U.S. Naval Power at Risk? Inside America’s Shipbuilding Crisis

The U.S. once built 90% of the world’s ships—today, it produces less than 1%. What went wrong, and can America reclaim maritime dominance?

In this episode of the “At the Boundary” podcast, GNSI’s Dr. Guido Rossi sits down with maritime expert Dr. Randall Gentry, the principal research scientist at CNA Corporation, to unpack the crisis in U.S. shipbuilding. Together, they trace the decline of the industry, from globalization and shifting trade patterns to decades of policy choices that weakened America’s industrial base.

They also explore the current administration’s executive order on maritime dominance and the Ships Act for America, analyzing whether these measures can revive shipbuilding. Issues include: the urgent need for a skilled and stable workforce, how multi-ship contracts and long-term investment could change the game, and the role of allies like South Korea and Japan in strengthening U.S. capabilities.

If you care about American industry, national security, and the future of naval power, this episode dives deep into one of the most urgent questions facing U.S. strategy today.

Links from the episode:

• American Shipbuilding: From Crisis to Made-in-America Opportunity By Guido Rossi, PhD and Randall Gentry, PhD

 • Register for CyberBay Here!

• Register for a webinar on irregular warfare with Dr. Rob Burrell and Chris Mason!

At the Boundary from the Global and National Security Institute at the University of South Florida, features global and national security issues we’ve found to be insightful, intriguing, fascinating, maybe controversial, but overall just worth talking about.

A "boundary" is a place, either literal or figurative, where two forces exist in close proximity to each other. Sometimes that boundary is in a state of harmony. More often than not, that boundary has a bit of chaos baked in. The Global and National Security Institute will live on the boundary of security policy and technology and that's where this podcast will focus.

The mission of GNSI is to provide actionable solutions to 21st-century security challenges for decision-makers at the local, state, national and global levels. We hope you enjoy At the Boundary.

Look for our other publications and products on our website publications page.

Transcript

Jim Cardoso: 0:00

Jim, hello everyone. Welcome to this week's episode of at the boundary, the podcast from the global and national security Institute at the University of South Florida. I'm Jim Cardoso, Senior Director for genocide, and your host for at the boundary. Today on the podcast, we're bringing into the studio the authors of our latest genocide decision. Brief, doctors Randall gentry and Guido Rossi their decision. Brief, dives into the state of shipbuilding in the United States and what it will take to revitalize it. Immediately following World War Two, the US produced almost 90% of the world's ships today. That number is less than 1% Dr Gentry is a Principal Research Scientist at CNA Corporation, while Dr Rossi is one of our own GNSI research fellows. We look forward to having these two experts expand on what they wrote in their decision brief and give us a glimpse into the state of that Bellwether industry before we get into that conversation. However, we want to remind you that registration is open for not one, not two, but three upcoming events on the GNSI calendar. First and most pressing is tomorrow's webinar with Dr Christopher Mason, the creator of the study of internal conflict research project. He'll be talking with our own Dr Rob Burrell, one of the world's acknowledged experts on irregular warfare. Dr Mason claims that his five factors model can predict with 100% accuracy whether a government will win or lose in a civil war or insurgency. That webinar is at 10am Eastern tomorrow. Registration is free, but required to participate in this talk, so do so now to check for yourself this bold claim next on October 16, GNSI will be hosting the 12th cyber beacon conference here at USF. Cyber beacon is the flagship conference of the College of Information and cyberspace at the National Defense University. It's the first time CIC has held the conference outside of Washington, DC, and we are proud to be the first outside partner for the event. Again, no cost to attend, but registration is required. Finally, we've opened registration for the first ever Florida security forum, port and maritime security risks and resilience will be held on November 4 at Port Tampa Bay. Our partners for the conference, Florida's deepwater ports contribute over $117 billion to the economy every year and support nearly 1 million jobs. And of course, Port vulnerabilities present very real national security issues. This is going to be a canvas event registration and more information are on our website. We'll drop links to all these events in the show notes. Okay with all that out of the way, let's listen to our interview between Guido Rossi and Randall Gentry as they discuss the state of us shipbuilding industry here on at the boundary.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 3:19

Hey, Randy, thank you so much for joining us.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 3:22

It's my pleasure. Guido, thanks for the invitation to talk today. Absolutely.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 3:26

I think there's only a few people more qualified than you to talk about these very important and very much current problem of the of the crisis of a marine American ship building. Because, after all, it's a crisis, right?

