26 ms·
The U.S. needs a shipbuilding revolution
- zfg 2y agoSouth Korea can train the US navy. Teach them how to build again: https://www.voanews.com/a/us-navy-looking-to-s-korean-japanese-shipbuilders-to-revive-american-shipyards/7518826.html https://www.voanews.com/a/us-navy-looking-to-s-korean-japane... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJkyurhnAQo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJkyurhnAQo
- robinei 2y agoAnd start treating the alliances as vital part of the whole, and stop betraying the fragile trust they are built on. Use Korean industry until the industry at home can catch up.
- raverbashing 2y agoAnd hopefully teach them how to not run into each other
- preisschild 2y agoWhy would they need to when they get contracts anyway due to tariffs and the Jones act?
- frodo8sam 2y agoThe nation doesn’t just need a shipbuilding revolution—it needs a broader industrial revitalization. Strengthening semiconductor manufacturing, modernizing military and civilian aviation, reinvigorating automotive innovation, and more are all critical. Tackling this alone would be overwhelming, but collaboration with trusted neighbors and reliable allies could make these ambitions achievable. Luckily we have a real bridge builder in cha...
- gnkyfrg 2y ago[dead]
- aprilthird2021 2y agoHonest question, is it at all possible for us to have an industrial revitalization given that we have the highest average wages in the world?
- sgt101 2y ago- high wages are not evenly spread geographically in the USA - high wages are not evenly spread demographically in the USA - the wage distribution seems to me to be unusual in that it has a very long fat tail whereas the UK's is very clustered (I've forgotten the right term) on the median. - modern industry can be highly automated - modern logistics mean that industry can be decentralised I believe that the last two are new since the USA and Europe outsourced large amounts of their industry to China. However the bigger issue is that competitive industries require very significant capitalisation because on the one hand modern products are staggeringly well engineered (with the trade offs of cheap, good and sophisticated taken into account) and on the other hand the processes used to make them require lots of tools, infrastructure, and robots.
- roenxi 2y agoProbably. The original industrial revolutions were happening in nations that quickly became wealthy, and the US was doing pretty well with high wages vs. Asia for most of its industrial period. Higher wages in theory should be linked to higher productivity and output per worker in the US due to deep skillsets - otherwise where do the high wages come from? But something might have broken that link. The issue looks from afar like a double-whammy of (1) pushing capital investment offshore to China resulting in most of the productive capital formation happening in Asia and (2) banning a lot of industrial activity in the US for environmental reasons. A lot of what the Chinese did to get ahead was literally illegal in most Western countries - some of it was labour laws mind. Even today there I question whether something like Shenzhen would be legal in the US. If Shenzhen was magically transplanted to the US, what would happen when the lawyers move in?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- peepeepoopoo105 2y agoThis will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. War planners should have pushed to repeal the Jones Act decades ago, but now Chinese shipbuilding capacity is over 230 times greater than ours because of their success in civilian shipbuilding. The proposed measures in this aricle are too little too late. The only logical course of action at this stage would be to seek an alternative that leverages the US's existing strengths. Naval vessels are largely outdated technology and meanwhile the US is the world leader in aerospace manufacturing. If we were to revive the 747 Cruise Missile Carrier concept, or else an equivalent program, it could deliver the same range and operational payload as a guided missile destroyer, but at dramatically lower cost and higher operational tempo. With the ability to rapidly ferry munitions thousands of miles to a conflict zone, one 747 CMC aircraft could replace multiple guided missile destroyers despite costing one fifth the price. This is possible because the 747 CMC is based on a reliable and proven aircraft with existing economies of scale. Thank you for reading my shameless sales pitch.
- leoedin 2y ago> This will never succeed because the economies of scale are nonexistent without dominance in the commercial shipbuilding market. This is what politicians just don’t seem to realise about industry and engineering. People get good at things by doing them repeatedly and optimising. That’s the only proven way. So of course if we build a couple of naval ships every decade, maybe a giant train line every 30 years or similar, it will be done terribly. Then there’s lots of hand wringing about how we can’t do this any more. We are so, so far behind China in industrial capacity now. If we ever did get in a war with them they’d outbuild us 10 to 1. Technical advantages would be pretty much irrelevant at that level.
