right, this is actually the first flag of the day Let's hope she's spooling Well, she is off to the side a little Let's get you guys set up and hopefully I get a giant She's still not moving I know off to the side, but not much Might be three Look at those teeth. Oh, there's the shiner Save him There's the hook. We'll save him I like those bakers a lot those baker easy outs Those are two absolute must-haves for a pike fishing. All right, let's see what he weighs. What do you guys think? Was I big eyeing him when I said four pounds? Is this thing gonna work? Yeah, sorry We're up with this thing Because he's over two friggin pounds Let's try the other scale is about 40 years old 4.71 pounds So I was there.  There he is folks I got the three today on the state's most wanted hit list It's gonna be crappy. I think is the rock It's gotta be Maybe a decent crappy for here Oh, man, that's a big crappy for here.   You know what on second thought I could bring a lot of small ones home. Let's let him go to grow bigger and Give those big seeds That is a slabber Nice That was awesome. I Everything about it said crappy when I When I saw him on the screen, but He fought so hard. I thought it was a rock bass because that's Way bigger than any crappy I've caught out of here crappy nice It's a pretty fish right there. There's a decent one. That's a good one right there. That's a good eater side Right there.  That's a good one.  That's a nice 12 incher. Oh another nice slab Those are slab crappy Take them They're pretty in this place 12 and a half or another slabber another 12 incher All right, I picked up a couple traps. I still got two out I just checked them. They were down I'm thinking about pike fishing a little late tonight with two of those lines and just see If maybe they're feeding at night because they certainly weren't feeding today Temperature right now is pretty mild. I think it's 18 the last I checked It got a little bit colder today. It started out It uh got down to like 14 Then it warmed up It snowed and rained and then got real sunny. It was weird Got the last of the traps up I didn't have much fraction today from the live bait and the traps that May have been the least amount of flags I've ever had in my life and one day of fishing full day a little bit before Sun up till after sundown It got one flag all day made do with it though caught a nice pike. It was a four and a half pounder You know, it was awesome just to catch one to be honest with you way better than catching none It's a good way to look at it. I think today I fished a little bit shallower than yesterday Yesterday, I've probably averaged about 30 foot deep spread out over the traps and today I bet you I was closer to 20 foot deep I know I was in really good spots. Maybe I'm a little early. Maybe they're not in yet Maybe they're not moving back into the coves and into the slews or into the drains Quite yet like they will later in the year. So tomorrow I think I got a couple buddies coming out or a buddy of mine and he's bringing A couple guys out from reboot outdoors dan's gonna be coming out. So Fish together tomorrow should be a great day today. The jig rod really made the day I caught cheese. I must have caught over 50 crappy today So many between 10 and 12 inches I got a couple big ones over over 12 inches close to 14 probably and then catching those rock bass is just I'm it's I know you guys are gonna laugh that live out of state and you just shake those things off all night and day But we don't have them here in Maine. Like these are the only ones that Anyone knows about in Maine. They've been here for a few years now In this body of water as far as I know. I'm the only guy who's caught him ice fishing I caught him a couple years ago ice fishing And the warden was there and he was really surprised to see him and how big they were I went back and tried to catch him and shoot a really cool video And I never found him again after that And I released quite a few that day I killed some or released some we ate them and they were tremendous So these three that I caught today are definitely going in the fry pan Probably not tonight, but they'll be they'll be going in the fry pan for sure And then it was fun catching perch and catching crappy So the jig rod really paid off today and it was fun hopping around I caught all three of Maine's most invasive species I got the northern pike, which is the most hated. It's been here over 45 years now I caught the black crappie Which has been here over 25 years now And I caught the rock bass, which is pretty well unknown and we don't know how long it's been here I think the first one I ever caught Was about 10 years ago in Maine and it was the same body order Tonight I am going to hammer on some deer steak And probably some mashed potatoes because what's better than steak and potatoes Should be a nice quick easy meal with some poblano pepper thrown in there and looking forward to that And maybe doing a little bit of reading tonight and hitting the hay because I'm a little bit worn out. I drove a lot of holes the last couple days Weather-wise today was a really weird day We had a lot of rain and a little bit of sleep mixed in this morning And then it just came off super super sunny and then it got a little windy and cold this afternoon Current temp is 22 degrees. So it's still making a little bit ice. Not a lot. I'm looking forward to tomorrow Really excited to fish with Dan again. It's been it's been at least a year since I fished with Dan Maybe two years. So I'm excited to do that. He's a lot of fun I think you guys are really gonna enjoy him and enjoy him on camera Make sure you tune in for tomorrow's episode. Thanks a lot for watching today's and Yesterday's is right here if you missed that one guys. I really appreciate it Feel free to comment like or even hit the on like if you don't like it See you on the next one guys. Thanks again. You know, I don't think I saw a person all day today Yep, that's the truth That's kind of cool. No one else out fishing Nobody around Let it go. Let it go back. Let it go back. Let it go back. Let it go back. That's that's 18 I'm really shaking right now. It's not even um, it's not even that big.  Whoa Don't lose a finger. So who's a finger? Uh 15 75 on the bump board 1.55 pounds. Um, so we're gonna weigh Nice one Later big gator Yeah later big gator


