When the time comes to the 21st century,The problem of the degradation of the Navy in the United States is becoming more and more acute.
In this context, it was reported on the Internet that the United States would be able to continue to make ** "dumplings" in World War II, and now the United States will still build hundreds of aircraft carriers and warships in minutes if it participates in the war.
So is this really the case?
The conclusion of this question is very simple, that is, it is not possible at all.
BecauseNow the shipbuilding industry in the United States has declined very badly, and this decline is irreversible.
It can be said that the United States has lost the ability to produce ** on a large scale, and even the United States itself believes that China's ** production capacity is 230 times that of the United States.
The decline of the shipbuilding industry in the United States is reflected in three aspects, namely, the lack of a wide range of civil shipbuilding industry, the serious aging of shipyard equipment, and the serious loss of related industries.
On the first point, a healthy, long-term shipbuilding industry with the ability to build ships on a large scale in wartime must be supported by large-scale orders for civilian ships.
* Although the added value is high and the profit margin is higher than that of civilian ships, which country will be fine to produce all the time**?
So**Orders are destined to be only a very small part of the orders in the shipbuilding industry
When a country only produces ** and does not receive orders for civilian ships, the scale of the country's shipbuilding industry will gradually shrink.
It's like a pyramid, the pyramid structure is the most stable structure, and when the base of the pyramid collapses, the spire of the pyramid is not far from collapsing.
* Manufacturing is like the spire of a pyramid, and a large number of civilian ship orders are like the base of the pyramid.
Now the United States has long lost the base of the pyramid, and the spire of the pyramid is getting closer and closer to collapse.
And the problem of the shrinkage of the American shipbuilding industry is irreversible. The shipbuilding industry is a very strong industry, and if you want to get enough shipbuilding orders, you must have enough competitiveness in your shipbuilding industry.
At present, the shipbuilding industry of the United States is obviously not competitive in the civilian shipbuilding market, and in order to improve the competitiveness of its own shipbuilding industry, it is necessary to vigorously subsidize the shipbuilding industry.
For example, now South Korea and China are competing in the shipbuilding industry, and a small country like South Korea can still fight back and forth with China in the shipbuilding industry, in addition to some of the leading technologies, a large part of the reason is that South Korea has really made great efforts to subsidize its own shipbuilding industry.
However, the United States cannot learn this method from South Korea. After all, although South Korea is heavily subsidizing, it still has some technical advantages, and there is not much gap between it and China's shipbuilding industry as a whole.
But the problem is that the gap between the U.S. shipbuilding industry and China is too big, and how much does the U.S. have to spend to subsidize the shipbuilding industry?
ThereforeUnless the United States completes the re-industrialization of the entire country, there is no solution to the problem of shrinking shipbuilding.
As for the serious problem of aging equipment, in a country like the United States, where the economy is dominated by private ownership, this is also an almost unsolvable problem.
The U.S. shipbuilding industry must guarantee profits, and in the absence of any shipbuilding orders, the more it cuts costs, the higher the profits.
SoShipyard equipment is such a large piece, it must not be replaced, and it is a huge expense to replace itMaybe the profit margin of a year will directly become negative.
Not to mention that the ** manufacturing industry in the United States is almost a monopoly now. There are only a few shipyards in the United States, and the United States can't change shipyards if they want to.
Therefore, for American shipyards, it does not matter whether their own production capacity is strong or weak, and whether the production is good or not. Under the monopoly industry, Party A like the United States has no right to speak.
However, if the equipment of the US shipyards is not replaced, the equipment will certainly deteriorate day by day, and the shipbuilding capacity of the US shipbuilding industry will inevitably become weaker and weaker.
As for the problem of loss of work,As the U.S. shipbuilding industry shrinks further, the wages of shipbuilders will become lower and lower, and the ability of this industry to train new people will become weaker and weaker.
This is like when a country is building a communication network base station, there will definitely be fewer and fewer people applying for the telegraph industry.
People are profit-seeking, and anyone with a discerning eye can see that the American shipbuilding industry is now declining, and what is the difference between Americans going to learn shipbuilding now and being a puppet army in 45 years?
So the size of the U.S. shipbuilding industry is now in a dead circle, and the weaker the U.S. shipbuilding industry, the faster the loss of employees. With a large loss of employees, the shipbuilding industry will become weaker and weaker.
In factNow the United States is not only unable to keep up with its shipbuilding capabilities, but also its ability to maintain **.
After all, it also requires a dock to repair **, and it also requires a large number of employees.
The scale of the U.S. shipbuilding industry is getting smaller and smaller, and in the end, there will inevitably be a situation of new construction and maintenance of docks.
At present, the US aircraft carriers have already lined up for maintenance, and only 2 or 3 of the 11 aircraft carriers can go to sea, and the rest of the ships are all waiting in line for dock.
If this trend continues, the United States will one day fall into a situation where it cannot even repair ships, and such a situation is already emerging.
Normally,A country's ** must be repaired by its own shipyard, because it is highly secrecy.
If there is no dock at your own shipyard, then it is better to find your own "allies". Therefore, now some of the ** in the US Navy have begun to outsource maintenance.
What's worse is that,The United States is now looking to India to outsource.
Since 2023, the United States and India have been actively negotiating an agreement for Indian shipyards to help the United States**.
Although the purpose of the United States is to create a new "naval springboard" in the Indo-Pacific region and strengthen the US Navy's cruising capability in the Indian Ocean, the United States will undoubtedly further reduce its own maintenance capabilities.
After all, the U.S. shipbuilding industry itself now lives on domestic manufacturing and maintenance, and now there are fewer maintenance orders.
So in the foreseeable next 10 20 years, there will be a noticeable decline in the US Navy.
A large number of ** that were in service before the 21st century will be gradually retired in the next 10 or 20 years, but the United States does not have the ability to manufacture enough ** to replace and carry out better maintenance, so the United States can only meet the shrinkage of the Navy.
Project Sword References:
1] Observer.com, "The U.S. Ambassador to Japan Says He Considered Letting Japanese Shipyards Overhaul U.S. **, and Really Talks About the "China Threat".
2] Overseas Network "British Media: China's Shipbuilding Capability is Many Times Ahead of the United States".