- pas 2y agoNot just politicians in general, but people, of course, are always surprised how expensive housing is, but then reject any kind of streamlined mass-manufactured option. They are conditioned to worship at the altar of small businesses and good ol' craftsmanship. (And plot after plot they blindly erect yet another replica of the standard American Dream with the compulsory backyard where they truly can be free, and conduct HOA approved activities, and complain about the neighbor making a noise with their fucking weedwhacker, and complain about the other neighbor that has a problem with the smoke from the occasional backyard cooking.) Otherwise it's gentrification, more traffic and oh, ew, maybe even affordable-unit-dwellers.
- senectus1 2y agoLook, If you MUST implement Tariff's then do it in a way that triggers explosive manufacturing. IMHO thats on the only way a tariff can be successful. If you want vertically integrated growth then by logic you should run Tariffs for all the parts and resources needed for triggering that growth. If you decide that ship building needs a shot in the arm thats going to be iron ore and steel (largely). throwing tariffs around for imaginary slights isnt going to trigger anything useful in your country... (unless thats the idea of course. There is a theory that a collapse is the point)
- codemusings 2y ago> [...] if the nation is destined for maritime irrelevance and the laying of its prosperity at the whims of autocrats a world away. Considering what happened in the last two weeks alone this lack of self-awareness is simply brilliant.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- justanorherhack 2y agoWhat has happened exactly in the last two weeks ?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bamboozled 2y agoOur former allies are going to stop sharing intelligence with the USA. That's for sure. They're also going to start finding ways to go around the USA with trade, military alliances and more.
- suraci 2y ago> All said, there are reasons to be optimistic: Consensus on the threat from China has taken hold, galvanizing tentative steps to more forceful and effective actions lol, i like the tone here usually i'll question abt what the threat is exactly but now i only say, wish you have a good luck, little magas
- SteveVeilStream 2y agoCanada as well. We have the longest coastline in the world but buy all or most of our ferries from other countries. It's silly.
- codethief 2y ago> longest coastline Always makes me think of https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox :)
- aaron695 2y agoH I Sutton's recent video on China's new invasion barges was very interesting so not really HN material, but there he talked about how all of Chinas ferries are designed to also move tanks if they have to - https://youtu.be/Klkpk_hO4FQ?t=268 https://youtu.be/Klkpk_hO4FQ?t=268 You go to South Korea or Taiwan and all their subways are also bomb shelters, but something like The Boring Company, environmentally amazing, strategically amazing and everyone thinks it's funny to put it down. There's a massive problem with attitude and IQ in the internet population.
- palmfacehn 2y agoSutton's content is highly informative.
- fergie 2y agoThe military industrial complex making overtures the incoming administration.
- pzo 2y agoDidn't warfare changed big enough that big navy might be more obsolete? Ukraine-Russia conflict showed that you can make hordes of cheap naval drones that can easily harass your very expensive ships or put them out of combat. By now probably you can still make more advanced but cheaper underwater drones, smart torpedos etc.
- jltsiren 2y agoVulnerable, not obsolete. Unless the war is in North America, you need cargo ships to get the heavy equipment and fuel there. And then you need a navy to protect the cargo ships from those cheap naval drones and other threats.
- nickff 2y agoThe jeune ecole thought that torpedoes and small torpedo boats would doom battleships; they were wrong. People thought SAMs would end bombers, and anti-tank missiles would end tanks. There’s always a new weapon, but it doesn’t mean the old ones are obsolete.
- jabl 2y agoNot always, but sometimes it does. Cavalry charges aren't a thing anymore, for instance.
- justanorherhack 2y agoOr revolvers, bolt action rifles, muskets, bow and arrows, spears, swords, shields, catapults, castles/ land forts.
- XorNot 2y agoNo but mechanised assaults are. Mounting up on a fast transport and charging the enemy lines is still a viable tactic, what changed is the horse got too vulnerable and the robots aren't cheap or fast enough yet. Humm-Vees, Bradley's and other infantry mobility vehicles with mounted guns for fire support have very much stepped into the tactical role.