Greetings from Geneva. I'm John Cerezo, currently working as partnership officer at the United Nations Road Safety Fund. Let me first congratulate the Universal Postal Union for the successful organization of the 52nd International Leatherwriting Competition for Young People. I would like to thank the organization for choosing road safety as the topic of this year, a real crucial issue all over the world, particularly affecting children, teenagers and young adults. As team member of the UN Road Safety Fund, we work hard every day to raise awareness about this global, but often hidden, unknown crisis.  Affecting disproportionately low and middle income countries, it is a huge real burden for millions of people every year. In this context, it has been sometimes a real nice surprise, but also actually quite comforting, to see how aware our youngest children are about the risks they have to confront on the road every day. They are frequently among the most vulnerable road users, as per the instance in many cities, depend on adults to drive safely, but also depend on us to build and manage roads properly, and produce adequate vehicles and transport systems. They need good road infrastructures, better roads, better signing and responsible behavior. They are clearly asked to be taken into consideration, and never forget that we are more responsible. From the letters, signed sometimes by very, very young children, we need to admit that they are extremely conscious about those threats they face every day on the road, but also conscious about the solutions. As we do, even in our world of millions and millions of preventable accidents, solutions are already there. Beautifully done, through the description of their superpowers, I have been amazed at the level of knowledge of some very technical aspects of road safety work. With the imagination, I have also traveled through the roads of the world, visiting communities from the American Amazonia to eastern Africa, Middle East, or islands in the Pacific. I have met the members of the family, I have new, new myths and unknown superpowers to me. It's been a very beautiful experience. And thank you all of you, children, for your effort, first of all, your interests and your letters. It has been a pleasure and an honor to read all of you. Not only do we adults know the solutions to tackle the road safety crisis, but as proven all over the dozens of letters received, children do too. I would like to finish thanking the UPU and the Road Safety Fund for allowing me to participate in this competition. It has certainly reassured me about how important it is to continue developing road safety programs, particularly addressed to children, to achieve our common goal. A world where roads are safe for everyone, everywhere. Thank you.


Well, our lecturer tonight, Dr. John Maurer, serves as the Alfred Thayer Mahon Distinguished University Professor of Seapower and Grand Strategy at the Naval War College. He's a graduate of Yale University and holds an MALD and a PhD from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. He's the author and editor of numerous books examining the outbreak of the First World War, military interventions in the developing world, naval rivalries, and arms control between two world wars. And a study about Winston Churchill's views on British foreign policy and grand strategy. He has served on the Secretary of the Navy's advisory committee on naval history as chair of the strategy and policy department, and now teaches an elective course on Winston Churchill as statesman and war leader. Please welcome Dr. John Maurer to the stage. John. Thank you, John. Thank you, John, for that introduction. And welcome to this lecture series. You will have an opportunity over the next few months to get a sense of what goes on here in the way of learning at the Naval War College. Now this evening, I'm going to speak about Alfred Thayer Mahon. He was the second president of the Naval War College and was the author of numerous books and articles about strategy, naval warfare, and naval history. The reputation of this college rests in large part on the reputation of Alfred Thayer Mahon. Now this morning, this evening, I'm going to talk, I'm so accustomed to speaking in the morning that I went into automatic, there must be morning, OK. I'm going to speak about the context of Mahon's life and times as well as about Mahon. And first I want to speak about the Naval War College, where he came to teach. He was brought here by Stephen B. Loos, the founder of the Naval War College. Loos had a vision for this institution as a place of higher learning on strategy and war. And what he had to say was that this place is a place for the study of war, but also, as he said, for all questions of statesmanship and the prevention of war. Statesmanship today, we would say, means international relations to understand world affairs, to study not only how wars are fought, why they come about, and how to prevent war. This is what the first year's classes look like. Here are his orders. As you can see, it's written out and handwriting. And it says order. Lectures will begin on September 7. The working days are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, every day. The lectures on international law, daily at 10 AM. The lectures on military science delivered at 11 30 AM. Those are the lectures that Alfred Thayer Mahan gave, more on that in a moment. Additional lectures on naval and military science will be delivered at 1 PM in the afternoon. Again, from the beginning of the college, Loos was setting out an agenda for learning for the officers here, where they would hear lectures, where they would engage in conversation with each other in seminar, and also read. Reading is a vital part of education and learning. The Admiral talked about lifelong learning. The way you do that is, of course, by reading. We say we live at an information age. We have to take advantage of that by doing reading, reading widely, and thinking deeply about what we read. And here at the college, we've always had a tradition of a heavy reading mode for the students that are here. Well, Mahan, he was a captain in the Navy. He was brought here to be the professor of strategy, or first professor of strategy here at the Naval War College. He was chosen by Loos to be the lecturer here, the professor of strategy at the college, because he already had a reputation for writing books and studying war. He was a veteran of the American Civil War. He graduated from the US Naval Academy just as the American Civil War was beginning in 1861. He wrote a book about his experience. His experience as a naval officer during the Civil War. It's called The Gulf and Inland Waters. It's a very good book. It's a wonderful book, if you're interested in the American Civil War, to understand the role of the US Navy in that conflict. So Loos, from very early on, recognized that in Mahan, he had a scholar sailor, someone who would be a teacher here at the college. In addition, Loos also knew that Alfred Thayer Mahan's father was Dennis Hart Mahan, who was a teacher for many years of engineering and strategy at the US Military Academy in West Point. So at West Point, you will see a Mahan Hall. It's not for Alfred Thayer Mahan, but for his father, Dennis Hart Mahan. Mahan