That's easy: because the US is a nuclear armed power, the pacific aircraft carrier called "Japan" is friendly, and there hasn't been a Pearl Harbor. Everything follows from there.
While there is peace, US domestic shipbuilding fundamentally doesn't "matter" all that much politically, not compared to all the thousands of other daily issues or the big issue, tax. The article makes clear that all previous efforts at onshoring shipbuilding, including the hugely successful war efforts, involved spending a lot of public money.
If you ask the average taxpayer, how much do they want to spend on subsidies for US shipyard workers, what answer are you going to get?
(I also think the Jones Act, like other protectionism, keeps the industry intact but inefficient, another uncomfortable choice)
>> high cost of inputs, particularly labor and steel
Well, yes. A side effect of being a rich country is expensive labour because workers have other options.
> But it now faces a potential naval adversary, in the form of China, with dramatically higher shipbuilding capacity
The US has something like 5,000 live nuclear warheads, use of which might significantly reduce Chinese shipping if it comes to that.
Nuclear warheads do not allow you to project power, engage in gunboat diplomacy, and cannot serve as logistics hubs for military operations or evactuions from natural disasters.
> While there is peace, US domestic shipbuilding fundamentally doesn't "matter" all that much politically.
You don’t think that without a warships and a nuclear aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean that Iran wouldn’t have invaded Israel? And that the entire region would have completely come apart?
Or that without carriers in the South China Sea China wouldn’t have taken Taiwan?
The US naval fleet is the #1 most powerful geopolitical tool ever invented in the history of the world. And those ships are equipped with plenty of nukes, ICBM interception, electronic warfare, etc.
You might benefit from looking at a map of Iran at some point. You’ll be surprised to learn that it’s not actually bordering Israel. A ground invasion isn’t possible without going through other countries and a water invasion would take forever and and be impractical.
You won’t be landing 10000 troops in Israel unless they are invited. You could maybe land 10k in Iran but the country is so large and the terrain unfavorable that you would need at least 10x
This would not be an issue if major wars were not popping up everywhere or if China has not been building a naval fleet to challenge the U.S.
If China and the U.S. get into a conflict, like every war it will be a question of war production. It takes a long time to build a modern ship. It takes even longer to build a shipyard capable of producing modern ships.
Any great power war will be long and drawn out unless nukes are used.
In a defense of Taiwan or anywhere else in the South China Sea, the defenders advantage will play a role. China with it's numerous shipyards and hypersonic weapons could easily keep the U.S. Navy out and then even more easily out produce it to replace lost ships.
It's also a questionable strategy to outsource your ship building to the two countries closest to your only potential naval rival. Usually countries fighting protracted long wars do not put their primary means of production next to enemy forces.
Hopefully things remain peaceful and this never matters.
> If China and the U.S. get into a conflict, like every war it will be a question of war production
This describes attritional war [1]. Not all wars are attritional. American war planning has, since the Cold War, extracted a peace dividend in not maintaining its warmaking industry, relying, instead, on stockpiles and quick victories.
In China, for the first time since the Soviet Union, we have an adversary who could draw down our stockpiles and force us into attritional war.
China can't win. If there was any lesson nations of the world should have learned from WW2 is you need resources. Oil in particular for ships. China is an net importer of oil. The US is a net exporter and the largest oil producer in the world. Second there is no defender advantage at sea. Defender advantage comes from built up defenses. The only thing you can do at sea is mine. That will be a problem for both sides. China also doesn't have the air power to win. Now the biggest problem for China is a population of around 1.4 billion people. This comes back to a resource issue. China is also a net importer of food. Ships aren't going to help. The Ukraine war has shown they are very vulnerable to cheap drones. I suspect the US doesn't see an investment in ships to be a high priority. Air power is what matters and they are behind.