- metalman 2y agoImpossible.Beurocracy.Insurance.Unions.No demographic with the skills that must be learned early in life to do the work, hard ,dangerous work that requires trust and inate skills to acomplish quickly and safely. I aprenticed with some of the last marine smiths, and also worked(very briefly) in a shipyard building military frigates, and spent 95‰ of my life next to the salt water. Add to that my repeated attempts to conduct business as an entrepneur, only to be undermined by impossible (new) regulatory requirements, insurance requirements, labour (ha!) trouble, and lack of scaled banking services. I fill out the same tax form as the very largest companys in the world, and the government is generous enogh to give me a 9 digit space to fill in the amount of my return. It is 125 years since the steel ship building industry took off, there are no mysteries around how it must be done, but the nature of the greed machine, means that China and Korea can put a finnished ship into service, for much less per pound, than I can buy raw steel. The revolution we ARE going through, is the one where, fat, lazy, complacent,etc,etc,etc, so and so's, have very successfully captured all of the relevant power and control. U'r not gona talk a ship into the water. Lead, follow, or get out of the way and cheer!
- Ylpertnodi 2y ago>labour (ha!) Where are you, and how much are you offering per hour?
- mainecoder 2y agoyou are assuming he isn't paying much but think you assumed that there are many people who can do the job that are unemployed when the reality is that most or almost all are either overworked due to under staffing and paid well or retired and it would be difficult to just pay those already working more to just bring them because they are working on an actual US Navy ship and can't be bothered.
- Ylpertnodi 2y agoPay, and the people will come.
- fifticon 2y agoYou can't get a revolution, but it appears you have managed to get a coup.
- fransje 2y agoListen, you need to start somewhere..
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- RobKohr 2y agoA democratic election without using violence to force a result is by definition not a coup. It is ok to not like the result, but don't misappropriate words for it, thus diluting their meaning. Words having concrete meanings are important for reasonable discourse.
- Hasu 2y agoViolence is not inherent to the definition of a coup, and Elon Musk, who is not a government official, who has no official status in the government, has taken direct control of the Treasury's payment systems. An unelected billionaire has illegally and unconstitutionally taken control of the United States government. That is a coup, plain and simple.
- animal_spirits 2y agoThere are already thousands of unelected government workers that already have control over these government systems. I understand it is different that one person now has access to them all now, but the unelected part of this story I think is a nothing burger.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- bamboozled 2y ago
- niffydroid 2y agoThe UK has been in a similar situation. We have a ship building industry plan and it seems to be going ok. Top of the range ships like type 26 are massive, expensive and cutting edge so will take time to build and commission. So what we've done is gone and brought an off the shelf design (Iver Huitfeldt-class frigate) and started building it. It's not cutting edge or massive, it should need less crew and most of it's system should be off the shelf. The first in class was paid in April 2022 and is to be launched this year with an inservice date of early 2027. To compare that against the first in class of the type 26, that was laid down on 2027 and is looking to be in service at the same time as the first type31! We're also building nuclear subs as well!
- niffydroid 2y agolaid 2022 * Type 26 laid 2017
- unit149 2y ago[dead]
- i_am_proteus 2y agoInterested readers may enjoy Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman, which chronicles, amongst other things, how Henry Kaiser led the rapid construction of the shipyards used to build the merchant fleet that helped the United States win the second world war. The book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/208564/freedoms-forge-by-arthur-herman/ https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/208564/freedoms-for...
- squeedles 2y agoRecently read that on a recommendation from a friend. Great review of the sausage making necessary to get something as big and complex as the US moving in a different direction. Only quibble about the book is that the author seems to subscribe to a great man theory of manufacturing, where having a CEO say "we will do it" is all that is needed and the rest of the engineering is left as an exercise to the reader.
- throw0101c 2y ago> Interested readers may enjoy Freedom's Forge by Arthur Herman Please note that, while a good read, the book was initially financed by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a group of large corporations who have a vested interest in making business look good. * https://www.aei.org/research-products/book/freedoms-forge/ https://www.aei.org/research-products/book/freedoms-forge/ I, too, have read this book and was struck by the tone the book took every time the topic of unions came up. You'd think that unions were Nazi sympathizers wanting to sabotage the war effort or something. So while it's worth a read, please be aware of the slant of the book. * https://www.aei.org/profile/arthur-herman/ https://www.aei.org/profile/arthur-herman/ * https://fedsoc.org/contributors/arthur-herman https://fedsoc.org/contributors/arthur-herman
- indymike 2y agoI don't share the confidence in large ships being the future of naval anything. Even in the 90s, surface ships were easy pickings for submarines and antiship missiles. Smaller ships acting as drone carriers combined with arsenal ships can allow local power projection to keep shipping lanes open. Submarines and aircraft remain the safest, and best way to deliver offensive firepower. The aircraft carrier does have a role, but it is far behind the contact line.