was a teacher of many of the generals who fought in the American Civil War, both the North and the South. He taught not only engineering, but also what we would call tactics and operations, battlefield studies. And Mahan, Alfred Thayer Mahan, came from this tradition that his father had also been a teacher in professional military education. Well, Mahan, when he came here, lectured over in the old schoolhouse. And if you haven't been to the museum over there, you should visit it. Mahan lectured there, and he wrote out his lecture notes and then would read them in a very formal way to the students. These lectures were then captured and published as his books on the influence of sea power upon history. The first volume came out in 1890, and the next two volumes came out in 1893. Like many a great book, like many a classic book, it started in the classroom as a lecture, like Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. And so Mahan took what he was teaching and to the audience here of students and put it in publication form so it could reach a wider audience beyond the confines of Newport and the Naval War College. Well, what did Mahan have to say about strategy? Strategy, he said, is the queen, the queen of the military sciences. It's fundamental. It must be studied by officers. And why is that? Well, as he said, the fortunes, the outcome of every campaign, military operation is determined by the strategy. And he highlights something that we should take to heart today, which is to say that if the strategy is wrong, no matter how good the tactics, no matter how good the operations, the results will be disappointing. This is important. You can win the battles and still lose the war. When Admiral Stansfield Turner was president of the Naval War College in the early 1970s, when he came here in his famous speech to the students at Convocation, he said that in the Vietnam War, the United States had performed well in the battlefield in its tactics and operation. And yet, we didn't get the results that we wanted. Our ally, South Vietnam, was defeated by North Vietnam. How is it that you can win the battles and still lose the war? Well, what Mahan talked about is something that we want to examine today. Why is it? How do we best harness military power to achieve enduring objectives? We don't want to win the battles to end up losing the war. And as he said, no matter how valorous the soldier or brilliant the victory on the battlefield, however decisive those battlefield results will be, if the strategy is wrong, then it will fail in its effects. We like to talk about what is called the strategic effects of operations. How do you translate operations tactics into larger, enduring outcomes? Well, Mahan's book, when it first appeared in 1890, was a sensation. It was a big hit. It was being reviewed and read around the world. One of the persons who reviewed the book was none other than Theodore Roosevelt in the magazine, The Atlantic. And this is what Roosevelt had to say. Captain Mahan has written distinctively the best and most important book that's out there, most interesting on naval history. Again, giving it a glowing review. Theodore Roosevelt and Mahan correspond in a great deal during their lifetime. He went on to say that Captain Mahan's book is a study of naval history, but it's not history for history's sake. It's a book that can inform the current estimate about how navies should be used in the present day. In other words, it's history to inform today's policy and strategy. What Mahan was talking about was trying to give guidance to naval officers, political leaders of how the US should develop its sea power. Now, Mahan was popular not just in the United States, but around the world. And one of his great admirers was Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, the grandson of Queen Victoria of England. Being the grandson of Queen Victoria, he was fluent in English. And so he wrote to one of his American correspondents that he had just read Mahan's books and he's trying to learn it by heart. We ask your spouses to learn Mahan by heart too. Well, this is what the Kaiser had to say. It's first class, it's classical in all of its points. It's on board all of his ships and constantly quoted by his officers. You can find over in the museum the German translation of the influence of sea power upon history, a copy of it over there. The Kaiser was so taken by the book that he did have it translated into German and distributed widely. Again, here's a country, Germany, that's going to be the enemy of the United States in two world wars. Its naval leaders though are informed by American strategic theory. Mahan's book was read around the world in France, Germany, Japan. Japan wanted to hire him as a teacher of strategy. Mahan's influence was huge at this time. Now when we read Mahan today and your spouses read Mahan, they have a hard time reading it. It's very much late 19th century prose. A lot of commas, long sentences, long paragraphs. It's very difficult to read. So have pity on your spouses if you see them reading Mahan. Again, I tell my students that remember it started as lectures. So I say if you're having trouble reading Mahan, go off by yourself and read it out loud to yourself. So if you hear your spouses speaking Mahan, you'll understand where that advice comes from. Again, when you hear it, it actually makes more sense. You can absorb it better. Again, today we have more trouble understanding Mahan. It is a difficult book. Like many books of theory, theory is harder to read than narratives, news reporting and the rest. But the challenge of it is that it is a rewarding book to read because it is so rich. There is so much in it that can help inform not only naval officers, but also those concerned about international relations and politics. Well, some other people that read Mahan and internalized him. Franklin D. Roosevelt, president of the United States in the Second World War, was an avid reader of Mahan. As a teenage boy, he was given a copy of Mahan's influence of sea power upon history by his mother. For a present, he devoured it. I just can't imagine giving Mahan to a teenage boy. But nonetheless, Roosevelt was taken with it and read everything Mahan wrote. And when Roosevelt was assistant secretary of the Navy during the First World War, he corresponded with Mahan. He said to Mahan, your voice matters more than anyone else in informing public opinion about what America's strategy should be. Winston Churchill was also an admirer of Mahan and read his works. And it informed his thinking about British naval strategy in two world wars as well. Behind Roosevelt and Churchill, you see two admirals. To the right, Admiral Harold or Betty Stark, his nickname. He was chief of naval operations at the beginning of the Second World War. He was