PRC is a continental sized power like US, they produce 4m barrels, not as much as US but enough domestic oil to sustain military multiple times current size on war economy with rationing (for reference US military uses ~250k barrles per day). Meanwhile other 10m barrels used energy and transportation is rapidly being electrified. They're also calorically self sufficient. Plenty of domestic coal for other energy use and to gassify into fertilizer.
PRC's correlation of forces in region > US airpower, which likely won't be operational (both land and carrier) because PRC has magnitude more firepower bandwith that US posture in region simply not survivable. It's USN who has no defender advantage vs PRC's entire land based A2D2. Hence IMO correctly surmise US DoD lackidasical about fixing ship building - they see large surface combatants have little future. Also why DoD NGAD is a shit show, they see theatre aviation have little future (against PRC). Only thing US doing right and not fucking up procurement wise is B21s because they realize only survivable edge has to be based in CONUS or far outside of 1/2IC. PRC answer to that is long range strike via missiles/hypersonics, aka doesn't matter US can produce all the oil if CONUS refineries and LNG plants go boom.
Air power is just a means, the ends is degrading adversary war fighting capability / surviving attrition in sustained total peer war. Current trend is US has increasingly little ability to degrade PRC mainland, while PRC's ability to degrade CONUS is increasing. US biggest problem is fortress America is over, and they're trying to match up against a adversary more productive than US ever was during the peak of US industrial output, which was only possible because prior tech made disrupting CONUS at scale impossible. Reality is, IndoPac war will turn 1IC and pacific into no mans land and boths sides will be flinging long range conventional strikes at each others critical homeland infra until someone has had enough.
China produces 4M imports almost 12M barrels a day. If they lose any significant portion of that oil, their ability to manufacture will be impaired. Fuel for agriculture will also be impacted. I'd also expect major dams to be destroyed. I'm thinking that alone would destroy a huge amount of food production. All of this ignores that it won't be just the US fighting. China is antagonizing just about everyone in the South China sea. No ship will make it to US shores. They will be sunk long before they get there. ICBMs are the only option and that would be an excellent way to cause a nuclear retaliatory strike. Once anything intercontinental is launched the other has to assume it's nuclear. And I think the US will come out better on that, too.
4m is sufficient for industry, about current sector consumption. Other 12m is mostly used for combination of transportation and heating, again both being electrified at rapid pace. Really depends on rationing but TLDR is war economy PRC's domestic 4m barrles is enough for magnitude much larger military output then right now.
>ignores
No it accepts that US+co in region still produces less and has less firepower than PRC, i.e. PRC cruise missile giga factory churning out 1000 components a day = US can put every piece of hardware in region and a few weeks of factory going brrrt and they're all gone. US+partner force posture in region is weak relative to PRC, who doesn't need ships to reach US shores. Conventional prompt missiles strike enough to take out US infra... and if US hitting PRC dams... then US losing refineries, and lng plants. And "everyone" is really just Okinawa and a few bases in PH... it's nothing vs PRC mainland, which again outscales everyone else combined. People forget how small US coalition in region actually is, or that the region just shifted slighly more pro PRC than US in surveys this year. It's probably safer to assume no one US partners won't even allow US to operate in region knowing they'll be US missile sinks... see US inability to get JP to open up main islands for expanded basing.
>major dams to be destroyed.
Yes a war crime, which escalates to nuclear retaliation. Nevermind US has essentially no platforms that can deliver large dam busting munitions within PRC a2d2... none of the fighters can carry munitinos large enough to breech concrete infra at scale. Regardless, once we get to that level of civilian infra targetting, PRC will respond in kind with conventional icbms and IMO US will just eat stone age because that's preferable to MAD. Like it's American hubris to think only US can threaten homeland strike with nukes. Every US platform has some sort of nuclear capable delivery, i.e. there's no difference between US launching a cruise missile and PRC launching an ICBM, since both are nuclear capable. Ultimately, both sides will wait for launch on confirmation instead of launch on warning. And if US wants to escalate to nuclear then that's where it will go. Reminder PRC fought with every NPT nuclear state, several including US+UN before PRC had nukes herselfs. Historically, nuclear brinksmanship doesn't work with PRC. US strategic calculation and ability to bluff over nuclear use evaporates when CONUS is conventionally vunerable. That said there is current US nuke advantage, but gaps also closing fast, PRC has enough warheads for MAD with US, just not MAD several times over.
