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How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

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Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#241

Post by vintermann »

hypeatei wrote: post #45
ggm wrote: post #2

The best time to try and fix this is 20 or 30 years ago, but absent a time machine, the next best time is now. Either you feel this kind of construction process is national-strategic and you ignore the cost over imports, or not. If you don't regard this as a core competency which should be kept in the national register, then sure, buy the ships from other places. But, don't come whining when the national-strategic in…

I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. A lot of people seem to yearn for the "good old days" where we built giant, tangible things that did cool stuff. That's fine, but the "national security" arguments ring hollow as you're basically saying…

Bah, I'm of the opinion that if the intelligence agencies were asleep at the wheel, that might well be an improvement.

But I do think that you're right in that the time of the frigate and aircraft carrier is over, and we'll all more likely to die either from a nuclear missile or from a 50 gram autonomous drone. I agree: the national security argument is hollow.

There are other reasons to build ships though, and some degree of self-sufficiency is always sensible.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#242

Post by FuckButtons »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #23
elcritch wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems a naive simplistic philosophy. The UK is larger than South Korea and has a similar population size. Yet South Korea has outcompeted the UK and US in ship building. By most accounts by investing in advanced technology and ship building technologies. Having population and talented populous is a requirement but not sufficient for achieving big things. It requires leadership as well. Look at Taiwan out competing Ch…

> Look at Taiwan out competing China in silicon foundaries. it wont last long. even china dont use military to take taiwan, china will still win on this in the the end. It's just a matter of time. A lead of a few decades doesn't mean everything from the perspective of historical dimensions, it's still too short. also, china will take taiwan in short times(less than 10 years), so the result wont change anyway. From a…

This seems, either naive or wishful thinking. The ‘normal means’ of transferring power and status as far as I recall from most history I’ve read usually involves some sort of massive war. Sometimes this ends well for the rising power, other times they wind up finding their fortunes being reversed. Even when things don’t wind up being so dire, it’s not very often you see complete forgone conclusions in international relations, especially between countries separated by a body of water.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#243

Post by vintermann »

palmotea wrote: post #86
hypeatei wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. A lot of people seem to yearn for the "good old days" where we built giant, tangible things that did cool stuff. That's fine, but the "national security" arguments ring hollow as you're basically saying…

> I'm of the opinion that things like shipbuilding don't really matter in times of war for countries with nuclear weapons. There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country. The flaw in that annoyingly common logic is 1) countries are very reluctant to use nuclear weapons, and 2) any kind of nuclear escalation is an instant loss for your own side . I personally don't think…

> An autocratic one may use them when the leader is close to defeat as one last "f*ck you", because he doesn't serve his people, they serve him.

Too bad it's hard to find a country which isn't autocratic by this standard in practice.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#244

Post by pjc50 »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #4

This is called mean reversion in history. The UK and Japan are small island countries. They lack the resources and manpower to sustain long-term industrial prosperity. Everything they have is temporary. In the end these industries flow to large nations with vast resources and large pools of technical talent. It used to be the United States. Now it is China absorbing Japan and Korea. This applies not only to shipbuild…

This is very much "why does China, the largest country, not simply eat the others".

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#245

Post by scott_w »

ben_w wrote: post #214
scott_w wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think the British Empire was ever competent then I strongly recommend you listen to the episodes of the Empire podcast that cover the British Empire (there’s a lot of different episodes across the series). With the exception of the Royal Navy, the British Empire was spectacularly incompetent. It’s a running joke that the British stumbled into being the largest empire in history. That said, I don’t think it’s u…

> With the exception of the Royal Navy, the British Empire was spectacularly incompetent. It’s a running joke that the British stumbled into being the largest empire in history. Hm. Well, I can't say I know any better than that, I was rather assuming that becoming the biggest empire was itself due to something approximating competence. Certainly, if one takes the view that all large organisations are mediocre, the Br…

> Certainly, if one takes the view that all large organisations are mediocre, the British Empire is unambiguously an example of "large organisation".

Absolutely! I think all governments can safely fall under "large organisation" as it's pretty much necessary.

> Just to check, the Empire podcast by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple?

That's the one.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#246

Post by energy123 »

eru wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a country that is an Island you'd think that the question of whether or not it is 'national-strategic' would have been answered in the affirmative.

Why? Singapore is an island, too, and we don't need a national-strategic ship building industry. As long as your friends build ships, you are fine. The UK is friends with South Korea, for example.

