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The US Navy is plagued with delays and failed
projects.
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While China, now boasts the largest navy in the world.
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Can Trump turn things
around and make US naval power great again?
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Welcome to America Uncovered. I’m Chris Chappell.
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I’ve been warning for years that the US Navy is
in serious dire straits.
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It’s like watching a ship slowly sink ,
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except since this is the
Navy, it’s not like that, it is that.
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It needs to get its act together,
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especially with China beefing up its navy.
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According to a leaked 2023 US Navy analysis,
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“China’s Shipbuilding Capacity is 232 Times
Greater Than That of the United States”.
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In other words, China can make a whole lot more
ships than America.
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Now I know what you might be thinking, sure,
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but what about the quality?
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Well
first of all, quantity is its own type of quality,
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and as you’ll see in a bit,
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the US
quality isn’t so hot anymore either.
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Right now, China has 370 ships,
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while the US only has 296.
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And
that number is actually shrinking.
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But China is growing.
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In 5
years China will have 425 ships,
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absolutely dwarfing the number of US ships.
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The scope of this problem has just been revealed
thanks to this new report
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by the Government Accountability Office.
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“U.S. Navy Shipbuilding
Is Consistently Over Budget and Delayed”
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Oh. That doesn’t sound very good.
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Especially
with a war with China looming on the horizon.
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The report says, “Despite nearly
doubling its shipbuilding budget
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over the last 2 decades, the U.S. Navy
hasn’t increased its number of ships.”
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Spending more money for less?
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Who’s running the Navy? California?
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There are a few reasons this has happened.
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For one, some shipyards don’t have enough room
to do what the Navy wants in time.
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Some also have just really, really old infrastructure
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that can delay construction and repair.
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It’s like asking someone to bake you
the world’s largest black forest cake,
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but they only have an easy bake oven… from 1963 .
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There’s also the fact that shipbuilders
just don’t have enough workers
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to meet the Navy’s demands
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. It’s surprisingly not
a lucrative job.
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And even with the workers
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already in the industry, a majority of
them just don’t have enough experience
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So it takes more time and money to
just maintain what the US already has,
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let alone building more ships to counter China.
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Because, as it turns out, building ships is
hard.
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Even when they’re not in a bottle .
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So despite billions of dollars of investment
into getting the US to crank out more ships,
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there’s still not enough shipyards or workers.
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And that’s because, according to the new report,
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the US Navy and the Office of the Secretary
of Defense
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aren’t “fully coordinating their shipbuilding investments
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to prevent
duplication or overlap in spending”.
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Communication problems.
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I don’t know if they
need budget management or couples counseling.
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Another problem is that the Navy hasn’t even set goals
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or measurable targets for
what to do with all that money.
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Unfortunately, this poor communication
is considered a feature, not a bug.
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A very expensive, naive bug
with poor communication skills.
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Navy leadership discourages using quality
control tools such as monetary penalties
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if contractors submit late
and/or poor-quality work.
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In other words if they screw up, they still
get the money.
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You wouldn’t handle your money like that.
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But the government,
will handle your money like that.
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The Navy has also actually reduced
inspections by almost 50 percent,
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all for the sake of maintaining “strong
working relations” with contractors.
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That’d be like hiring a guy to redo
your bathroom,
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he reworks the plumbing to make the contents of your septic tank
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shoot out of your shower head, you say,
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“Great job!” because you want to make sure
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he
wants to work with you on other future projects.
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To make matters worse, the Navy doesn’t even
have a strategy
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for managing the US’s ship industrial base—
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that’s the system
of shipyards, suppliers, workers,
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and infrastructure that supports
building and maintaining ships.
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The Navy’s theme song should be changed
from “In the Navy” to “Living on a Prayer.
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And the Navy is sending so many
mixed messages to shipyards,
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they have no idea what to expect
from one year to the next.
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“The Navy's plans for building and
repairing ships vary from year to year.”