That will be 4M for the entire country, not just industry (80% of China's electricity comes from fossil fuels, electrifying won't help). I would also expect it not be 4M after the start of the war. Most of the electricity generated in China is from fossil fuels. China will be in the dark if they have to survive on domestic production.
I also suspect your production estimates and military strength estimates are overblown. Why? If China could pull that off Taiwan would already be in China's hands. If China were to attack Taiwan the US would have more than enough bases to land in. Japan isn't going to refuse US air force landings. They will be in the war too.
China is smarter than to fire ICBMs at the US. That would be the end for them. Even if the nukes were limited to US and China (they won't be, Russia can't assume they aren't being targeted from the US) both countries would now be easy pickings for other nations.
Not a war crime for the US. The US hasn't signed the Additional Protocol I that prohibits their attack (unless they are being used for military production). Now if you think we won't attack the dams, you are sadly mistaken. The US's last attack on a dam was in 2017 (Tabqa Dam). The US will not just eat it if attacked. Think of the fallout from 9/11. US took over two countries, because of that. Just in case you think we were defeated, that's fine I don't agree. An F15 can carry 1800Kg bunker busters and there will be tons of cruise missiles. The dams will be destroyed if US wants them to be.
You're conflating oil for coal in PRC energy composition, vast majority of fossil energy generation is from domestic thermal coal which PRC has centuries of domestic reserves for and over abundance of power plants just in case. Oil for energy is closer to rounding error. Oil is predominantly used for transportation, which can be titrated. Oil for heat can be replaced. Another 2m+ oil from RU pipeline possible.
>Taiwan would already be in China's hands
No, there's more benefit to building strength until overwhelming imbalance obvious to deter US intervention. In just last a few years, PRC / PLA went from lol bad to pacing power, to peer power to "past pacing" (in region). But nuclear strategic gap still need to be closed before PRC can feel comfortable.
>more than enough bases to land
US does not REMOTELY have enough bases, this is one of the largest/most crippling setback in current US strategic writings. The amount of airfields US have access too is limited to difficult to supply remote regions, all within stupendous amount of PRC land based fire range, because host countries like JP has consistently refused to provide US expanded basing across country. JP doesn't even have to refuse US landings, all they're doing (rather not doing) is simply not build out / expand basing like US wants, because what JP can currently offer simply isn't sufficient. US both doesn't have enough access, and what access they can potentially have is not enough, UNLESS partners dramatically expand infra, not like rinky dink air fields, but entire total war logistics chain, which they're not. That's why NGAD is struggling because the entire CONOP that makes them useful (AGILE basing in JP) doesn't exist, and if I were to guess, won't, because openning up JP main islands for more US military drama (rapes) is domestic JP politics suicide. Meanwhile PRC ability to expand homeland deployment (PRC big place) and arms race that can hit every inch of 1IC and increasingly beyond is unconstrained.
>China is smarter than to fire ICBMs at the US
And US smarter than to blow up dams in PRC. Or hit PRC mainland at all. Unless you know, they're not because it would be end of US. And a nuclear radiated US would lose all their hegemonic/strategic advantages built on decades of CONUS serenity. I think you underestimate how eager PRC wants to hit CONUS, because eroding perception of fortress america itself undermines US posture. TBH RU (and NKR) being in the way of nuking PRC also works to PRC advantage. And whose going to pick on PRC? Anyone assisting US in region would be nuclear crater too, meanwhile western desert and tibetan plateau prevents any land invasions.