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 3:46

Yeah, it is. And, you know, I have to say that we're one of many in a community, right? So the maritime community is fairly robust. There have been quite a few people who've identified this crisis and explained why it's a crisis and how we got here. So I think, you know, we have to recognize that there are quite a few people active in this space right now and really working to get to a solution space, to solve the problem, working the problem, if you will. So I would agree it's a crisis

Dr. Guido Rossi: 4:20

and and I think it transpired from your words also that these is, there's, there's several people currently working on it, including, including the administration. It's not one of those creeping problems that the it's not at the forefront of people's minds. But whether the opposite,

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 4:39

oh, I think, I think that's true. I think the administration came in and identified it as a priority problem for this administration to attempt to solve, or at least put the framework together to begin to solve the problem. And part of that was the executive order that President Trump signed emphasizing maritime dominance. This, and also the recent draft bill that Congress put forward, the ships act for America. And I think both of those initiatives have outlined where the problem exists, where it needs to be fixed, or at least the pathway for it to be fixed, and an approach which would include development of a maritime action plan. So I think all of these activities point to this administration, this Congress, attempting to take steps to to rectify sort of this, this issue in the maritime community,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 5:37

before getting into, you know what's, what are the provisions of the executive order and and of the ships of for America Act? First of all, I wanted to ask you, so this is, this is not a new problem. It's been in the making for several decades. So why without necessarily, you know, pointing fingers at the previous administration. But why has, why is only this present administration dealing with it? Why didn't the or did the previous administration, for instance, did the previous administration do anything to try to us to address that problem? Considering that the, you know, the rise of China as an adversary for the United States is also another new, recent thing, and they've been developing their fleet since the establishment of Xi Jinping as their leader in the nearly 2010s and 20 and 2012 so did the previous administration attempt to do anything to solve this problem? And if they didn't, why and why only now?

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 6:43

Yeah, I have to say, and it's not sort of a placing of blame. This occurred over decades of time that probably started with the end of the Cold War, and so at that point in time, the Reagan administration sort of began transitioning from a wartime confrontational stance to more of a peacetime stance. And so certain funding that was available in terms of subsidies to the industry other activities, in terms of the funding that went into a certain size Navy, certain size defense, just wasn't the same. And so we saw this continual erosion of the industry, and probably the the start of globalization and outsourcing from from the US to other entities. And so the combined effects of all of that really brought us to where we are today. Previous administrations have tried to place funding and emphases on the building of ships, particularly naval ships. I don't think probably that much in terms of the commercial, commercial maritime. I think the current administration has probably made it an emphasis to look at the broad maritime industry, so Merchant Marine, naval forces, all of the above, and probably put resources to it. So part of that was to look at the funding necessary, at least in terms of an initial analysis, and to try and get that funding in the right place. So again, not looking at necessarily blame as what was then viewed as a world at peace and probably different requirements, leading to, over a period of time, an erosion of probably national security from the standpoint of economic security, and the US has capability in both shipping defense and the combined sector, in terms of maritime opportunities.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 8:51

Okay, that's that's very interesting. And I was also thinking, Could you also be perhaps because of a greater inclusion of Russia as a another adversary, again, alongside with China, with the difference though, that I don't, I would say that the Russian Navy, except for the Submarine Force, has never been an enormous threat to the United States. Is that, is that a is that another fair reason why the recent, recent, you know, greater focus against China, due to the embarrassment of Russia and Ukraine, further reductions of the of the Russian fleet, and so with, with the rising importance of China as an adversary. Then there's been also, you know, greater emphasis has been placed on confrontation indices?

