Rebuilding the Navy means building ships abroad

Washington Examiner ^ | October 25, 2024 2:00 pm | Tom Rogan

[E. Pluribus Unum]

The Navy is failing to build warships on time or on budget.

Putting campaign donations and local employment interests above national security, members of Congress have been unwilling to take bold action to fix things. An absence of skilled workers, inefficient unions, and COVID-19-related challenges have further complicated matters. The next president and Congress thus face a choice. Either they accept China’s dominance of the western Pacific Ocean or they do the once unthinkable and appropriate funds to build warships in the dockyards of allied nations such as South Korea, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

Time is not a luxury America can afford.

China is surging the development of an advanced and highly capable navy. Chinese President Xi Jinping is also surging his intimidation of Taiwan and the Philippines, conducting increasingly bold blockade exercises against the former and aggressively harassing the latter in its own exclusive economic zone. Taiwan’s defense budget is utterly inadequate, something that must change to persuade a future American president that its defense is worth the lives of thousands of U.S. military personnel. Similarly, while Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos is a courageous leader and strong American ally, the Philippines must expand its military basing rights if it wants greater U.S. military support against China.

Still, the fundamental point is that these various concerns are all interconnected. China is doing what it is doing because Xi wants to secure economic, resource, and political hegemony over the Western Pacific. If Xi succeeds, he’ll be able to dominate multitrillion-dollar annual trade flows, the political sovereignty of multiple democratic nations including Japan, and vast influence over the economies and politics of other nations across the globe. Those nations will find they need Xi’s permission to trade and prosper. And ideological delusions to the contrary, Chinese Communist...

[DIRTYSECRET]

They build it and we maintain it. We pay them to protect them. We have nobody else to blame. Our builders give us delays and cost overruns.

[Maine Mariner]

BIW, Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine builds ships for the Navy. The ships are built under budget and before the due date!!

[Leaning Right]

Debtor nations like the United States should probably be cautious about getting in an arms race.

Here’s an idea. Quit sending billions of dollars to other nations, and direct that money to our own military. That would take some sting out of the cost.

And now a question. Would Xi be quick to get in a conflict with us if he knew it would mean all trade with the West would cease? I dunno.

But I do know Trump 2.0 would make it clear. All trade would cease.

[Does so]

We won’t have to worry about the welds.

[Jim Noble]

Xi wants to secure economic, resource, and political hegemony over the Western Pacific. If Xi succeeds, he’ll be able to dominate multitrillion-dollar annual trade flows, the political sovereignty of multiple democratic nations including Japan, and vast influence over the economies and politics of other nations across the globe

So?

[PGR88]

or they do the once unthinkable and appropriate funds to build warships in the dockyards of allied nations such as South Korea, Japan, and the United Kingdom.

The stupidest idea yet out of many stupid ideas in Washington DC

[pepsi_junkie]

There is more to the problem. Major shipbuilding suitable for big naval vessels has mostly shut down in the USA. California has one active yard and I spoke to one of the heads of it and he told me about just how hard it was just to get a paint area set up and certified in California, that's why they're the only one left: overregulation. So we have only a handful left nationwide. because of that the need to keep the few we have alive has injected politics into much of the decision making of who gets what contract. And then you get some undesirable results. This is not to exonerate the yards, it's to say the problem is multifaceted.

But if you want better shipbuilding, get rid of regulations and let shipbuilding come back to the USA. Then let them compete and let the best bidder win instead of dealing out ship contracts based on political considerations. Don't send it overseas and put our national security in the hands of nations that may choose to pull the plug on us later.

[sten]

i know... let’s have china build out various war platforms.

this way, they’d get all our designs without having to pay congress people and they could embed weaknesses into the systems without our knowledge so they can exploit them when the time is right.

sounds great! just like every other ‘screw America’ democrat plan

[central_va]

30 years of FREE TRADE have ruined us. Isn't thei FACT obvious to even the most ardent globalist/capitalist/GOPe?

Free Traitors are going to hell.

[central_va]

Wow, you just don’t get it.

[linMcHlp]

reply 8

[momincombatboots]

Absence of skilled workers. I stopped reading there. This is the same mantra Trump is using to bring in replacements. You, your sons and daughters will be replaced. How about fixing the problem- big gov universities.
Our kids could easily get degrees from shole countries.
The republicans plain to be against all of this, until Trump said he was doing it. That’s why they fund it. It was always about replayou and your posterity.

[Bonemaker]

Probably need to recruit crews from abroad as well.

[maddog55]

America’s ship builders like aircraft manufacturers don’t cause delays and cost over runs. The government does. Having worked in acquisition for years the government does it to itself. You can start with regulations and then move on to requirements that are implemented and then changed constantly.

For a contractor it’s a huge money maker. You start building, the government changes its mind so you have to change and that cost money and time. The government argues you’re not following the contract, the contractor argues the government changes are out of scope of the contract.

It’s an endless cycle.

[Jim Noble]

Oh, no, I get it alright.

My family had a long history with the Brooklyn Navy Yard and my Dad and Uncle used to take me there when I was a little boy to see how the US industrial machine functioned during WW II.

You and I are completely aligned about the free traitors and what they have done.

It's just that I am opposed to a provocative and interventionist foreign policy without a reasonably functional Navy Department and War Department to back it up.

The Navy Yard like describes very well what US leadership and people could accomplish in the period the Navy Yard was active - but those days are long gone.

Our war is here.

[Jim Noble]

The Navy is failing to build warships on time or on budget.

It's not the Navy, it's the people.

The people have not organized a government capable of worldwide military operations to support the enormous Social and Commercial American Empire which now spans the globe.

The people are the ones responsible for the government and its Navy.

"Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

Right now our people are neither safe nor happy. This government cannot perform the minimal tasks to secure those objectives, which includes, of course, building warships.

Turning over the building of warships to aliens is backwards. Cart before the horse.

[Theoria]

R's and D's helped Mexico, China and the rest of the world with trade at the peril of America.

Why do people still vote for them?

China always gets a pass on it theft, covid, stealing, etc etc. Same for Mexico on allowing illegals in, drugs etc.

[unread]

Need more DEI... (CHOKE, cough-cough)

[DIRTYSECRET]

**America’s ship builders like aircraft manufacturers don’t cause delays and cost over runs. The government does.**

Agree 100%. Problem-it is what it is. You can cut back on the regs but the pressure will always be there to throw a monkey wrench into the system. The military is subject to woke policies when it should be left alone to run it’s own affairs. Woke contract conditions-do you really think they’ll ever be undone? Think BJ’s starting a fight over gays in the military. Right at the beginning when he took office looking for a fight. Time was on his side. Now one can enlist with the motive of wanting a sex change.