> you are sadly mistaken
No, I think US planners smart enough not to go full retard against PRC who can hit back on US mainland, increasingly at scale. War crime is really immaterial to the broad point that if US with CONUS vunerability is deterred against mainland PRC attacks, because PRC is not Syria who can't hit back, hence Syria can be pushed around with relatively little consequence, vs threatening PRC mainland is existential for CONUS. US planners likely smart enough to keep targets to military and direct production chains to limit escalation, trying to limit PRC retalition to proportional strategic targets i.e. F35 plants, server farms etc. But even then US being #1 simply has more to lose. US will eat CONUS attacks, as in they won't escalate to nuclear because PRC sure as hell not going to be convinced by nuclear brinksmanship if mainland is hit. Remember, the ONLY reason US adversaries hasn't hit US back was they technically couldn't, once they can, they politically MUST because PRC domestic politics isn't going to not hit US if PRC mainland hit. If US disrupts PRC energy, US energy infra going bye bye too, because like US, PRC not going to sit there and "just eat it if attacked". All of which to it's as much about CONUS vunerability as deterring US with real threat, for the first time in century, of CONUS vunerability.
>if US wants them to be
A F15EX or F35s or F22s and all their associated tanking in region would likely be scrap on ground in openning salvo of PRC missiles. Of course US has bunker busters delivering platforms, but the problem is again, they have no safe/reliable way to deliver them with expanding PRC A2D2, which they are unlikely to dismantle because PRC force balance in region approaching overwhelming. The problem is US can't do what she "wants" against entire PLA complex stopping them, because US posture in region now weaker than PRC and trend/gap set to expand . US inventory of cruise missiles is 4 days of PRC cruise missile giga factory, which indicative scale of other acquisitions, i.e. interceptors, of which modern missile defense has near 100% success rate on subsonic cruise missiles. Again the problem is US doesn't have enough survivable basing to sortie enough air power (especially tanking) to deliver enough advanced munitions that can penetrate/satuate PRC A2D2, which itself US doesn't have enough of vs PRC. Like if US somehow found a way to preposition every piece of US hardware in Indopac, PRC cruise missile giga factory going brrrt for a few weeks is enough to destroy it all with spares to cripple US partners in region for assisting, hence most are not (as in not meaningfully outside of rhetoric and largely security theatre). And this is again circles back to why US isn't building enough ships, or NGADs, or whatever. Because it's increasingly obvious US+co simply can't out produce and out posture PRC in PRC's backyard. There are no good procurement choices, only the least bad, which is long range bombers like B21s and maybe subsurface for another decade.
Put it this way, US vs Iraq curbstomp in 90s required significant regional air basing, 5 carriers, took weeks, against adversary with generations old hardware and completely compromised IADS (french sold blueprints to US). PRC pop is like 80x larger than 90s Iraq, 100x larger by gdp, 100s times more industrially productive. Could US fight 80x Iraqs? What aobut 80 Iraqs that can hit back. The reality is US military is/was/has never been calibrated to fight adversary the size / scale of PRC. Ask yourself how much PRC would need to arm Cuba, Mexico, Canada (just entertain idea) to really threaten US. The answer is realistically no amount because US is larger than them all and homefield advantage is overwhelming vs logistics tooth/tail of fighting war of such a large adversary across ocean. Maybe 25-30 years ago when PRC military was a few Iraqs, now it's more Iraqs than US can realistically handle.
I said the _trend_ is PRC will increase ability to degrade CONUS from essentially zero pre modernization 10 years ago, i.e. US planners will have to factor in kinetic CONUS disruption and associated affects on US industry / primacy accordingly. Meanwhile, PRC military buildup / expansion of A2D2 in her backyard is decreasing US's ability to degrade mainland using forward positioned platforms that has been basis for US expenditionary force posture. If you follow the space, some are starting to acknowledge such CONUS vunerability this year (i.e. heard a few interviewees on Aerospace Advantage / Mitchell Insitute accept CONUS infra going boom is future US planners need to account for), will take time for it to migrate to mainstream discussion. Many proxy indicators (explosion of PRC rocketforce / productivity at TEL factories) comport with PRC telescoping they're pursuing rocket based conventional globle strike explicitly to target CONUS. And important to recognize PRC has infra for 4x more people, hence CONUS can be effected with proportionally less targets - a few hundred refineries and lng plants seperates US from stone age, meanwhile US may have to inflict more damage somehow for proportional reduction in PRC warmaking ability. All this happened within last few years, i.e. balance will flip faster than we think, likely ~2030s.
