Shipbuilding Industry, Industry Study, Spring 2009

As a maritime nation, it is vital to the national security of the United States to be able to acquire and maintain a capable maritime fleet of vessels and associated corps of professional mariners, both civilian and military, in order to utilize and ensure access to sea lines of communication. Correspondingly, maintaining a capability to build the required ships in the United States further enhances the ability of the nation to meet its national security challenges. The U.S. shipbuilding industry, both commercial and militarygovernmental, is effectively meeting the national security needs of the nation and is positioned to continue to do so for the next 10-15 years. However, both the industry and government face two serious problems 1 an aging shipbuilding workforce, and 2 shipbuilding requirements and acquisition processes that are stovepiped, inefficient, unrealistic, and contributes to the increasing cost of acquiring ships. Facing the certain prospect of decreased federal discretionary budgets and increasing costs of building ships, the U.S. Government USG must become more disciplined and effective in how it determines its shipbuilding requirements and then subsequently acquires those vessels. If it does not, the USG will continue along the current path where fewer and fewer ships are being built each year. No matter how technically advanced and capable a ship may be, at some point the quantity of ships the nation can put to sea matters and an insufficient number can adversely affect the ability of the United States to achieve its desired goals in support of national security interests. This paper provides a report of the current status of the global and U.S. shipbuilding industries as well as recommendations to improve the U.S. shipbuilding industry and the overall process of how the USG acquires ships.