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Editorial: Admiral, I Am NOT Ready For War

Colin Parkinson

Army.ca Myth
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A good article from a USMM Captain on the state of the US Merchant Marine

-snip-
US Maritime Administrator (and USMS Commandant) Rear Admiral Mark Buzby, has made no secret of our need to build new ships and refurbish our fleet. The problem is that ships are expensive, take years to design and build and do not capture the nation’s imagination like a new destroyer does. Most merchant ships are ugly but absolutely essential because there is simply no other way to move equipment and materials into theaters of war overseas.

Nearly everyone in the United States Military and Merchant Marine, including myself, readily agrees that we need to do more to support domestic shipbuilding. That said, everyone secretly knows another fact that few are willing to admit publicly. The fact is that in a large-scale war against China the United States can take the ships we need or demand them from our allies.

What we can’t demand is that foreign sailors man these ships and sail them into combat. For that we will need strong allies and highly competent and well-trained American sailors.

Today’s American merchant sailors are well-trained and experienced but we are lacking skills in the latest technology and, as the number of US flagged ships decreases, so do our numbers. According to Adm. Buzby the USMM is about 1800 mariners short of the numbers needed to do sustained sealift operation using todays reserve assets (which are also insufficient).

If we can’t fully crew the ships we have available, how can we crew the ships we need? The answer is, I don’t know.

-Snip-  (rest on link)



https://gcaptain.com/editorial-admiral-i-am-not-ready-for-war/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Gcaptain+%28gCaptain.com%29&goal=0_f50174ef03-861c3307f7-139922301&mc_cid=861c3307f7&mc_eid=c9f44d7f09
 
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