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One possible alternate way to get a lot of shipbuilding capacity on demand is to pay major overseas shipbuilders in allied countries to (a) build ships for with
by pjscott 4y ago
One possible alternate way to get a lot of shipbuilding capacity on demand is to pay major overseas shipbuilders in allied countries to (a) build ships for within-US shipping and (b) devote some dedicated percentage of their production to the US in case of geopolitical emergency. The world's second- and third-biggest shipbuilders are Mitsubishi and Hyundai, both in closely-allied countries; surely there's some amount of money that would make them happy to help out. They're very good at making ships efficiently, much better than the US at this point.
- krapht 4y agoIf there was a geopolitical emergency that needed massive US shipbuilding efforts (ie. naval war over Taiwan) it seems obvious that Japanese and Korean shipyards would be smoking craters from Chinese medium range ballistic missiles. Assuming, as usual, that any Taiwan conflict doesn't escalate into nuclear war. So any such agreement would be worth as much as the raw paper it was written on.
- corrral 4y agoIt's not even necessary that the shipyard be destroyed, just that the countries they're based in need shipyard output more than they need to honor their agreements with us. Sourcing foreign ships for domestic use may be a good idea, but production-sharing agreements like that are worthless when it really matters. If you don't have physical possession of the productive capital (legal possession can be, and is, ignored when shit hits the fan, so that hardly matters) then you can't count on it in a crisis.
- cjbgkagh 4y agoRaw paper would be worth more as that paper could still be used for other things.