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 9:44

Yeah, well, I think so. I think that when you look at economic power, shipping and controlling of those corridors, marine corridors for that purpose, in addition to fishing, fishing. Out areas, and also protection of that those areas as a national resource are important, so the combined activities became much more important. So I you know, I wouldn't say that Russia was never a threat. It probably was a different threat during the Cold War period than it was after the Cold War period, and certainly today, where it's, you know, it's probably been a destabilized kind of environment for them. But I would have to say the threat is still real. In terms of Russia, I think the threat was growing over many decades. From a China perspective, the aggressiveness that we see in terms of the China Coast Guard, particularly incursion into fishing areas that are international waters, and claiming, yeah, the Philippines particularly, and the claiming or asserting of certain rights over areas that they have not historically had any kind of dominance or national ownership mentality of has really been sort of growing over time. But I would say over the past decade, the past five years, it's really reached a peak. And so I think that's the impetus for the concern these days, is that we're nowhere near where we need to be in terms of maintaining, much less growing, a particular naval force?

Dr. Guido Rossi: 11:43

Yeah, I can, I can see that so and there's many avenues that I like to take to further explore the topic with you today, I'd say, first of all, let's try to define the problem a little bit more. What do we mean exactly by crisis of American ship building, and how does that impact, exactly, national security? Yeah.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 12:06

And let me point towards two books. I think the least the listeners should pay attention to. One was a book that was put out by the maritime accelerator for for resilience. And this is, this is a very strong group of commercial maritime, individuals with a lot of history in the Coast Guard and and other areas as well. And the book was called 0.4 how US leadership in maritime will secure America's future. And in that book, they go through a lot of these principles that we're talking about. And so I think it's a good resource, and that's why I'm pointing towards it, and they talk about this issue of economic security as a national security facet. And the other is returning from Ebb Tide. And this is a book that was put out by the Navy League, and it was edited by Dr Steven wills. Admiral James fogo did the foreword for this book. And again, it goes through a lot of the history from the Cold War era, the elimination of the subsidies and then and then the globalization impacts and the outsourcing, particularly of manufacturing operations offshore, and America's loss of that capability. Well, not the capability, I'd say the capacity. So certainly, we've always had the capability, but the capacity to build the numbers that are necessary was is certainly not the case. So to get back to your point again, I think these are good books for folks to delve into. But, but the point is the economic security. And why is that national security? And I think fishing is an as an example, shipping as an example. This the this is just simply how a lot of America's resources tend to come into the American families. So it's, you know, as much as we we tend to try and cover as much as we need in terms of chain supply equities within the United States borders, by necessity, all countries get export material in and that export material is vastly controlled by shipping on the oceans, and that dominates a lot of global economy these days, from an energy perspective, from a household goods perspective, from a food security perspective, also in the context of national security, grains, oils, other food goods, other food goods that may be used from a materials perspective. So all of these dominate most countries in economic conditions to a to a degree that if you were to shut off shipping, or shipping was greatly impacted, it would affect your your national security capability, just because of the economic. Impact from some type of degradation of inflow of materials to your country. So I think that's one perspective. I think the energy perspective is another. We all import certain things that are needed. From an energy perspective, the US is trying to grow its provenance in terms of being an LNG exporter, but in fact, we still import oil, even though we produce quite a bit of oil. So I think all of these things are important to consider in terms of a national security perspective. They affect what is the fabric of America and the fabric of our economy, and so it's something that we have to protect.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 15:44

And what about more directly to directly to defense of the United States? So namely, the ability to build ships for the US Navy. Yeah.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 15:56

So I think that's that is a critical point. So the US is, is highly dependent upon a skilled workforce to be able to build it's, it's, it's ships for defense. There's been quite a bit of commentary in the media about the Navy's abilities to meet its building demand, and an inability to meet that demand is where we currently are now, but improving, and part of that is workforce, and part of it is consistency, and in the way the contracting works to build these ships, which is dependent upon the funding put forward to build These ships. And as with all things, how the contracts are let to build these ships. So I think all of this goes into a stable sector within the maritime industrial base, which is part of the defense industrial base as well for the purpose of building ships. And I think anytime we have a lapse in capacity to do that, whether it be on the commercial or the defense side, it's a big impact.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 17:15