a student here at the Naval War College and you can read his paper on strategy and that he read Mahan while here. Over there to the left is Admiral Ernest J. King, who would become chief of naval operations, succeeding Admiral Stark during the Second World War. He also was a student here at the Naval War College, read Mahan and wrote a strategy paper as well that exists in our archives here. Mahan had a deep influence on these four leaders, naval and political, in the Second World War. You can see, you can see the intellectual DNA, the ideas of Mahan in their strategies. Well, how about the Navy? I've talked about the college and Mahan's influence. How about the Navy and which Mahan served? Well, Mahan as a naval officer didn't get the respect from other naval officers at his time. After he served here at the Naval War College as president, he went on to command the cruiser Chicago, which led a squadron of American ships on a tour to Europe. He was the flag captain. His superior officer was Admiral Henry Urban and this is what Urban had to write about Mahan. If you will, Mahan's fitness report as skipper of the Chicago. As you can see, you're gonna see it's not very flattering. Mahan's interests are entirely outside the service for which he cares but little. He doesn't really care about the Navy. He's not a good officer. He's not observant with regard to the officer serving him or to the ship's general welfare or appearance. He doesn't inspire people or suggest anything in the way of being a good skipper of a ship. In fact, in the first few weeks of the cruiser of the Chicago over to Europe, he was positively discreditable and in fact, Mahan, his interests are wholly in the direction of what? Literary work. He's a geek. He's a geek and in no other way connected with the service. I like to say to the students, would you like to have this as your fitness report? No, no, of course not. But again, within the service, Mahan was looked upon as being an odd person standing out, a maverick, because he was interested in higher studies of war strategy and also as a teacher and a writer. Well, Mahan would save the Naval War College. As it turned out, 10 years after the college was founded, the Navy department decided that is Newport worth the money? Should we be sending officers to Newport for a year to study? And there were doubts about that. And so the uniformed leadership of the Navy convinced the secretary of the Navy, a man by the name of Hillary Herbert, that he should close down the Naval War College. Lewis had had his experiment in setting up a school of higher learning for officers, but that it has been a failure. It's not worth the resources dedicated to it. So, Hillary Herbert aborted a ship from Washington, the secretary of the Navy, coming up to Newport. His intention was to close the college. But on the way up here, he was handed a copy of Mahan's book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History. And he said, this book alone is worth all the money that has been spent on the college. When the secretary of the Navy, the second act, started up here, he intended to close the college. But now he said he intends to do everything he can and his power to sustain it. So this college survived in part because of Mahan's books and their influence. It was hard for the secretary of the Navy after reading The Influence of Sea Power Upon History to say, no, this is very important for educating not only officers, but also the wider American public about the international scene and also about naval matters. How about the nation that Mahan lived in? What about his times? Well, he grew up as a young man, serving in the American Civil War, the bloodiest war in American history, almost 700,000 Americans killed in the fighting of the Civil War. Mahan went through this, serving in the Navy during this time. Here you see a painting of the Battle of Spotsylvania in 1864. And of course, naval warfare also was part of the American Civil War. We remember the monitor fighting against the ironclad monitor against another ironclad to Virginia. The first time two ironclad ships fought against each other. And here you see Lincoln, president of the United States, with Admiral Porter on the right, with General Sherman and Grant, discussing how this war is going to end in 1865. This is a wonderful painting because you can see the war is coming to an end. Lincoln is listening to his generals and admirals, how best to close down this war to end the fighting. And behind, of course, you see a rainbow, a rainbow of hope, a hope that once the war is over, a stable peace can be established. Well, General Lee, the most important general of the Confederacy, signing the surrender of his army to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse in April of 1865, ending the conventional fight that took place during the American Civil War. Now, one way to get into another time period, to experience another era, because as historians like to say, the past is another country. How do you understand another country, another time period? Well, one way I have found is to know about the music of the time. What did people sing? What did they listen to? Well, at this time, the United States did not have an official national anthem. The Star-Spangled Banner was not the official national anthem until the 1930s. And indeed, the most popular patriotic song of the time in which Mahan lived was Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. Now, what I want to do this evening is all of us sing the first verse together so that we get into the spirit of Mahan's times. Are you ready? Oh, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. No one's singing. No one's singing. Come on. Anyway, again, this is a very patriotic song, a very patriotic song. You know, it's about liberty, standing up, banners make tyranny tremble. Again, it's a beautiful, very patriotic song. This is the era in which Mahan lived in the 1860s, 70s, 90s, into the early part of the 20th century. And you see, after the Civil War, the country being knitted together by a big infrastructure project, transcontinental railways, railways being built across the country, knitting it together. The country had been united by war. The Confederacy, the secession had been defeated. The country was united. Now the country is being united economically as well by putting together this transportation network, linking the country from the East Coast to the West Coast. This is a famous illustration from 1872 by the Brooklyn artist, John Gast. And it shows Columbia, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. She's striding across the country, going from the East Coast and the cities of the East Coast, the harbors of the East Coast, marching across the country, railways being built, prospectors there to find the wealth under the land, farmers, land being put under plow. And you can see, what is she doing? She's building the internet there, laying cable communication. The latest, think how quickly information can now travel instantaneously.  