I suspect they will need it to build ships. If you look at the Wikipedia page for the Three Gorges dam, you will find a graph showing that two thirds of annual electrical production is fossil fuel based. If the US is involved, I suspect very little oil will make it into China. I would also expect the vast majority of hydro power to be destroyed. I would doubt they could build many ships once war starts.
Corporate and Wall Street in the pursuit of profit chose to offshore a lot of manufacturing. It's not going to be easy or quick to rebuild these. To win a war you have to have the capacity to quickly build replacements and hold onto resources you need. The answer is not to play the game.
I would venture the implied discussion is about more than shipbuilding. Resources, labor, regulation, and other factors raised in the article are endemic across lots of areas and seems symptomatic of market forces and government policy. As a counter argument, I have to ask why the U.S. needs to build ships faster, larger, cheaper than other countries? The U.S. certainly seems to be able to build infrastructure and housing reasonably competitively.
Everything has become a race to the bottom. It is few and far between to find any product which still exhibits high quality or attention to detail. Formerly good brands continue to hollow out their product for cheaper components.
There is no immediate existential concern, so everyone is skimming their own cut anywhere they can.
Agreed, need more of both. Will take time, but the political and labor winds are blowing in the right direction. America will learn to build again, just the hard way (as is tradition).
It costs twice to 4x as much “to build a ship in the U.S. as it does elsewhere” because our shipbuilding industry “is propped up by some of the most restrictive protectionist laws in the world” and governed by unions that oppose “dramatic changes in shipping and shipbuilding technology.” (“A Japanese shipbuilding executive noted that if ships were behind schedule, American yards were inclined to throw more labor at the problem, where Japanese yards would ask for the reason behind the delays and resolve the fundamental issues.”)
That leads to higher “ship costs and construction times,” and a dwindling market share that is propped up by the Navy and Jones Act. If our instinct is more protectionism, we’re just conceding that in a fight we’ll be reliant on the foreign shipyards we’re shielding from American ingenuity.
What is the value of national security and resilience in manufacturing, a supply chain, and a trained, experienced workforce? Have we learned nothing from China and their approach?
Financial efficiency leads to system fragility. Fragile systems for discretionary systems, durable, more expensive systems for critical systems. It's operational readiness, and that requirement (guaranteed startup and throughput) has a cost. And if you are outsourcing across nation state borders, you limit control over outcomes and destiny.
> Have we learned nothing from China and their approach?
China combines protectionism with cheap labour and moderate productivity. (Korea and Japan, expensive labour with very high productivity.)
We can’t change our labour costs. But without productivity enhancement, that requires either massive subsidies or a moribund industry. The unions block those productivity enhancements since they could lead to lay-offs in the short term; we see the same problem at our docks.
I agree, but also without unions, we see the dystopian hellscape the US labor market is. So, while productivity enhancement is a necessary, desired component of a solution, unions are non negotiable. We are past the point "unions bad," no one is eating that shit sandwich anymore [1] [2]. 88% of people under 30 view unions favorably—a record-breaking level of support from young workers, for example.
Then we need to lower protectionism (i.e. force the unionised shipyards to compete), massively ramp up subsidies or concede we’ll be reliant on foreign shipyards in a war of attrition. Given the first and second are politically unrealistic inasmuch as they require long-term commitments, to not roll back into protectionism or cut subsidies in a budget crunch, we’re left with the third.