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- jabl 2y ago> The aircraft carrier does have a role, but it is far behind the contact line. That's why they're called 'aircraft carriers'. The entire point of them is that the offensive firepower in the form of aircraft can reach out pretty far. They don't need to sail the carrier right up beside the enemy in order to hit him with their swords, you know. Jokes aside, there might (eventually, maybe not today?) be a point in what you're saying. It's been a long time since 1945 when carriers last were used in a major peer conflict, and a lot has changed since then.
- Yeul 2y agoNATO exercises always ended with the nukes.
- ragnot 2y agoHence the emphasis on cyber and (US) dollar attack vectors. War without the bullets.
- einpoklum 2y agoUS dollar attack vectors are gradually drying up. Ironically, the more they are used - e.g. in sanctions - the stronger the motivation for detachment from USD as a reserve currency and direct trade in the parties' own currencies. Plus - how much of the world can the US sanction at the same time before it's only the select few that it trades with? Russia + Iran + China + Venezuela + Mexico + Canada + + + ...
- vfclists 2y agoAin't gonna happen. US businesses are incapable of thinking long term. If the US wants to build a ship industry they must invite Chinese shipbuilders to kickstart it just as they invited TSMC to build a factory here. But that doesn't seem likely does it?
- ElevenLathe 2y agoSouth Korea is an ally and big in shipbuilding too.
- vfclists 2y agoI thought so too, but the Chinese are much bigger in this space.
- throw0101c 2y agoFor anyone interested in the topic, highly recommend the What's Going on With Shipping? channel: * https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping/videos https://www.youtube.com/@wgowshipping/videos AIUI, the problem is that the US lacks a policy. This is what China's strength is: making a decision and getting it done. The article mentions the SHIPS Act which the channel talks about: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iksNr3s2WVs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iksNr3s2WVs As well as five suggestions for Trump: * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CoOXdpxvIo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CoOXdpxvIo The IRA/CHIPS acts helped bring plants to the US soil. Industrial policy can work. China subsidized many industries that they thought would be strategically important, and they're now important players in those industries. As Noah Smith recently wrote: > Democratic countries’ economies are mainly set up as free market economies with redistribution, because this is what maximizes living standards in peacetime. In a free market economy, if a foreign country wants to sell you cheap cars, you let them do it, and you allocate your own productive resources to something more profitable instead. If China is willing to sell you brand-new electric vehicles for $10,000, why should you turn them down? Just make B2B SaaS and advertising platforms and chat apps, sell them for a high profit margin, and drive a Chinese car. > Except then a war comes, and suddenly you find that B2B SaaS and advertising platforms and chat apps aren’t very useful for defending your freedoms. Oops! The right time to worry about manufacturing would have been years before the war, except you weren’t able to anticipate and prepare for the future. Manufacturing doesn’t just support war — in a very real way, it’s a war in and of itself. * https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/manufacturing-is-a-war-now https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/manufacturing-is-a-war-now
- dmix 2y ago> The IRA/CHIPS acts helped bring plants to the US soil. Industrial policy can work. I see a lot of people say the CHIPS act is a success that should be duplicated but is there any evidence of this yet or is it merely because money was committed and promises were made? How much industrial output vs the amount of subsidies etc. It will probably take a decade before we know if it worked.
- throw0101c 2y ago> A new report by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and the Boston Consulting Group on the semiconductor supply chain forecasts significant improvements in the resilience of the supply chain in both the U.S. and globally in coming years. The study shows that investments from the industry, facilitated by incentives under the CHIPS Act, are making progress in growing domestic semiconductor manufacturing and strengthening the U.S. economy. Among other things, the report finds: * https://www.semiconductors.org/emerging-resilience-in-the-semiconductor-supply-chain/ https://www.semiconductors.org/emerging-resilience-in-the-se... ?