Because if you have information, you also have to have education to be able to read that information, to be able to translate it, to understand it. You have to be well educated. And so Columbia here, it's a sign of American progress, of American manifest destiny. The country is being united together. It's growing economically. It's growing in population. Bethlehem Steelworks in Pennsylvania, the United States is becoming a great industrial power. When Mahan's book, The Influence of Sea Power Upon History came out in 1890, it's around that time that the United States passed Great Britain as the world's leading industrial power. America's place in the world from the 1890s down to our own day has been based upon the strength of the American economy. It's at this time that the United States is surpassing Britain as the workshop of the world. And Americans are very proud, very proud of what's happening in industry as well. A big international world's fair is held in Chicago in 1893, the great Colombian exhibition. Again, this is the time when Mahan's books are coming out. The United States is putting on display to the world American industry, American technology. And if you go to the floor of the Colombian exhibition, you see Westinghouse, Tesla, General Electric, big names in American industry. Here, the United States is growing into a great power, into a world power. And Mahan's books are resonating because that's what it's about. Struggles between great powers on the international scene. Well, Mahan wrote at a time when there was growing international tension and rivalries among the great powers. The United States and the Western Hemisphere are planners, are military naval planners, looked at the threats to the United States in the Western Hemisphere. And they identified three major rivals, potential enemies, and they gave color codes to each of these countries. Red is Great Britain. Black is Germany. Orange is Japan. Blue is the United States. The United States came close to war in 1895-96 with Britain over Venezuela. Mahan drew up, worked up a war plan for war against Britain. Today we think a war between Britain and the United States, that seems unthinkable. But at the time, planners thought that a war could happen between these two countries, the United States and the British Empire. And American planners continued to plan for war against Great Britain until the 1930s. So that was one country that the United States felt threatened by. The other countries, Germany and Japan. So American planners are looking to the future and saying, here are the potential enemies of the United States that pose a threat to the U.S. position in the Western Hemisphere. Today we like to call it anti-access scenario denial. A strategy that protects a region of the world. You develop your forces to try to protect a region. Well, this is what American planners were thinking of in Mahan's time. How do you defend the Western Hemisphere? What they would call hemispheric defense against these rival Great Powers. So what you find is that the United States develops war plans against Britain, against Germany, and against Japan in this era. Now what did Mahan have to say about how do you meet these threats? Well, he wrote that every danger that the United States faces, it's best met outside of our territory. Don't invest in Ford Adams, forlifications on the coastline. Instead, invest American resources into a navy. Keep the fight far away from the coastline at sea. Don't fight at home, fight far away. A navy, naval power, enables the United States to keep these enemies at bay away from the United States. And here's a cartoon of the time that captures this. Here you see the European Great Powers looking on, now Columbia has become Lady Liberty. And what's protecting the Monroe Doctrine? The US position in the Western Hemisphere? Protecting the new world from the old world? It is a battle fleet, warships, a powerful American navy. And the caption says, let it be written so it can be read. How do you get someone's attention? Well, it's by having power. In this case, naval power, so that adversaries won't be tempted, tempted to fight you, to challenge you, where your core, vital interests are at stake. This is part of Mahan's message, and you can see the message is now being translated into cartoons. Well, is he a teacher of strategy, or is he a propagandist? Is he teaching people strategy, or is he trying to rally people behind a big navy? A bigger budget for the navy? Well, does it have to be one or the other? It's actually both. Mahan was a propagandist for a big navy. He tried to influence the American public into making investments into naval power, as well as to educate Americans about how that power, that growing power that the United States has, how it can best be used. But there was controversy about this. Should the United States be spending so much on a big navy? Doesn't a navy imply imperialism? Won't that lead to a corruption of the republic? Is the United States to be a militarized nation? Isn't this vanity? And so you hear, you see here in this cartoon, the arguments against Mahan. Here you see Columbia now looking in a vain way into the mirror. And what's she wearing on her head? Her bonnet, as it says. It's a battleship.  At this time, there's a great debate in the United States. Is the United States embarking on an imperial adventure? Something that will overextend American power, lead the United States into wars that shouldn't be fought? By having great naval power, does that become an enabler for aggression by the United States? This is being debated at that time. It's being debated in ways that pit Theodore Roosevelt and Mahan on one side and Mark Twain on the other side.  