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So that’s like asking someone to bake you
the world’s largest black forest cake,
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but they only have an easy bake oven… from
1963 .
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And then halfway through you say,
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“Nevermind. I actually want a beef wellington.
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Priorities are screwed up as well.
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Take the very expensive, new USS Gerald Ford.
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“the Navy ditched battle-tested features
found on previous carriers
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and instead went with more expensive technology
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that
hasn’t always worked out as expected.”
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Yeah that’s a good way to spend
more money and not have more ships.
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Probably one of the worst
examples in recent history of Navy mismanagement
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was only
publicly reported last December.
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The Navy wanted to modernize 7 guided-missile
cruisers
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.Upgrade them so they could get a few
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more years of service out of them.
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5 years. Okay. Fine. Makes sense.
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Only 3 were completed.
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And none of them will
get the full 5 extra years of service life.
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The Navy wasted $1.8 billion dollars on that.
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This was such a brutal blow to the
US I’m surprised the remnants of
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ISIS didn’t try to claim responsibility for it.
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Clearly, something needs fixing.
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But apparently
the Navy isn’t taking those recommendations seriously
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. Because to them, if it ain’t broke…
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actually it is broke, but still don’t fix it.
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In another recent report, the Government
Accountability Office said it had made
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90 recommendations to the Navy since
2015.
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The Navy agreed with many of them,
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but “has only fully or partially addressed
30,
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with 60 recommendations unaddressed.”
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This is an immediate problem.
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Some experts think China will try to invade
Taiwan in 2027.
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That’s 2 years from now.
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Is the US Navy capable of fighting a war like
that?
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Or are we S.O.L.: ship out of luck.
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Well, the Trump Administration is trying to
do something.
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But it’s very late in the day.
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China builds more than half the
world’s ships.
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But that’s about to get very expensive for China
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and any
company or country that uses them.
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Trump wants to charge Chinese ships
$1million dollars for every port call.
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And most ships make around 3
port calls per voyage to the US.
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Trump also announced the creation of a new
Office of Shipbuilding in the White House.
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And put out an executive order called
Restoring America’s Maritime Dominance.
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Various government agencies will work together
with the White House to create a “Maritime Action Plan
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.” It’s about countering China and building
back up America’s Maritime Industrial Base.
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It calls for a ton of reviews on shipbuilding
programs,
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procurement rules, regulations,
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and the US maritime workforce,
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as well
as new funding mechanisms and financial incentives
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to promote investments into US
shipyards and subcomponent supply chains.
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So essentially, all the things that would have
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been common sense to do years
ago.
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Revolutionary, I know.
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There’s also a bunch of red tape getting cut.
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And even DOGE is getting in on the
action.
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They’ll do their own review of the DoD
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and Homeland Security
vessel procurement processes.
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And as always, Trump is putting
an emphasis on education.
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He wants to modernize the US Merchant Marine
Academy.
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These guys are critical to sea-based commerce during peace
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and the transportation
of cargo and personnel by sea during war.
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Very important job.
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But the number of them has declined
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from roughly
50,000 in 1960 to less than 10,000 today.
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I haven’t seen a decline that sharp in the
same timeframe
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outside of Bill Cosby’s fanbase.
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This was a priority for Trump even
back during his first term in office.
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Trump also wants to offer scholarships
to maritime experts
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from allied countries
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to teach at US institutions.
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Probably Japan and South Korea.
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Navy Secretary John Phelan has been
busy visiting a lot of shipyards
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and building relationships with
partners to aid in shipbuilding.
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He made his first international trip to Japan,
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And then to South Korea,
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two powerful shipbuilding allies .
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that
the US wants closer collaboration with
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It’s still early in Trump's second term so
I’m sure there will be more developments
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But the clock is ticking.
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And we don’t want to be SOL.
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But what do you think?
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Leave your
expertly crafted analysis in the comments below.
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Once again, I’m Chris Chappell. Thank
you for watching America Uncovered.