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> The issue is that capable people are being prevented from improving the situation. What situation, specifically, needs to be improved? The US Navy does not,

by kibwen 3y ago

> The issue is that capable people are being prevented from improving the situation. What situation, specifically, needs to be improved? The US Navy does not, at present, have any need whatsoever to drastically increase the size of its fleet. Every ship that gets built is a ship that needs to be manned and maintained, which siphons money from elsewhere. We can bemoan the inefficiency of the existing shipbuilders, but that's just how the US sells welfare programs to conservative voters. If you think that a hot war with China is in the cards, forget investing in shipbuilding infrastructure and instead put that money towards onshoring the rest of the national critical supply chain, much of which is in far more dire straits (ahem) than the shipyards.

thereisnospork 3y ago
Shipbuilding inefficient and the lack of onshore critical supply chain are two symptoms of the same problem: whether it's chips, shells, or ships: production capacity is critical in any prolonged conflict - which is something we've been agnostically gutting and impeding. It's desirable that we be able to build ships well[0] because being able to build ships well (or not) is a reasonable proxy for being able to build drones, fighter planes, or ballistic missles (whatever the next war calls for). [0]Read: unacceptable for it to be otherwise for a superpower that would like to stay one. Actually cranking out ships is another thing but the capacity needs to be there (and tested/validated accordingly).
roenxi 3y ago
If your argument is that US shipbuilding is supposed to be a welfare project then all is well. I suppose my mistake was thinking that the industry was there to build ships. > The US Navy does not, at present, have any need whatsoever to drastically increase the size of its fleet. How much of US military spending should be classed as welfare? Between Ukraine and Israel the US appears to be in a 1.5 front war and the European front hasn't covered itself in glory. This might be a good time to think about re-purposing the military from welfare projects to defence, if there is a hot war with China it'll be US vs. the world's preeminent industrial superpower. It'd be wise to prepare before it becomes necessary, they learn how to build things faster than the US does. I don't think it is likely, but we've seen this last year how close the US is to a 3-front war. There are uncomfortable odds they'd lose; their ability to sustain overseas operations is in question. We're already looking at a debt crisis with what they pulled off in the last 20 years and that was mainly a fight with guerrillas and goat herders.
- jholman 3y ago
  Characterizing the US's current commitments in Ukraine and Israel as 1.5 fronts is baffling. Neither of those constitutes even a tiny fraction of the American capability to wage war. Yes, there are some commitments in the Eastern Med, but as Ford heads home, the Bataan ARG of literally three ships and zero full-sized aircraft carriers is judged sufficient to hold that down, because remember that their role in Israel is to, uh, do exactly nothing. Now, putting aside Israel-as-such, there is Ike's group in the Red Sea. The Red Sea presence isn't directly about Israel, but about Houthi threats to global shipping. If the US was in a hot war, global shipping could go around Africa (which Maersk and another line had already decided to do, I've seen some pundit modelling on the costs and consequences, it's pretty miserable from the standards of peacetime, with consequences on the consumer supply chain, but in terms of "oh no the US might lose a hot war with China", going around Africa will just have to work itself out). And yes, they're moving amazing amounts of arms to Ukraine, but not as much as it looks like. There's a lot of already-destined-for-scrap vehicles, and a lot of ammunition that was approaching the end of its shelf life, and so on. What fraction of Abrams went to Ukraine? (under 1%) How many F16s are going to Ukraine? (I believe that all nations collectively have committed around 60 F16s, which if supplied entirely by the US would be about 2% of US fighter aircraft.) Don't get it twisted, the US is not going full-bore in Ukraine. The stockpiles and production capacity of 155mm is a concern for sure, and air defense missiles too. But it's not even close to being a "front", even in terms of the logistics demands (and obviously in terms of combat personnel it is 0% of a front). And because of that conflict, Russia is nearly incapable of doing anything more aggressive than it already is, which frees up military resources relative to the situation 2 years ago. Except 155mm, of course. None of this means that the US does or does not need to increase the size of its fleet to meet goals involving its pacing threat, which is the context of this thread, and I'm agnostic about that higher-level claim. And I'm not saying that everything is peachy, neither with respect to the health of the US fleet in general, or in particular with respect to industrial competitiveness vis a vis China. But the US is not currently in a 1.5-front war, that's just absurd.
  - roenxi 3y ago
    > Neither of those constitutes even a tiny fraction of the American capability to wage war. How would we know that? We haven't seen the US go to war against a top-ten global power in something like 70 years. They might be quite close to the cap of what they can do for all we know. Obviously they have nukes so they aren't going to be invaded, but their ability to control conflicts the like of which we see in Europe, sorta-present in the Middle East and potentially in Asia is very much open to doubt. The linked article is suggesting that the US shipbuilding industry is operating at 1/20th of what a competitive shipbuilding industry in Japan is, that has interesting implications on the fact that the US is spending 10x as much in their military budget as Russia and 4x China. I'm not up to speed on the state of stockpiles and democracies tend to be violent military behemoths. So I'd still bet on the US being comfortably ahead of everyone else. But it's performance in the Ukraine has not been as impressive as the gap in budgets suggests it should be. We might observe that it is exhausting the US's ability to provide military support. The US also happens to be broke if anyone cares to check in on their finances. It isn't at all absurd to question the US's military strength here; these wars are not easy for them. Particularly if the response to "this seems inefficient" is going to be "well it is really a welfare program; we don't expect effective production to be happening here".

