We're Going To Need More Ships

By Rich Lowry on Mar 20, 2025

Alfred Thayer Mahan would be appalled.

The great 19th-century strategist and navalist surely would be shocked and mystified that we have allowed the country with which we are most likely to fight a devastating war -- and a traditional land power, no less -- to dominate global shipbuilding.

Starting from a minor position two decades ago, China is now the world's premier shipbuilder -- and it's not even close.

The output is led by the world's biggest shipbuilding group, the China State Shipbuilding Corporation. According to a recent report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Chinese behemoth built more commercial vessels by tonnage last year than the U.S. industry has ... since the end of World War II.

If the Ming Dynasty's turn away from the sea -- banning oceanic voyages -- was a harbinger of its decline, contemporary China's dominance in shipbuilding is a sign of its determination to keep rising.

Meanwhile, we've gone in the other direction. The U.S. commercial sector held just 0.11% of the market in 2024.

Obviously, the ability to quickly build ships and repair them during a war is a major strategic advantage. It's one of the reasons that we won World War II, yet here we are, having kicked it away out of misbegotten frugality and strategic inattention.

We're a long way from when Admiral Nimitz could insist that the USS Yorktown get repaired in three days after the Battle of the Coral Sea. We're even further from when the U.S. could by the fall of 1943 replace all the Allied tonnage sunk in the war since 1939.

It's too simplistic to say that whoever can produce more wins a war, but it's not a bad rule of thumb, and it's been a key ingredient of American success over the decades.

Midway, for instance, was an important battle, but we were going to produce the Japanese into the ground regardless (we built 17 major aircraft carriers after the battle, while the Japanese built six).

This is why we should consider the poor state of American shipbuilding a national security crisis -- certainly, if we lose a major war with China in coming years, this will be one of the reasons why.

President Trump is reportedly fixated on the issue -- sending his naval secretary nominee images of rusted U.S. hulls at all hours -- and preparing an executive order to address the U.S. shortfall. The details will matter, but this deserves to be a national priority.

Deliveries of naval vessels are up to three years late. Repairs are chronically delayed, too, while cost overruns are large and routine.

We don't have the labor.

We don't have the dry docks.

We don't have enough vendors.

Shipyards have to depend on congressional spending flows, which aren't reliable. This renders long-term planning difficult, while the Navy adds further uncertainty with changing ship designs.

The reduced state of U.S. shipbuilding is "overdetermined," as social scientists say.

In recent congressional testimony, Brett Seidle, acting assistant secretary of the Navy for research development and acquisition, said that the challenges "include atrophy of our manufacturing industrial base, pre-COVID contracts, workforce shortages related to macroeconomic and demographic trends, diminished workforce proficiency, supply chain disruptions, iterative technical requirement updates, design immaturity, and inconsistent industry investment across the shipbuilding industrial base."

Climbing back won't be easy. First and foremost, we're going to need to spend more -- Seth Cropsey, president of the Yorktown Institute, believes that it will require a Navy budget about 50% higher than contemplated at the moment.

Any effort will have to involve working with allies -- to encourage them to invest in our capacity, and using allied shipbuilders in places like South Korea and Japan for building and maintenance.

If we're neglecting Alfred Mahan, he's highly influential in China.

Hopefully, the Trump order will, if nothing else, communicate a sense of urgency. We should be acting as if our national power depends on it -- because it does.

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(Rich Lowry is on Twitter @RichLowry)