The US needs a larger Navy, but first American shipping and shipbuilding must be revived
Julianna Lee and Brent D. Sadler - Yesterday 2:54 PM
With the Navy’s eyes set on achieving a goal well above Congress’ mandated 355 manned warships, the American shipbuilding industry has a lot of work to do. Unfortunately, the industry’s current state doesn’t offer much hope for meeting those goals, let alone sustaining a modestly larger fleet.
In a 2021 report on U.S. defense supply chains, The Heritage Foundation’s Maiya Clark explained what is called a “Fragility and Criticality” assessment. That’s a tool used by the Department of Defense to identify and mitigate weaknesses in the defense industrial base.
Fragility can be understood as how likely disruption is to a certain “product or service,” while criticality indicates how difficult it would be to replace the item.
Applying that tool to U.S. Navy shipbuilding reveals that America is a far cry from its former status as a major shipbuilder.
Let’s briefly examine three metrics:
1) Foreign Dependency
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-us-needs-a-larger-navy-but-first-american-shipping-and-shipbuilding-must-be-revived/ar-AA13peO7?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=065385c7dfc946bd8349a7d009a13e70
