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How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

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Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#131

Post by arcanemachiner »

ggm wrote: post #56
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…

You seem to think nuclear weapons stop all forms of tension short of nuclear war but the evidence is strong that even nuclear armed parties do things which don't include nuclear weapons. India applies strategic pressures to it's neighbours including ones with nuclear weapons. They're bashing each other with sticks and stones on the border, to avoid pulling nuclear triggers. There was an ad-blue shortage in Australia…

For anyone else wondering, "ad-blue" is another term for DEF (diesel exhaust fluid), which is a chemical used to decrease emissions from diesel engines.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_exhaust_fluid

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#132

Post by coldtea »

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.

>Singapore is an island, too, and we don't need a national-strategic ship building industry.

That's because it exists on the benevolence and because of the benefits of it existing to several third parties. If/when that balance stops, they could turn it into a failed state in a forthnight.

Being this careless by relying on "friends" (in global politics? lol) is ok for a small place like Singapore that can't do anything else anyway. For an ex-empire, it's more suicidal than prudent.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#133

Post by bootsmann »

purple_turtle wrote: post #107
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…

Having nuclear weapons does not give you immunity to all threats. Quite recently we had a case of nuclear state being partially occupied by a state without nuclear weapons. And even in that case use of nuclear weapons would be unacceptable escalation and they used regular army to (mostly) kick them out and carry on with their earlier invasion on other parts of the front. (I am speaking about Kursk if anyone is confus…

To be fair, the credibility of the Russian nuclear stack is questionable at this point. Its unclear how much capacity survived the past 30 years of graft. We have developed nations struggling to maintain theirs without layers of blatant corruption weaved into the process.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#134

Post by r_lee »

gerdesj wrote: post #16
webdevver wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ive long held this take aswell. a lot of people point back at history, with the argument of "we did it before, we can do it now!" but whats to say it wasn't a transient? transients can last 1 year or 100 years, but in the latter case i think its 'hard' for us to believe that it was a fluke, because we view transients that last longer than a human lifespan with a bias of perceived permanence. how could the UK ever com…

[flagged]

Here's your trophy, Sir. Indeed China is irrelevant, you are so right!

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#135

Post by gambiting »

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…

>>There would be dire consequences for anyone invading and/or blockading a nuclear armed country.

Just a reminder that Ukraine is currently at war with nuclear equipped Russia and it could absolutely use more ships, more tanks, more aircraft, more bombs, more guns, more drones and everything else that forms traditional warfare. It's clearly not like countries will immediately go from zero to nuclear weapons in any conflict.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#137

Post by oblio »

agobineau wrote: post #88
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.

australia has almost no fuel refining capacity most of australia has less than 2 weeks of gasoline and imports it on weekly barges from singapore. in the XXIer century some australia cities have run out of gasoline for half a day, an afternoon, a few days https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-15/singapore-bound-duel-...

> XXIer century

Sorry, but it's a bit funny. Based on the name I assume you're French (speaking, at least)?

That "XXIer" contraption is really funny to me, I speak a bit of French. In English it's twenty first so XXI or XXIst, in French as far I know it's vingt et unième, so XXI or XXIème.

Is "XXIer" from another French dialect or another language entirely?

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#138

Post by thorin »

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.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#139

Post by gambiting »

bootsmann wrote: post #133
purple_turtle wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having nuclear weapons does not give you immunity to all threats. Quite recently we had a case of nuclear state being partially occupied by a state without nuclear weapons. And even in that case use of nuclear weapons would be unacceptable escalation and they used regular army to (mostly) kick them out and carry on with their earlier invasion on other parts of the front. (I am speaking about Kursk if anyone is confus…

To be fair, the credibility of the Russian nuclear stack is questionable at this point. Its unclear how much capacity survived the past 30 years of graft. We have developed nations struggling to maintain theirs without layers of blatant corruption weaved into the process.

Even if so, I don't think anyone doubts that they do have functional nuclear weapons. Maybe not all 5000 of them, but definitely enough to use them if they want to.

I think the whole narrative of "well maybe Russian nukes don't actually work" is unhelpful - if they wanted to use nuclear weapons they would and the weapons used would work. I think people sometimes think Russia is North Korea experimenting with sticks to make fire(and even they have managed to get something working) - despite the massive corruption their nuclear industry and the engineering corps are functional and it's in my mind without a doubt that there is a stockpile of weapons which would work if needed.

Russia is just not suicidal enough to actually use them in the current conflict, luckily.

Re: How the UK lost its shipbuilding industry

#140

Post by rapsey »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #126
rapsey wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is economic myopia that leads to long term subservience to countries which have maintained manufacturing capability. China can literally bring the rest of the developed world to their knees at will with rare earths.

There's lots of rare earth deposits all over the world, but the question is, are you willing to accept the pollution that results from extracting them as efficiently as possible? China's "If it develops a market, yes" answer to that is their strategic advantage.

China dominates refining, which is also a nasty industry. The mining is done in many places.

> China's "If it develops a market, yes" answer to that is their strategic advantage.

i.e. long term thinking is their strategic advantage.

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