So one problem for the shipbuilding industry in the United States has been the workforce, namely that there isn't nearly enough qualified workforce. The United States have sort of passed on to some historical allies, especially Japan and South Korea, building capacity, and they have let them do the job. And meanwhile, our capacity here in the in the States, has decreased over time, but that was very much interested in the in the connection between the commercial side and the naval or military side of shipbuilding, because they are, they are tied together, connected. There.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 18:02

There. There is a connection in terms of the workforce, capacity and capability. I do have to say that if most subject matter experts that you will talk into this, talk about this with, would argue that there's a degree of separation between what's done in terms of the commercial ship building and what's done in terms of naval ship building. The argument I posit is that there may be a degree of separation in terms of the physical shipyard and what's occurring in certain spaces in the shipyard, but the combined activities to bring the industrial base up to be able to do that, production is highly connected, and many areas that may do some commercial still probably have a market segment dependency upon Naval ship building or naval repair, the sustainment of those vessels in some way, shape or fashion. So I think the thing to recognize is it's a highly complex market segment that includes commercial it includes naval ship building. They are typically not the same activities. There's different standards associated with each type of construction and but when you when it gets, when you get down to the the worker skill set. In order to do that manufacturing, it's the same skill set. So it's the same skill set applied to a different specification, whether it be commercial or military. And so when we talk about the maritime industrial base, we usually talk about a combined workforce that may be doing commercial or naval shipbuilding, but we don't intend to say that they're doing both at the same time, but maybe they should be doing both in some kind of new model. That would allow an exchange of workforce between those types of projects. It may be part of the solution space that we need to look at

Dr. Guido Rossi: 20:09

so. So two things I think, I think the value in the actions that this present administration has taken have have value in revitalizing the USF building industry precisely because they don't only address the Naval Military aspect, but also they try to address also the commercial side of things, and at least from the perspective of funding and workforce. They're so connected that cultivating, you know, the workforce will benefit essentially both, and not just the commercial or the military side. And then correct me if I'm wrong, of course. And then the the other thing that I think it's, it's interesting, it's, or that struck me, at least, was that when we're talking about shipbuilding industry, and we're talking about shipyards the it's somewhat different from other industries, because the monetary investments that need to be made to build these capacity and build these infrastructures and form the workforce are massive, To the point that a degree of involvement by government, not only on the naval side of things, but also commercial and private side of things, is, is is required to allow this industry to survive and thrive.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 21:35

Yeah, yeah. I think that's absolutely correct. Guido, I think, you know, I think part of the issue. And maybe how I look at it is, you know, in the US, the model is still very much open markets, so anybody can participate in whatever market. They seek a competitive edge, they try to take that competitive edge, and that's their business model, right? That's how they out compete in the open market. For for business capability, our business awards, and so typically there's, there's an advantage to being able to be resilient in that space, by being able to bring in different types of projects and to be able to plan long term for those projects. So I think you know the issue is having a stable workforce that you can go to with the right skill set to be able to do that that job, including innovative solutions. So it's not just about the workforce, it's also about learning new techniques and advanced techniques for doing the same job, right? So it becomes about productivity. So all of these are layers, usually in the complex business model for these types of operations that allow them to compete. But the only way they can compete is if they know what the the landscape of the competition will be over an extended period of time and and how they can adjust their business models to be economically beneficial. And usually, if you talk to subject matter experts in this space, they will, they will describe the incredibly tight margins in the ship building space, meaning there's not a lot of latitude to look at a disturbance in a project. It's just not resilient to large scale, small scale disturbances, at least most of the ones that I hear from in this space anyway, so they try to build that resilience through multiple projects that they can kind of buttress up against each other and expect a longer term business operation to provide that resilience. The disruption may come in if a platform is discontinued, if a platform canceled or discontinued. A platform is altered midstream. Something different is specified for a ship after the beginning of the construction. These kind of things can be disruptive to that practice. So you often hear commentary about perhaps we should look at adapting standards that are more commercial into the naval ship building practice. And I think that's a complex conversation, because in the end, you have to really define what you're getting at in terms of adapting those commercial standards in the end you you, you have to consider what the end effect is going to be in the ship being built, and is it, is it going to affect the survivability? Is it just about the production rate? So some optimization has to. To occur there, and it has to include the business model, where the economics and the technical economics are taken into account for the life cycle of the ship being built, and then it's sustainment. After that,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 25:15