Massive subsidies historically only worked in a war footing. Also, because subsidies only won’t produce commercially-competitive vessels, your only natural customer will be the DoD. The only way to sell this is by launching forever wars.
We need to subsidise our production. But unless we want to return to our 2000s, we must marry that to loosened protectionism to force American shipyards to compete internationally.
A model that achieves a desired outcome, but is suboptimal, is superior to a proposed optimal model that cannot or will not be implemented. The latter are simply thought experiments or dreams.
> The only way to sell this is by launching forever wars.
There will always be a need for a standing inventory of military hardware, so long as there are potential nation state adversaries.
> model that achieves a desired outcome, but is suboptimal, is superior to a proposed optimal model that cannot or will not be implemented
I’m arguing the impossible model is the one that relies on American voters writing a blank cheque to sustain above-average lifestyles among a minority of workers doing their jobs in a demonstrably-inefficient way for the purpose of remaining employed (and cashing in those cheques).
It works if we can sell it as blowing up stuff abroad. But not in peacetime. (And as a result, that production does nothing downstream, e.g. in offshore wind farm installation or domestic seaborne shipping, where, as the article notes, our high costs and the Jones Act make many projects uneconomical.)
> will always be a need for a standing inventory of military hardware
You’re underestimating how far behind we are. What will we do with two orders of magnitude more ships standing around every year [1]? Just keeping that many ships maintained and stored would be a challenge. Do you really think the public would support a shipyard-to-scrapyard programme for more than a few years without war?
Strong unions and massive protectionism, in the long term, means we’ll from time to time ramp up subsidies, do a war, and then ramp them down thereby laying everyone off. As the article points out, that’s our strategy. We’ve been doing it for 100 years. It sort of works, even if there is a better way, because we refuse to compromise on either unions or protectionism, leaving subsidies as the only lever that can do any work.
I believe we simply place different value on different socioeconomic and political system components (capital/fiat, labor, defense capability), and have different risk assessments leading to outcome deltas. Good chat regardless, appreciated as always, improves perspective understanding and context/model improvement.
> we simply place different value on different socioeconomic and political system components (capital/fiat, labor, defense capability)
Where I think we agree but I’m having trouble communicating is in labour and defence goals being able to both be achieved, but where instead of labor getting short-term stability and high pay amid long-term instability, shipbuilders get short-term instability amid high pay and long-term stability.
There is no structural reason America cannot have a competitive commercial shipbuilding industry. Including with collective bargaining. High-productivity industries naturally command high pay; we can guarantee that with regulation. Where the problem comes up is in purchase protectionism, which hinders our shipyards’ capabilities and quality (bad for defence) and creates a safe harbour from which our delicate industry can’t venture.
The goal I see is a lot of highly-productive dual-use shipyards that are subsidised for military procurement but must also compete to sell commercial ships. Subsidies are awarded systemically, but never guaranteed in the long run to a specific shipyard. The shipyard may need to grow and shrink as they win and lose business (and subsidies), but that’s better than the entire industry expanding and contracting on generational timescales, systematically training up a naïve workforce before dumping them into a market where their skills are near worthless.
While there is peace, US domestic shipbuilding fundamentally doesn't "matter" all that much politically, not compared to all the thousands of other daily issues or the big issue, tax. The article makes clear that all previous efforts at onshoring shipbuilding, including the hugely successful war efforts, involved spending a lot of public money.
If you ask the average taxpayer, how much do they want to spend on subsidies for US shipyard workers, what answer are you going to get?
(I also think the Jones Act, like other protectionism, keeps the industry intact but inefficient, another uncomfortable choice)
>> high cost of inputs, particularly labor and steel
Well, yes. A side effect of being a rich country is expensive labour because workers have other options.
> But it now faces a potential naval adversary, in the form of China, with dramatically higher shipbuilding capacity
The US has something like 5,000 live nuclear warheads, use of which might significantly reduce Chinese shipping if it comes to that.