by kibwen 3y ago

thereisnospork 3y ago

Shipbuilding inefficient and the lack of onshore critical supply chain are two symptoms of the same problem: whether it's chips, shells, or ships: production capacity is critical in any prolonged conflict - which is something we've been agnostically gutting and impeding. It's desirable that we be able to build ships well[0] because being able to build ships well (or not) is a reasonable proxy for being able to build drones, fighter planes, or ballistic missles (whatever the next war calls for). [0]Read: unacceptable for it to be otherwise for a superpower that would like to stay one. Actually cranking out ships is another thing but the capacity needs to be there (and tested/validated accordingly).

roenxi 3y ago

If your argument is that US shipbuilding is supposed to be a welfare project then all is well. I suppose my mistake was thinking that the industry was there to build ships. > The US Navy does not, at present, have any need whatsoever to drastically increase the size of its fleet. How much of US military spending should be classed as welfare? Between Ukraine and Israel the US appears to be in a 1.5 front war and the European front hasn't covered itself in glory. This might be a good time to think about re-purposing the military from welfare projects to defence, if there is a hot war with China it'll be US vs. the world's preeminent industrial superpower. It'd be wise to prepare before it becomes necessary, they learn how to build things faster than the US does. I don't think it is likely, but we've seen this last year how close the US is to a 3-front war. There are uncomfortable odds they'd lose; their ability to sustain overseas operations is in question. We're already looking at a debt crisis with what they pulled off in the last 20 years and that was mainly a fight with guerrillas and goat herders.

jholman 3y ago
Characterizing the US's current commitments in Ukraine and Israel as 1.5 fronts is baffling. Neither of those constitutes even a tiny fraction of the American capability to wage war. Yes, there are some commitments in the Eastern Med, but as Ford heads home, the Bataan ARG of literally three ships and zero full-sized aircraft carriers is judged sufficient to hold that down, because remember that their role in Israel is to, uh, do exactly nothing. Now, putting aside Israel-as-such, there is Ike's group in the Red Sea. The Red Sea presence isn't directly about Israel, but about Houthi threats to global shipping. If the US was in a hot war, global shipping could go around Africa (which Maersk and another line had already decided to do, I've seen some pundit modelling on the costs and consequences, it's pretty miserable from the standards of peacetime, with consequences on the consumer supply chain, but in terms of "oh no the US might lose a hot war with China", going around Africa will just have to work itself out). And yes, they're moving amazing amounts of arms to Ukraine, but not as much as it looks like. There's a lot of already-destined-for-scrap vehicles, and a lot of ammunition that was approaching the end of its shelf life, and so on. What fraction of Abrams went to Ukraine? (under 1%) How many F16s are going to Ukraine? (I believe that all nations collectively have committed around 60 F16s, which if supplied entirely by the US would be about 2% of US fighter aircraft.) Don't get it twisted, the US is not going full-bore in Ukraine. The stockpiles and production capacity of 155mm is a concern for sure, and air defense missiles too. But it's not even close to being a "front", even in terms of the logistics demands (and obviously in terms of combat personnel it is 0% of a front). And because of that conflict, Russia is nearly incapable of doing anything more aggressive than it already is, which frees up military resources relative to the situation 2 years ago. Except 155mm, of course. None of this means that the US does or does not need to increase the size of its fleet to meet goals involving its pacing threat, which is the context of this thread, and I'm agnostic about that higher-level claim. And I'm not saying that everything is peachy, neither with respect to the health of the US fleet in general, or in particular with respect to industrial competitiveness vis a vis China. But the US is not currently in a 1.5-front war, that's just absurd.
- roenxi 3y ago
  > Neither of those constitutes even a tiny fraction of the American capability to wage war. How would we know that? We haven't seen the US go to war against a top-ten global power in something like 70 years. They might be quite close to the cap of what they can do for all we know. Obviously they have nukes so they aren't going to be invaded, but their ability to control conflicts the like of which we see in Europe, sorta-present in the Middle East and potentially in Asia is very much open to doubt. The linked article is suggesting that the US shipbuilding industry is operating at 1/20th of what a competitive shipbuilding industry in Japan is, that has interesting implications on the fact that the US is spending 10x as much in their military budget as Russia and 4x China. I'm not up to speed on the state of stockpiles and democracies tend to be violent military behemoths. So I'd still bet on the US being comfortably ahead of everyone else. But it's performance in the Ukraine has not been as impressive as the gap in budgets suggests it should be. We might observe that it is exhausting the US's ability to provide military support. The US also happens to be broke if anyone cares to check in on their finances. It isn't at all absurd to question the US's military strength here; these wars are not easy for them. Particularly if the response to "this seems inefficient" is going to be "well it is really a welfare program; we don't expect effective production to be happening here".