How should America relate to the rest of the world? Well, again, Mahan is at the center of controversy at his time. Mahan himself doubted whether the American people would fund the Navy adequately. And in that way, he is a propagandist or another word for it, an advocate for naval expansion. He says, will an economic, a peaceful, gain-loving nation, in other words, a country that is committed to economic well-being? Will they be farsighted? We would say, have the vision to understand that the world is a dangerous place at times and that there has to be adequate military preparation in peacetime. As he says, democracies or popular governments are generally not favorable in peacetime to military expenditure. No matter how necessary naval planners or military planners might think that that commitment of resources is necessary. Well, how about his teachings on strategy? What are some of the main elements of Mahan's works that you can find in what he wrote? By the way, Mahan wrote numerous books and hundreds of articles. He's an incredibly prolific author from the 1890 when influence of sea power comes out until his death in December 1914. He's also very highly paid for his articles, his journalism. He is a public intellectual in this time. Well, the very first sentence of the influence of sea power of history tells you what the book is about. He says the history of sea power is a narrative, a story of contests between countries, of rivalries, war. That's what the history of sea power is about. He looked back at the history, ancient history, the ancient Greeks, the ancient Romans, but also the wars of the 18th century that saw France and Britain fighting each other for colonial empire. The other thing that he teaches is that when you look at the oceans, the seas, he says when you look at it from this political and social point of view, it's a great highway, a great highway. And then he goes on and coins this phrase or a wide common. The maritime domain is a common. This concept has proved long lasting. Today we think not just about the maritime commons, but we also think about the aerospace commons. We also think about the information domain in commons. And what my hand is writing about is that if you can dominate a commons, that that translates, it gives you big strategic advantage over adversaries in wartime. By commanding the commons, be it the maritime commons or the aerospace commons or the information commons, by dominating those commons, you get a big advantage. And so what he's writing about is how you take that advantage from the commons and then translate it into winning wars. Well, he also lays out at the beginning of his book on the influence of sea power, what is sea power? And he comes up with six elements of sea power. We might use the word sources of sea power rather than elements. And what he highlights is that three of the elements of sea power deal with geography is a country and island country like Japan or Britain. Or is it more of a continental state like Russia that has a hard time getting access to the seas? The United States is in a position where its borders with Mexico and with Canada are relatively secure and it fronts out on the two big oceans, the Atlantic and the Pacific. The United States is a continental sized island state with access to the world's oceans. In other words, the United States has a favorable geographical position relative to other countries that have difficulty getting access to the maritime commons. He also talks about the confirmation as he calls it, are there rivers, waterways, bays that lead into the country? The United States again is in a favorable position because the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Chesapeake Bay, the Delaware Bay, all of these waterways open up into the United States. And American leaders were conscious of this. Thomas Jefferson, one of the Louisiana Purchase so he could have New Orleans so that that gateway into the interior could be developed and then goods and products could be shipped down waterways out through New Orleans to the rest of the world. In addition to that extent of territory, how much coastline do you have? More coastline, again, generally enables more ability to trade with the rest of the world. Again, geography is an important element of Mahan's teachings and he tries to highlight that a strategist, a military leader, one of the first things they should do is look at a map and say where does that country fit in relation to other countries and to the maritime commons. So for Mahan, geography is important. By the way, geography can be changed. You can change geography by building infrastructure. You can develop ports and bases. If you take the Hawaiian islands, you can develop it into a base for the projection of American power across the Pacific. This is also an era of canal building, the Suez Canal linking the Mediterranean to the Red Sea and to the Indian Ocean. The Kiel Canal linking the North Sea to the Baltic Sea that the Germans are building and of course the Panama Canal that the United States is building at this time as well. Again, these canals have commercial but also strategic importance for the movements of fleets. For the United States, the Panama Canal is important because you can move more rapidly warships from the Atlantic to the Pacific and you don't have to sail around, steam around South America. So geography can be changed. Mahan also wants to highlight people, the people dimension of this, the number of the population, how large is a country, demographics, but also when you look at a country, how are people employed, what do they do? At this time in the United States in 1900, half the population still works on farms. Industry is growing in importance and the farming population is going down as farm become more efficient.  Much like today we see a great transformation taking place in the American economy where you see industry declining in the number of people who are employed by it and service industry is growing. And we know that the United States population, of course over the 20th century, went from 50% of the population on farms down to what is it today, three or 4%? Again, a great transformation is taking place in our time but also in Mahan's time. Will a people be committed to trading with the rest of the world? Are they open to what we call globalization or do they wanna be self-sufficient?  Again, these are important elements for Mahan. Are people willing to compete economically with the rest of the world and knit together the world economy? At this time the United States has high tariff barriers to protect its growing industry against industries in other countries. And finally, Mahan talks about the character of government. Will public leaders and in the United States, democratically elected leaders, will again they have that vision, that foresight as he calls it, to develop the country economically, to promote the well-being of the people, develop its wealth and by developing its wealth also undergird the military power of a country, make that country stronger because there's a connection between economic power and military power. Will that popular government, as Mahan calls it, will it devote the resources needed to building up a navy? Well, here Mahan was following in Luce's footsteps. Luce said, the study of history is the way to study strategy. And Luce laid out for people, he said it's our purpose here at the Naval War College is to develop what he calls the science of naval warfare. Today we would talk about critical analysis, analytical frameworks, ways of thinking, organizing thoughts about international relations and about warfare. He would call it a science. Again, the purpose here of this