2 novembre 2020 | International, Naval

American shipbuilding: An anchor for economic and national security

By: Peter Navarro

“Don't give up the ship!” These were Capt. James Lawrence's dying words defending the USS Chesapeake during the War of 1812. Over 200 years later, the United States Navy and America's critical shipbuilding industry are issuing the same cry from shipyards across our nation.

Here is a simple truth: A true renaissance of America's shipbuilding industry will require a large-scale overhaul and new strategy before it can churn out the ships we urgently need to maintain our status as the greatest maritime power in world history.

In the first year of his “Peace through Strength” administration, President Donald Trump made a 355-ship Navy the official national policy by signing the 2018 Defense Authorization Act. Currently, however, we are asking too few ships to do too much while many vessels are decades old and severely backlogged for critical repairs. This egregiously long queue is an open invitation to foreign adversaries, who are displaying increasingly aggressive postures and rapidly expanding their own naval capabilities.

Today, only seven shipyards across the country are capable of constructing large or deep-draft Navy vessels. More subtly, each yard has become specialized to build a specific warship, whether it be a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine or an Independence-class littoral combat ship. This specialization, while optimal for workforce training and infrastructure investments at specific yards, makes them remarkably vulnerable when there is a downturn in government contracts or the private market contracts.

Foreign competitors such as China anchor their shipyards in tens of billions of mercantilist and predatory government subsidies every year. Unable to compete with such foreign subsidization, the American shipbuilding industry has lost 75,000 jobs — a decline of over 40 percent. For every shipbuilding job in America, three indirect jobs are supported. We have therefore allowed predatory foreign markets to steal approximately 300,000 good-paying American jobs — the population of St. Louis, Missouri.

Our strategic and economic adversaries know the importance of shipbuilding. To understand the dangers, consider this: From 2010 to 2018, the Chinese Communist Party has provided over $130 billion in shipping and shipbuilding subsidies. Now, it controls the world's second-largest commercial fleet by gross tons, and constructs one-third of the world's ships.

If Pax Americana is to continue, we must live up to the maxim of former Assistant Secretary of the Navy and 26th President Teddy Roosevelt: “A good Navy is not a provocation to war. It is the surest guarantee of peace.”

Restoring investment in shipbuilding will leave a wake of prosperity for our economic security and send waves of strength for our national security. Expansion in capacity and capabilities of our shipyards will again incentivize commercial shipbuilding, increasing industry efficiency and creating competition, eventually lowering the overall cost of production. This must be our policy goal.

If we commit to a revitalization of our shipyards, in just a few years, scores of vessels could again make maiden voyages from American yards built at the hands of thousands of American steelworkers, pipefitters, welders and electricians — a renaissance of one of our nation's most integral industries. This would mean thousands of new jobs in Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Florida and throughout the Gulf Coast. This means secure waters around Greenland, the Bering Strait and the South China Sea as well as the straits of Bab el-Mandeb, Malacca and Hormuz.

While the 296-ship fleet of the U.S. Navy is still the most powerful in the world, Communist China's People's Liberation Army Navy is now sailing approximately 350 warships and counting. Some estimates say Communist China's Navy could be as large as 450 ships by 2030 — and it's not just China that is a cause for concern.

While the Chinese Communist Party militarizes the South China Sea, Russia — which will assume chairmanship of the Arctic Council in May 2021 — has been quietly rebuilding its Arctic fleet. This is a region that will be of critical importance in the years to come as northern shipping lanes open and natural resources make themselves available. As it stands now, the U.S. Navy can't effectively access these waters, as it lacks the ice-hardened warships to do so.

Our shipbuilding industry was once a bulwark of American manufacturing, but decades of neglect, ambivalence to predatory foreign markets and sequestration have caused it to take on water. If we don't begin patching the holes now, it won't be just an industry that sinks. It may well be our economic and national security, as we will be unable to protect the world's sea lanes — the arteries of commerce and veins of national defense.

While our enemies argue American manufacturing and might is on the decline, we repeat the battle cry of Capt. John Paul Jones: “I have not yet begun to fight!”

Peter Navarro is the assistant to the president and director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy within the White House.

https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2020/10/30/american-shipbuilding-an-anchor-for-economic-and-national-security/

Sur le même sujet

  • The list is here: Find out how global defense companies performed in FY19

    17 août 2020 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

    The list is here: Find out how global defense companies performed in FY19

    By: Mike Gruss The adage is that it is difficult for an aircraft carrier to turn on a dime. The same could be said for the defense industry or Pentagon budgets and as such, the Defense News Top 100 list. Changes are slow and can take time to appear on our list. For example, for the first time, this year's list reflects the result of the L3-Harris merger. L3, ranked 18th on last year's list, and Harris, ranked 26th a year ago, merged to form what everyone expected: one of the world's largest defense corporations in L3Harris Technologies, ranked 9th on our list. Next year, observers will see the results of the merger between Raytheon, ranked 5th on this year's list, and United Technologies Corp., ranked 10th on this year's list. Thematically, the shifts that defense and military leaders have spent years discussing are becoming fully reflected in industry. China's heavy investments in defense are becoming evident by the inclusion of Aviation Industry Corporation of China (6th), China North Industries Group Corporation Limited (8th), and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (11th) on this year's list. The role of integration and communication tools is becoming more important, as is evidenced by Leidos, Peraton and Perspecta's inclusion. Medium-sized businesses are becoming increasingly critical players. And, for years, U.S. military leaders have heard from Silicon Valley startups that it remains too difficult to break into the defense market in a meaningful way. Advocates will likely point by how few are in the list. Other companies have complained that the big primes have too much of a lock on Pentagon contracts, perhaps seen in how the top five bring in more than twice the revenue of the next five. Each year, the Defense News Top 100 is part art, part science. Every year, the Defense News team tries to push it a bit closer to science. This year's list, like years past, is a snapshot of what's happening in defense markets and maybe, just maybe, a hint of what's to come. https://www.defensenews.com/top-100/2020/08/17/the-list-is-here-find-out-how-global-defense-companies-performed-in-fy19/

  • Exclusive: Boeing eliminated from US Air Force's 'Doomsday Plane' competition | Reuters

    3 décembre 2023 | International, Terrestre

    Exclusive: Boeing eliminated from US Air Force's 'Doomsday Plane' competition | Reuters

    The U.S. Air Force has eliminated Boeing from its competition to develop a successor to the E-4B Nightwatch, Boeing confirmed on Friday, shaking up the battle to build the next version of the aircraft known as the "Doomsday Plane" due to its ability to survive a nuclear war.

  • Contracts for March 4, 2021

    5 mars 2021 | International, Aérospatial, Naval, Terrestre, C4ISR, Sécurité

    Contracts for March 4, 2021

    Today

Toutes les nouvelles