you address the difficulties of margin profitability. Margin profitability from private shipyards. So when you're talking about the interferences in the platforms, in the design of platforms, or changes to the platforms, those interferences, they are mostly by the Navy. Correct? When we're talking about commissioning of vessels by the Navy, it's the Navy that oftentimes delivers incomplete projects to the shipyards and retains the right to intervene later, to alter those models, or then ends up canceling these models, these, these, these, these contracts all together, and that creates problems for the private shipyards.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 25:56

Yeah, and you know it's, it's not something that I blame the Navy for, I think it's describing the reality of the situation where the Navy is trying to build or design a force and complemented with the correct ships for X number of years out. And sometimes that requires a technical innovation where it's on the edge. So it's not completely worked out, if you will. So I think there have been examples where some of these technological innovations, energy requirements, other things have impacted that, ship building, production rate. I think that's what you would hear from, from some of the shipyards that, on occasion, that can create delays or missed opportunities in terms of reaching certain milestones. But in fact, it is the Navy that puts the requirements forward. It is the maybe that will alter those requirements. If some new platform, if some new energy requirement comes down and needs to be included in a new design, whether it be a destroyer, a frigate or any other platform of ship,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 27:12

considering that there, you know, presently, shipyards are building a number of Navy platforms, contracts, including, you know, frigates, second aircraft carrier, second, four class aircraft carrier, submarine and ballistic missile submarines as well, and a number of other ships and that they're, all you know, massively delayed. But also the the the award for this contract is extremely substantial for the shipyards. So what is the problem in terms of profitability for all these shipyards, if, if the money that is being awarded for this contract is so is so massive?

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 27:58

Well, the the amounts may be massive by the value that that most Americans would look at in terms of the budgets for this, for the shipbuilding, because of the scale of the ship. So these ships are enormous, right? So you mentioned the the aircraft carrier, the Ford aircraft carrier, first of all, nuclear vessel, completely, the propulsion system is the new type, as they say, in terms of nuclear propulsion, but just a massive ship in terms of its size and capability. So so the numbers are going to be what I'm trying to say is the numbers are going to be large no matter what, right? That doesn't necessarily mean that that's all going into profit, right? So a very small percentage of that typically goes into profit, right? So the company will come in, they have to have a workforce, they have to have material flow, they have to have a supply chain to deliver, to build that ship. All of these things factor into the construction of that ship. And there may be certain so where the company may tend to make its money is it really doesn't probably plus up much in terms of salaries and rates and this kind of thing. In fact, I think to remain competitive, they have to bid in such a way that probably all of those type of rates are kept very close to each other, all of the shipyards. So the profitability comes in, the incentivization to get it done at certain milestones. And so there may be payments, and particularly profit based payments, to meet those time requirement, incentives, and so those are, those are just not huge dollars in terms of the profit side of the percentage versus the total. So when you look at the number and that you're looking at these things, a submarine or aircraft carrier, and you're looking at numbers that are in the billions of dollars, you. Like, wow, that just must be a massive amount of money that the shipyard is going to make to do that. And in fact, I think it's the business of business that the shipyard is making profit on, which means, you know, some relatively small percentage of that flow of opportunity is what they're able to turn into what the business can reinvest in terms of profits. The rest of it goes to labor and materials. And so that's, I think that's just the reality of it. Very little of that is plussed up and in terms of some kind of profit margin.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 30:37