college is to develop our capacity to think through complex problems and provide some answers. Well, Mahan, following in Luce's footsteps, said yes, yes, it's history, especially in the field of naval strategy that history has value. And hence, his books on the influence of sea power upon history are about historical case studies, not about his own time, but talking about events of 100 years before. Now at the time, people said, no, why are you studying history? Technology is changing everything. Mahan was born in 1840, and that's the naval technology of 1840. When he died in 1914, when he died in 1914, this is what navies look like. It's a big change is taking place. And the big change that's taking place, people are saying history is bunk, as Henry Ford said. You don't learn anything by studying history. The world is all new. The new technologies are transforming everything. The study of history makes you backward-looking, less innovative. You've got to get with it. And so, Mahan is writing against authors who are saying that history has no value. You should be studying something else. You shouldn't be studying history. Instead, you should be involved with technology and the rest. Well, this is what the navy looked like, the U.S. Navy looked like in 1840. On a good day, I might add. You see the battleship, ship of the line, Pennsylvania, followed by the North Carolina. This is in the year that Mahan was born. Those age of wooden ships, it's coming to an end. Here's a famous painting by the great painter, British painter, J.M.W. Turner. And it shows the battleship Temeraire, the battleship Temeraire wooden battleship that took part in a number of battles during the Napoleonic Wars. This battleship that saw much action. The men aboard it saw much combat. Now look what's happening to it. It's being taken to the breaker's yard. And how is it being taken to the breaker's yard? By that little tugboat spinning out cold dust. Yucky. Look at that. And in the background, you can see that wonderful sunset there that Turner is known for. It's that end of an age. A heroic age is coming to an end, being replaced by technological change. This painting captures the type of change that's taking place in Mahan's time. You thought you were going to get a lecture on Mahan and instead you're getting an art history lecture, right? Again, this is a great painting. Next time in London, go to the National Gallery and see it. Well, what is the change? Big armored cruisers, steel navy. Submarines are coming along at this time as well. Fast torpedo boats. The idea is this new technology is transforming naval warfare. We need the big surface platforms, the battleships. Instead, the smaller craft, the stealthy craft, can sneak up and hit the big ships and take them down. The way it was talked about at the time was it's David against Goliath, the great biblical tale. The Goliath is the heavily armored giant, the heavily armored battleship. But that ship is vulnerable, vulnerable to the David's, the precision guided munitions, the torpedo, the mine. All of those new weapons make the big surface platforms vulnerable. Why invest in battleships, in the big surface platforms when clearly these cheaper craft are just as powerful? Naval warfare is becoming more lethal, more lethal for the big ships. Why invest in the big ships when the smaller ships can do the job? Again, Mahana is writing at a time of this technological change where people are arguing about what should the force structure be? What type of navy do you build? Do you build a fleet, build around battleships? Or do you build a fleet around these new technologies and new platforms? Well, part of the theory is that these new types of technologies are good for disrupting the commons, the network.   A few sinkings of ships will lead to the collapse of the global economy. That the sea will become too dangerous to traverse. Mahan argues against those who are making that argument. He says the harassment, the distress that will be caused by these attacks on sea lines of communication, he concedes it will happen, but it will only be a secondary operation. It will never be decisive. It will never be decisive because great sea powers will be able to defend well enough the sea lines of communication to protect themselves against these attacks. Now, his concern is that as a fundamental measure, this type of raids, it will never be decisive in war. And it's a delusion. And he calls it a dangerous delusion. And why? Because the American people through their representatives will invest in what? The small craft rather than the bigger surferships. Because the advocates of the smaller ships will say just as much combat power, much cheaper. Mahan is saying, no, that's wrong. That's wrong. The United States, if it wants to play a world power role, if it wants to be secure in the Western Hemisphere, it needs to build a powerful fleet. It has to go for what he calls command of the sea or in the influence of sea power he calls it overbearing power on the sea. What is that? It drives the enemy's flag off the sea. The enemy can't use the seas. It only appears, their navies, their ships only appear as fugitives, robbers. They can do some damage, but the damage that they can do will never be decisive. And by controlling the great common with a powerful fleet, it closes down that common, that highway to an adversary. An adversary won't be able to use the world's oceans. Well, how do you control the commons? Well, for Mahan it is build up a powerful fleet based upon the most powerful warships you can build surrounded in a balanced way with supporting vessels as well. Here you see a battleship, the Connecticut, in Mahan's time. But you build not just one of them. You have to have a whole fleet of them. You have to make a major investment in naval power is what Mahan is arguing for the United States to be secure. And this is the great white fleet of 1907, 1909, that President Theodore Roosevelt sent around the world, circumnavigated the world. Again, Theodore Roosevelt agrees with Mahan. He says, we shouldn't be building the cruisers, the smaller ships. Instead, we have to have powerful battleships that are the equal of any other nation. If you want to stand up, defend yourself, be secure against other powers, you have to measure your forces against theirs. To Mahan, offense in naval warfare is the stronger form of war. Again, his father, in some ways he's echoing his father, Dennis Hart Mahan in teaching generals, future generals at West Point, this is what he had to say, attack the enemy suddenly when he's not prepared to resist. Surprise, celerity, speed is the secret of success. Alfred Theer Mahan would echo the words of his father. The offensive, he says, has the advantage over the defense. And in fact, he says it's a fundamental principle of war that