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phil21 • today at 4:41 AM • 1 reply • view on HN

While not allowing an entire industry and supply chain to die. One of the last heavily industrial and manufacturing industries left in the US at any decent sized scale.

You need such things for national security, so it's very likely "worth it" even all the way down to the American consumer level.

Look at the shipbuilding industry if you want to see what happens to that capacity without it. Due to the lack of commercial shipbuilding in the US, we can't even keep up with building for our Navy during peacetime. If a war ever were to attrit naval forces to any meaningful degree there would be zero hope of scaling up that supply chain in a relevant timeframe.

Arguments could of course be made if the auto manufacturing industry (and it's suppliers) are useful in an actual hot war, but I think without them we'd be in even heavier dire straights in that regard.

Replies

defrost • today at 5:02 AM

The US ship building industry is barely kicking along .. by intent, for whatever reason the US is not competing for the 90% of global commercial ship building demand currently met by China, Korea, and Japan.

This does not mean there is zero hope of scaling up should wartime demand come into existence.

  Although U.S. shipbuilding is greatly diminished today, it is not the national security concern many would lead us to believe. America’s rapid expansion of ship production during World War II serves as a reminder of what allowed America to increase its ship production historically. Orders surged from the US government and other allied nations for commercial ships. Companies converted capital and entered the ship building business to meet the orders; Henry Kaiser built a shipyard in Richmond and got it operational in 78 days.
~ Is the U.S. Shipbuilding Capacity in Crisis? - Today’s Low Industrial Output May Not Signal Strategic Weakness https://www.theunseenandtheunsaid.com/p/is-the-us-shipbuildi...

Currently the demand for US military shipping is low, some suggest a change in organisational structure and siloing might be a path forward: The Next Great Era in U.S. Shipbuilding https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2025/february/nex...