- fuzzfactor 2y ago>The Nation Needs a Shipbuilding Revolution Somebody noticed :) Too late now, Nixon "opened up" China and Ronald Reagan said "NO!" to the kind of prosperity that would be needed in the 21st century. It's like political parties haven't been paying attention at all for a "little" while now. If American voters can not get over electing media "personalities" acting as leaders, those kind of fakers are not going to be far enough in the rear-view mirror to allow pulling ahead by the 22nd century :\ We're already 1/4 of the way to 2100. And more gloomy than ever in the 21st century so far, recovering industrial leadership just got dramatically more unlikely in the last few months :(
- mc32 2y ago[flagged]
- thtowbs 2y agoSanders would sell the country to China
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Facemelters 2y agotell us more about how you know nothing of american politics
- thtowbs 2y agoThere are lot of MAGA people in tech too. Seems party won't last any longer for Americans
- franktankbank 2y agoSeems the party wasn't good for us anyway.
- themgt 2y ago
- Invictus0 2y agoThis article is ignorant to the political reality that America's sole-hegemon era is ending and China will be allowed to capture Taiwan.
- globalnode 2y agoAre ships really going to be a 'thing' in any next war anyway, in an age of missiles and drones (both above and below water)? It really pisses me off my dumbass govt spent hundreds of billions of dollars on what I believe will be irrelevant tech, and we may not even get the tech, hows that lol!!! "Here guys, have some money our taxpayers payed us, you don't even need to give us the goods". You'd think the pollies had been bought or something...
- Retric 2y agoYes, most wars aren’t between countries with similar military capabilities. Even in a hypothetical war between US and China being limited to moving fuel, food, bullets etc by aircraft alone is a major logistical issue. Military conflict is potentially millions of people and within an order of magnitude that many vehicles. Guarding such slow moving cargo vessels by air alone is again impractical, thus surface ships and subs. Every minute a drone or jet is in the air has an associated cost, an aircraft carrier a few 100’s of miles offshore is still a lot closer than mainland USA.
- hx8 2y agoPiling on * Navies guard shipping/supply lines. This is true for war time, but it is also true for peace time. * Navies can disrupt enemy supply lines. Supply lines are critical in any prolonged conflict. * Air superiority remains an important aspect of war. We need places near the theater of war to operate aircraft from. An aircraft carrier essentially means we can place an airbase anywhere in the world. This is a more dynamic than limiting ourself to just allies that give us land to build bases. * Armies often use their navy to secure critical resources needed for the war effort, and guard supply lines extracting those resources. Oil, minerals, food, etc. If we increase our industrial capacity during a war we will need to increase our raw material input, at a time when former trading partners might stop selling to us.
- Ekaros 2y agoSomehow you have to get the drones and missiles around. Or are cargo planes a thing? In age of missiles and drones... I think it looks like those would need quite extreme ranges. Well intercontinental ballistic missiles are a real solution.
- pfdietz 2y agoThe US needs to pull back from great overextension.
- K0balt 2y agoSadly, and I say this with an equal measure of sadness and conviction, the bell has been rung on this (and industrial might in general )for 2+ decades. There was a chance to rebuild the us into a formidable industrial power, but it was lost in the early 2000s. We gifted all of our knowledge advantages to an industrial adversary with a 4:1 population and resource advantage. They have improved their primary education to be vastly superior to ours, and their secondary education is not far behind. Strategic goals were superseded by greed, and we will now have to settle for second fiddle or lower on the world stage with no hope of recovering a leadership role. Our military might will eventually be eclipsed by China as well, and in the interim will only serve to slightly slow our fading into irrelevance, while being an increasingly heavy yoke to bear as the expense of maintaining aging systems that we cannot replace continues to grow. Yet, There is one inflection point that we might possibly be able to change this at: an all out, no holds barred investment in space resource and energy harvesting: this expands our high technology edge, gives us a resource advantage, gives us new territory, incentivises rapid robotic expansion of our industrial capacity…. We could leverage dominance in the space frontier while we still possess the military advantage on-planet to defend our will to do so. But we will have to throw everything behind the effort, in basically a wartime footing, or we cannot hope to succeed. This is quite literally the last chance to avoid a CCP dominated world within 5 decades.
