The U.S. is wholly unequipped to resupply forces in a great-power conflict
By Seth Cropsey and Harry Halem
Oct 21, 09:00 AM
The Port of Los Angeles with containers, ships and trucks is shown on Oct. 13, 2021. President Joe Biden announced a deal to expand operations at the Port of Los Angeles in hopes of ending the logjam of ships waiting to unload. (Dean Musgrove/The Orange County Register via AP)
The current American consumer goods crisis presages the effects of a militarized Sino-American confrontation.
Indeed, confrontation is increasingly imaginable, as China’s recent 150-aircraft violation of Taiwanese airspace indicates. A cross-strait conflict necessarily would involve the U.S. and its Pacific allies, and potentially regional rivals, including Vietnam and India. Given the sheer volume of global trade that transits the Indo-Pacific, a conflict would trigger a global depression unlikely to end until a systemic political realignment, much like the Great Depression of the 1930s.
However, nations fight if needs must, and the time may be past to avoid a confrontation. Yet for the careful observer, the current shipping crisis demonstrates the manifest inadequacy of the American merchant fleet for U.S. strategic needs.
https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2021/10/21/the-us-is-wholly-unequipped-to-resupply-forces-in-a-great-power-conflict/