So, so the would you say that the solution would be to increase the amount of these awards for military contracts for naval vessels or other solutions should be instead looked at and implemented.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 30:53

Yeah, I think people you know in the community have put forward some ideas that would be helpful in this space. So I think looking at multi ship awards so contracts for for more than one ship in place at a time, would allow a much more stable business model for these shipyards to be able to to make a sustained profit on that way they can negotiate more meaningful agreements with collective bargaining units, with the labor they can sustain more resilient contracts for the supply side of their business. So I think that's, that's one aspect,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 31:34

and that's, that's, for instance, how companies that also contractors, contracting companies like General, General Dynamics, for instance, they have those type of contracts in place for some platforms, for the US government, for instance, the upgraded Abrams tanks, but they don't Have for their subdivision, the General Dynamics, electric submarine in right now in Groton, Groton, Groton, yeah, despite being the same contracting industry, they don't have similar contracts in place when it comes to vessels, even if they have it for other types of platforms.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 32:20

Yeah, that Well, that's true. I think they probably have it in place for a vessel. Maybe they have it before two vessels. And you have to look at the period of time it takes to produce some of these ships, right? So certain ships may take seven years, you know, from from initial construction activities to launching the ship. So, you know, that's that's a long period of time, right? So being able to balance a workforce and all of the supply chain logistics around that really becomes the issue. If you have multiple ships where you can partner in the right way for those supply chain logistics and labor markets, then it's just going to make the situation better. And I think that's what the shipyards and others have argued, is that the multi ship contracts probably would be of most benefit. Then I think there's other things that, you know, the Navy and others could do in terms of looking at what are the right incentives to one, to keep these companies most stable, because they are a part of your defense industrial base. And you know, what are the type of incentives that we can we can use as a tool to, one, strengthen the companies so that we have a better industrial base. But two, improve performance, at least in the context of what the customer needs,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 33:43

how? So exactly,

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 33:46

well, so I don't think there's a simple answer there. You know, you could, you could talk about payment structures. You could talk about keeping the margins on, say, Hold back of payments to the lowest level possible, so that the shipyards are are not having to wait till the delivery of the ship to get certain funding sources. Some of that is just routine in terms of traditional contracting, and you're always going to have some kind of verification process in terms of of how funds are held back just in terms of final delivery. But there can be unique ways to structure that, such that it's it's not necessarily an impediment to the company in terms of their workforce and supply chain stability,

Dr. Guido Rossi: 34:34

and then perhaps limiting the, you know, to to a to a reasonable degree, so not eliminate completely the say that the Navy has in the construction of the vessels, but perhaps limiting somewhat and easing that way, the work of shipyards in building military vessels, and also the interference also in part of Congress as well through the National Defense Authorization. An Act, yeah.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 35:02

So the one thing we all have to recognize is that there always is going to be oversight, right? And if you're spending billions of dollars, you have to have oversight, right? So somebody has to look out for the the American citizen as a consumer too, right? So we, you know, in order for the citizen to pay their taxes and then that be used for the national defense. There does need to be oversight, but I think that oversight has to be balanced in such a way that it does not prevent, in terms of the relationship to the corporate entity, the production of these ships. I think the Navy then has to go back and look at its processes, and I think it's doing that. I think it's going back and and doing some root cause analysis. Where did things go wrong? What do we need to fix? We don't need to be changing requirements and specifications early on in the shipbuilding process or even later in the shipbuilding process. That could, in fact, delay delivery, if they're you know. So somehow, you know, there could be new ship designs that would accommodate the modularity of the requirement of some of these changes that are being requested that could be built into the early design. So look at a modularity concept where you've kind of got a bring the package on of this type energy requirement, this type of weight and size, and, you know, sort of reconceptualize how that traditionally occurs, as opposed to building nothing but unicorns, where it's, you know, such an extremely unique type of vessel. The uniqueness can come in the form of the of the modularity. And I think others have proposed this as well, in terms of looking at a new way of doing ship design. Part of it also is we need new designs. I think that the actual design of the ship, in terms of its hull, in addition to its mechanical and electrical there's probably some innovation space there that could be looked at, and new approaches to that design which probably haven't been looked at and quite a few years.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 37:23

And maybe these may be a question with an answer kind of above your expertise, perhaps or but do you think those change? Because I think it's really interesting what you just talked about, implementing changes in the structure of ships. Do you think these changes could maybe marry well with also greater adaptation of of the standards, military standards for ship closer perhaps to commercial vessels. Or would that would be problematic?