Small island countries shouldn't build their own ships only because they can't due to their size. But they probably should have sovereign manufacturing of asymmetric deterrence tools like anti-ship missiles.

Friends aren't good enough, unless you have a mutual defense treaty, they aren't real friends and can't be counted on. Look at Ukraine struggling to get Tomohawks and ATACMS now, or struggling to get tanks and jets, due to fear of escalation.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#247

Post by short_sells_poo »

sefrost wrote: post #47
colesantiago wrote: post #31

If we zoom out a bit the UK is a failed country. All the industries in the UK are on the decline and most UK companies are being either sold off, shut down or are being owned (for a long time) by foreign companies. It may take several decades for the UK to come back from this.

The economic situation in the UK has become bizarre. I would recommend interested HNers to read up on the State Pension Triple Lock; and the various income tax cliff edges as some key examples. With respect to the income tax, it is possible for higher earning (not by US standards) employees to receive a bonus and actually take home less money than before they received the bonus. The triple lock is a politically motiv…

You touch on the core issue of the UK, but there's both a cultural and policy aspect.

1. As you say, an aging population has placed the entire country into a gridlock - the pensions system as it stands is ridiculous and unsustainable. Unfortunately, it is an almost immediate political suicide to even attempt to reform it. Young people are disillusioned and wield little monetary or political power. The old generation has all the cards, and are actively destroying their children's future for their own short term benefit. They have mortgaged their children's future, which they won't get to see, for the short period of time they still have remaining. 2. There's no investment culture in the UK. Literally everything and everyone is rent seeking. Want a retirement? Buy property and rent it out. Want a pension? Pension funds just buy gilts - government bonds. Very little money goes into productive assets. This creates a vicious cycle where money is simply siphoned away from the little productivity that remains to an ever growing number of rent seekers.

There's no easy way out of this. One generation will effectively have to give up their welfare, but nobody wants to do this (understandable). The UK cannot afford to be the welfare state it wants to be.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#248

Post by pjc50 »

chairmansteve wrote: post #67
porknubbins wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars like Jaguar and Land Rover have famously bad electrical systems. But just saying quality issues doesn’t really get to the heart of the issue. Bad quality at one company is one thing, but if you’re arguing bad quality happened across a whole industry or country, and its the country that started the industrial revolution and could come up with the Rolls Royce Merlin when it needed to, there has to be a deeper reas…

There are lots of manufacturers in the UK right now who have fantastic quality. Rolls Royce aero engines. Lots of pharmaceuticals. Airbus wings and landing gear. Lots of cars as well. Medical devices. The list is endless. The UK manufacturing sector was worth $279 billion in the last year. https://www.makeuk.org/insights/reports/uk-manufacturing-fac...

This is an under-appreciated point: the UK manufacturing sector is highly successful, but only where it doesn't employ large armies of workers, and is instead either automated or very small volume/large margin.

News coverage of this is, as expected, completely dire.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#249

Post by James_K »

clarionbell wrote: post #167

General economic defeatism in this, and similar discussions, is staggering. Historically, many countries were suffering from various forms of economic malaise and managed to pull trough. Countries that lacked almost any form of industry have become powerhouses. South Korea is a good example. The previous century hasn't been kind to Korea in general. By the 50s, the southern part of peninsula was generally less indust…

I think the defeatism is generally because there seems to be no way out. The two winning approaches right now are Starmer's “radical change through stability and continuity” and Farage's “Brexit 2: This time with Elon Musk”. Both strategies have clearly failed in the past.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#250

Post by Hikikomori »

lm28469 wrote: post #152
thorin wrote: post #138

Same reason it got out of every other industry. It wasn't short-term profitable. After the 70s at least everything began moving to the private sector and there was no strategic thinking. This completed in the 90s and there was no reason for anyone to think that semi-conductors, minerals, even oil and gas now shouldn't be bought from a friend rather than being produced internally.

It's almost as if Europe entirely gave up sometime in the 70s. People used to have vision for the next 50+ years, now they care about the next 3-5 years because they know they'll bounce to another position. That's why everything is seemingly slowly crumbling away (healthcare, industries, culture, education), we're putting bandaids here and there to maintain the illusion but I think everyone can tell the general trend

Colonies disappeared quickly post ww2. US imperialism did continue strongly for a while with Cia/political meddling to allow American companies to continue resource extraction.
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