- lenerdenator 2y agoI'm sure the market will solve it.
- ismthetism 2y ago[dead]
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- aprentic 2y agoThis feels like somebody telling Bob Vila, "This house needs a kitchen renovation." It might actually need a kitchen renovation but you can't actually do it until you repair the foundation under the kitchen. The bathrooms might be a higher priority, you don't have any tools, you just kick out all the contractors, and the next meeting with your parts suppliers is in the courthouse.
- intalentive 2y agoThe American cost of living is too high to reindustrialize on a large scale. Medical costs are high, rent is high, transportation costs are high, personal debt is high. Industrial capitalists can’t shoulder all those costs for their workers and remain internationally competitive.
- FuriouslyAdrift 2y agoThen the industry needs to be nationalized and subsidized.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoOh yay that annual anti Jones Act thread.
- bombcar 2y agoWhat exactly would be the cost increase for a ship built in the USA? Is it a 50% increase? 200%? 500%? And what would the dollar amounts be?
- niceguy1827 2y agoConsider this as very much back-of-napkin math, a Chinese 055 destroyer is about a third of the cost of an Arleigh Burke. So you’d be looking at roughly 300%.
- bombcar 2y agoSo more envelope-math; a containership seems to run $100-200m, so it'd be $300-600m. That's not so insanely expensive as to be completely undoable.
- carlosdp 2y agoRepeal the Jones act, get a commercial shipbuilding market going again domestically. In the meantime, leverage the best asset we have: alliances with western nations. South Korea is really good at shipbuilding, to the point they are now authorized to repair US Navy warships based in the PACCOM AOR. Let them build ships for us too.
- echelon 2y ago> get a commercial shipbuilding market going again domestically. How do you start a flywheel? Our industry is light years behind China and would be prohibitively more expensive. Tariffs? That's a moral equivalent of the Jones Act, just with more options for buyers. The thing that worked really well for China was to force Western manufacturers to partner with their domestic industries so that they could learn the tricks of the trade, then be kick the Western companies to the wayside and discard the relationships when they're no longer useful. I don't think we can mimic the China playbook because of our labor costs. There's no gradient or arbitrage to exploit. Maybe a partnership between the US and Mexico where we take advantage of Mexican labor, yet use US capital and retain ownership?
- araes 2y agoA part that at least helped with China was that after the Great Recession (and somewhat before), China was also willing to subsidize and invest heavily in local manufacturing and helping individual businesses and communities finance "relatively" expensive purchases for equipment that might have been prohibitive otherwise. Low cost loans with relatively forgiving terms. [1][2] An example is chain link fencing. It's not especially glamorous, yet its a huge industry. The machine's don't have to be especially advanced, yet for somebody normal to even consider purchasing a chain link fencing weaving machine (especially in early 2000's China) look(s|ed) prohibitive. It still looks prohibitive in 2025. A lot of manufacturing looks that way. You need 10-50k up-front in machinery and capital purchases at the low end. In America, the ROI calculations would always look bad, and the standard lenders would "almost" always turn you down for suggesting investment in a thin margin industry with "old" tech. You're not proposing 10x returns. You're not proposing get out tomorrow VC. You're proposing a decade long relationship of manufacturing chain link fences. Except now China rules the entire chain-link fence manufacturing industry. The focus on scraping America's modern tech has a lot of the same issues. China didn't get a quick jump in naval ship building by scraping America tech and twiddling more silicon. They got it by buying an old Russian aircraft carrier from Ukraine and tugboating it half-way around the Earth. (Liaoning, original created as Riga for the Soviet Navy in Ukraine) [3][4] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_stimulus_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_stimulus_prog... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Development_Bank https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Development_Bank [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Liaoning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_aircraft_carrier_Liaon... [4] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/chinas-very-first-aircraft-carrier-was-built-ukraine-207796/ https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/chinas-very-first-air...