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 37:54

Yeah, and you know, there's a possibility to look at some way to adapt commercial standards into military ship building. I think there are experts that need to come together in that conversation. Again, the you know, the optimization there is going to need to look at both cost constructability, but also survivability, that once that ship is in a congested, contested logistics scenario that it has the appropriate survivability that's intended. So I think all of these things are possibilities. I think there are certain commercial standards that could be looked at in terms of the construction and construction approaches. The other part that is probably around design is probably going to be a little bit more stringent and always military like, because that that gets to the survivability issues. But when it comes to how wires run, if a wire needs to be patched, how welds are inspected on commercial ships versus military ships, those kind of things, those kind of standards probably are the more low hanging fruit, okay?

Dr. Guido Rossi: 39:04

And alongside with, I just thought about these, this question is, along with perhaps the potential, the possibility of somewhat lowering slightly the military standards, is there a hope, a possibility of maybe raising the commercial standards a bit to sort of, you know, having the two types of standards made halfway, or you think it would cut too much into in the profitability, profitability of the building of commercial vessels for the commercial industry, and it would make it, you know, it would kill essentially, what we're trying to achieve here.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 39:47

Yeah, I think that's a very strong possibility. And I think you you raise a very good point. Guido, I think there is the potential that if you bring the commercial standard closer to an alignment with the military standard, then you're looking at. Cost issues and profit loss potential. But I think the right people in terms of naval architecture need to have that conversation about what the possible is. I think where the two parts of the industry could learn from each other, and particularly the military, could learn from some of the commercial is some of the new aspects of robotics and automation and the construction practices, and applying that to sort of the military construction side as well. So I think there's, I think there are things that could be done. And we tend to use the the phraseology of adopting commercial standards, but understanding what that really means in terms of the construction piece of it, the design piece of it, and then the evaluation piece of it, post construction or during construction, to certify the vessel or certify the construction. I think all of those are pieces that that have to be weighed independently, but they all lead towards standards and standards adaptation that could be useful.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 41:04

So during during this interview, we mentioned a few times South Korea, or also Japan, as being greater manufacturers of ships than the US are. And although the objective, the goal is to revitalize us shipbuilding. You know, the My understanding is that the growth, the very rapid growth of the Chinese fleet, is threatening, and it's not. It's not slowing down much. And while the capacity for building ships here in the United States is being rebuilt. Would the possibility of having some vessels sorely needed to fill urgent gaps in the US Navy fleet built instead by these partners. Would that be? Could that be a, you know, a viable interim solution, that I understand, that it would require changes in the US procurement law. But should, should those like legal changes be made to allow for this to happen to just as an interim solution? Do you think it would be a viable short term fix.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 42:26

I think, Well, I think we have to talk about it, and I think we have to understand what it means. And, you know, the way the law is currently constructed. You know, foreign entities cannot construct US military ships. And so I think the you know, the issue becomes, if you look at what the government, US government, was attempting to and not only the US government, actually Australia and the UK were attempting to do with the aukus agreement, and looking at shared shipbuilding of the submarine fleet, the appropriate submarine marine fleet. You could look at similar models for where shipbuilding of surface warfare combatants, particularly where Centers of Excellence exist in shipbuilding. So South Korea is, is very well known in this space Japan, very well known as space, certainly for commercial vehicles, but but also for military vehicles. So I think it is something we have to talk about, and we have to understand what it would take to get there.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 43:35

So these would be, these would be all, I think, short term solutions in terms of longer term solutions that are the I my mind, they're always the real solutions to the problem, right? They're not temporary fixes, but they are actually addressing the root cause of this type of issues. So do you think, for instance, that, or would you agree that a basis and a root of the difficulties that the US shipbuilding industry is encountering is also due to the fact that it's rooted in the very traditionalistic view, capitalistic view, that the private sector is private And that US government has or shouldn't have, shouldn't interfere with it, and in instead that a possible solution would be greater intervention by the government with funding, either in terms of loan or incentives to the private shipyards To to encourage them to build, rebuild this capacity and and restart the production that way. Do you think that's, that's a fair, that's a fair point to be addressed?