when it comes to defense, it's best to be on the offense. In other words, the best defense is a good offense. And how do you get that? By taking the offensive against the enemy's main forces, take the fight to the enemy's fleet and you beat it in major naval engagements. To Mahan, his great hero, the person he called the embodiment of sea power, was the great famous British naval admiral, Lord Nelson, who won three major fleet victories over the French, the Danes, and again, the French and Spanish fleet, the Battle of Trafalgar, again in the center of London, Trafalgar Square with the big column with Nelson atop of it. For Mahan, Nelson is the example of the naval leader, of how naval leaders should aspire to be like Nelson, aggressive on the offense, training up his people and his ships to take the offensive, to be aggressive, to win in the war at sea. Well, in conclusion, so what? What does this all mean for us today? What do Mahan's books, his writings, what value does it have for us today? Well, today Mahan is very popular in China. Here's just one article about Mahan. Again, who is the rising power with aspirations in the world scene? It's China. Who do you model yourself on? Well, the U.S. Mahan's theories of sea power, pressing forward, capturing forward bases, islands. China sees in Mahan's message something of guidance for China today, aspiring to be a power moving into the world's first rank of powers. Robert Kaplan, the journalist, writer on International Affairs, says, tellingly, who reads Mahan today outside of the Naval War College here? It's China. As he says, the Chinese are the Mahanians today now. So reading Mahan really does resonate with us today. In an age when we talk about a return of great power competition, of states that understand the value of the world's oceans, for trade, for commerce, for well-being, Mahan's message is an important one for us to remember. It's especially important too because in China, you see today them reading the Mahan. We have to read what they're reading. And again, remember it was an American author over 100 years ago writing about the ascendancy of the U.S. and the world stage. Today, his message is one that we should remember. Thank you very much. I have one last slide. This is from over about 29 years ago. This is what historians do to their children. They take their two-year-old sons to the grave of Alfred Theer Mahan. My son, by the way, I'm very proud of him. He's a historian too. Yes, right here. Yes, the submarine turns into a very potent weapon for disrupting sea lines of communication in both world wars. And the Germans, of course, engage in two battles of the Atlantic. And it is essential that Britain and the United States win those battles of the Atlantic if they're going to be able to defeat Germany in both world wars. For the Germans, the submarine effort is one that ties down considerable British American Canadian resources trying to defeat that submarine menace. So the submarine is able to sink large amounts of tonnage. In the First World War, 13 million tons of shipping are sunk by German submarines. So Mahan didn't really see just how dangerous the submarine could be in commerce warfare. Now, the larger lesson, though, of Mahan, where he says it's a secondary operation and won't be decisive, so long as the sea powers protect themselves by convoys that ultimately it won't prove decisive. And so that is the case. And, of course, one of the most successful submarine campaigns was by the US Navy in the Second World War in the Pacific against Japan, where we do immense damage to Japanese shipping more in a way relatively than what the Germans do, in part because the Japanese don't protect their shipping effectively. They don't use convoys. And so it becomes, for the US, an ability to do immense damage to Japan's ability to move supplies back and forth in the Western Pacific. So, yes, the submarine is a very powerful weapon. Mahan understood it could be an important weapon, but he still fought, again, he died in 1914, just as the First World War is beginning. He didn't think it would ever be a decisive weapon. You know, you can argue about the relevancy of Mahan. That's one of the things about strategic theory in history. When you try to apply it to any given time, how do you apply it? And, of course, you can mislearn lessons, too, from the past. Again, it requires serious study. Thank you. Yes, here. I'm sorry, could you repeat? Oh, yes, the Mahan family still exists. He has descendants. In fact, his son said that his father was very remote and very sort of Victorian in being stern. And yet we have photographs of Mahan with his grandchildren where he looks like a very loving grandfather. So I'm sure he spoiled the grandkids, even if he didn't spoil his own children. New York, and I don't know where some of the other ones are today, but New York was Long Island. His home, that grave, is in Quogue, out toward the eastern tip of Long Island. His house is still there, by the way. If you go there, it's privately owned, and the people don't like to be disturbed.  But I was amazed, you know, when I'd gone there, first time I went there, I thought, no one's going to know where Mahan is. So I went into a real estate office, and I said, do you know where Mahan's grave is? And the woman said, oh, yeah, it's right over there. It's in the Episcopal Church yard, just a couple blocks away. And by the way, his house is over there, but don't knock on the door, because the people don't like him. So I was so surprised that the real estate agent knew right away what I was talking about. Yes. Yes. In the three Influences of Seapower books, he doesn't spend much attention on the War of 1812 and American naval developments. In fact, his Influences of Seapower books end with the Battle of Trafalgar, basically. So in other words, once you get control of the maritime commons, that's on October 21st, 1805, the war is basically over. Britain's going to win, even though Napoleon isn't defeated until Waterloo on June 18th, 1815, okay, 10 years later. But he then wrote a book about the War of 1812, and there he is critical of those like Jefferson who wanted to build smaller ships rather than build larger ships. Hamilton in the Federalist Papers is one of Mahan's heroes, because in the Federalist Papers, Hamilton says, look, we don't have to build a large fleet like France or Britain does. If we have six or seven big ships of the line, we will control the balance of power between France and Britain in the New World. And so Mahan very much favored Hamilton over Jefferson in this regard. Yes, so he was critical of the founding fathers who didn't see the value of building up a stronger navy. Any other questions? Dr. Maurer, thank you very much for the marvelous presentation. Thank you. Well, this concludes our first lecture.