- amanda99 2y agoA lot of folks are saying big ships are outdated. Keep in mind that war is 80% logistics: and if you are going to engage an enemy far away from your landmass (or project power for that matter), you need huge capacity to move materiel to said location, and that normally means ships. An interesting thing to look at is something called the "Fully Burdened Cost of Fuel": for every gallon that the US delivers to a Forward Operating Base, they spend something like 6-20 gal getting it there. The point is that you need to move insane amounts of stuff to fight a war effectively. The actual fighting is just the tip of an iceberg of logistics.
- echelon 2y ago“Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars” That said, for smaller engagements when you have a forward operating base, you can air drop a massive amount of tonnage on a dime with C-5s. And if we ever turn Starship into an orbital equipment delivery system, we'll be able to open new salients quickly.
- twelve40 2y agoboth can be true! if a huge ship can be destroyed by a $100k drone boat, we still have a problem
- maxglute 2y agoI think fully burden fuel costs greatly skewed by GWOT where a shit load of supplies was brought in via air or land convoys since AFG land locked. Napkin math Vietnam war cost 1/8 of GWOT adjusted to same dollar which is argument for big ship logistics. But big ships are outdated crowd surmises big ships used to support logistics (including of other big ships) are also not survivable especially against peer power, not irregular forces that can't touch rear. TBH once adversaries can hit logistics tail (or even CONUS), and they increasingly can thanks to proliferation of rocketry/missiles, the backbone that supports US global expeditionary model breaks. And if enough adversaries can threaten that model, it's value drops even against irregular forces with larger power backing. The point is, for the first time in modern history, the era of US having uncontested/effective ocean logistics during war time, especially vs peer may be closing. And there simply may not be viable alternative to support expeditionary model that relies on heavy tooth-tail ratios. Which isn't to say sea power is over, just value diminished. At some point it maybe not be economical / feasible to fight large wars on other side of world against adversaries fighting in their backyards. And that's something planners need to account for.
- lasermike026 2y ago[flagged]
- irrational 2y agoWe don't need ships to go fight the next war. The next war is going to be right here.
- einpoklum 2y agoUnfortunately, before that war you expect to happen right in the US - current and future administrations will most likely sneak in anohter two, three, ten, fifty other wars, elsewhere.
- irrational 2y agoYou can't fit that many wars in during the next year.
- einpoklum 2y agoI dread to ask this, but - which war is starting next year in the US? :-(
- einpoklum 2y ago> The Navy needs to recapitalize the shipbuilding industry to produce > the new capabilities and warships required to win the next war. Ah, one mustn't forget to prepare for the next war one is likely going to start... Well, I'd say the US needs potable running water, health care for its population, and shelter - all three of which are not enjoyed by many of its residents and citizens. And if we're talking about war, perhaps a "recapitalization" of firefighting and disaster relief would be a thing to invest in before warship construction.
- bell-cot 2y ago'Tis sadly interesting that the article, from USNI, never really mentions all the Navy Yards that America once had - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Yard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_Yard - where the Navy could (and very often did) build and maintain its own warships. Before the navy yards were shut down, they provided pretty much the exact capabilities which the author bemoans the US desperately needing now. And were extremely useful for keeping private shipyards honest - "You want HOW much? It'll take HOW long? Sorry, we'll just build the ship ourselves." Similar (and again unmentioned) in Great Britain. Even though the article talks about (Royal Navy Admiral) Jacky Fisher. Who, famously, spent a fair hunk of his career managing such facilities for the RN. And was famous/notorious for squeezing both the RN's and private yards to produce more ships, faster, better, and cheaper.
- michaelg7x 2y agoSurely any peacetime military contract in the US (or, perhaps anywhere) is just a signal to get snouts in the trough and start hoovering up the cash? While wartime begets its own kind of profiteer, my sense is that it could only be done when businesses put the national interest first.
- silexia 2y agoTariffs are necessary to protect our manufacturing and build ships. We voted to pass laws that give massive protections to workers, now we need to vote to protect the businesses that employ those workers or it all for naught.
- caycep 2y agoOr....we could've been on the cusp of one of those Foundation/Asimov moments where our economy evolved beyond a manufacturing economy, with enough financial clout to...not actually need to be able to build our own ships?
- derelicta 2y agoTL;DR: The US Empire needs a shipbuilding revolution for war-purposes to defeat non-allied Republics.