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 44:56

Yeah, I do. I do think it is a fair point. I you. So one of the jobs of government, and it's it's the only thing that government can do that industry can't do, and it is de risking the market space. So part of the issue is that the government does have to come in and de risk it so that shipyards can build up, that they can build up the workforce programs and the labor programs, and that they can look at the types of models that can be put in place to accomplish both the commercial and the military ship building. So part of that requires de risking, meaning the government coming in, identifying where the barriers exist in the marketplace, for US companies to be able to do this, and then lowering those barriers, whether that means tax incentives, whether that means real estate, type of incentivization for shipyards, there's A host of tools that the government can come in and de risk that space. Some of it traditionally has been in the form of subsidies, and those can always be used as well so and part of it is changes in law that may be part of the barrier that prevent the types of shipbuilding across different spaces that may be necessary, particularly with friends and allies.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 46:28

Well, these are very complex, complex topic of no easy of no easy solution, like you said, experts and and people at high levels really need to have in depth and good conversation to try to address some of the base difficulties, from like like I mentioned, from from the design of ships itself, to the relationship that exists between the government and private industry, and but this is, it is, I think it is encouraging that finally, at least it's gotten back in the center of attention and it's at least being addressed.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 47:13

Yes, I would agree with that. And I think, and I would hope, that most Americans would go out and take a look at the ships for America Act. Understand what's being proposed, understand the type of government infrastructure being put in place or proposed to be put in place, and if they're able to support the passage of that bill, so that they can move forward to support the industry.

Dr. Guido Rossi: 47:42

Randy, thank you. Thank you so much for taking some time to talk to me about this very important topic.

Dr. Randall W Gentry: 47:48

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Guido again. Thank you for the invitation and thank you for the conversation. Thank you for the intellectual engagement on this topic in terms of the decision. Brief, much appreciated. My pleasure. You

Jim Cardoso: 48:03

a special thanks to our guests today, Drs Randall gentry and Guido Rossi, for their in depth examination of the US shipbuilding industry and their recently published decision brief on that same topic. Dr Gentry will also be a featured guest speaker at our upcoming Florida security forum conference on November 4 at Port Tampa Bay, next week on at the boundary, we're going to explore a fascinating topic many of you probably have never heard of PNT. However, even if you've never heard of PNT, if your phone GPS has ever navigated you to say that popular new restaurant you've never been to, you appreciate it. P and T stands for positioning, navigation and timing, as you can imagine, beyond finding the best cumin sandwiches, P and T is critical to many facets of the US, military, and even more broadly, to many six sectors of society. It's especially topic for the newest member of our GNSI team. Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Jay Patrich, he joined us a few weeks ago as the very first member of GNSI National Security Research Fellowship. He sat down recently with fellow Air Force officer, major Jesse humpal to discuss PMT more specifically, what happens if an adversary like China, for instance, takes out all of the satellites that are vital to GPS operations. That's next week on the show. Thanks for listening today. If you like the podcast, please subscribe and let your friends and colleagues know. Follow along with GNSI and our LinkedIn and X accounts at USF, underscore GNSI And check out our website as well at usf.edu/gnsi, gnsf.edu/gnsi, while you're there, don't forget to subscribe to our monthly newsletter that's going to wrap up this episode of at the boundary. Each new episode will feature global and national security issues we found to be inside. Helpful, intriguing, maybe controversial, but overall, just worth talking about. I'm Jim Cardoso, and we'll see you at the boundary. You.