This html article is produced from an uncorrected text file through optical character recognition. Prior to 1940 articles all text has been corrected, but from 1940 to the present most still remain uncorrected. Artifacts of the scans are misspellings, out-of-context footnotes and sidebars, and other inconsistencies. Adjacent to each text file is a PDF of the article, which accurately and fully conveys the content as it appeared in the issue. The uncorrected text files have been included to enhance the searchability of our content, on our site and in search engines, for our membership, the research community and media organizations. We are working now to provide clean text files for the entire collection.
those
cipitously. Anyway, there is no legal requirement for
soft!*
Sometimes a quiet scare is just what the doctor ordered. And it is exactly what the blue-ribbon Commission on Merchant Marine and Defense supplied.
The Commission issued a jolting report of its findings in September, and an ambitious report of recommendations in December. The reports make it clear that unless we do something soon, our Merchant Marine will be unable to help our armed forces win the next war. The long deterioration in our Merchant Marine has become a crisis, therefore, because it finally seriously threatens national security. So what should we do?
Forty years in Congress have taught me that there are two ways to deal with a problem like this. One way is to let our Merchant Marine continue to deteriorate until we effectively have none. Then, when we belatedly recognize the crisis, we must throw huge sums of money to reinvent a program we cannot do without. As Admiral William J. Crowe, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has said:
“If there were no United States-flag merchant marine, it would have to be replaced by a government-owned and -operated sealift fleet—at considerable additional expense to acquire and operate.”
The better alternative is to investigate the problems, their causes, and repercussions, and to work to resolve them. It was with this in mind that 1 drafted legislation to create the Commission on Merchant Marine and Defense. Now we should let the Commission’s excellent work serve as the first step toward building a national consensus to reverse the decline of the Merchant Marine. As the reports note, this cannot be done without significant government expenditure, as well as change and some sacrifice by all in the maritime community.
The complacent will note that our Merchant Marine has been in trouble for most of the last 120 years, except for brief periods of prosperity during national crises. But a survey of the current situation shows we arc headed for unprecedented decline.
Although the current administration has done more by way of adding Navy ships to enhance the nation’s strategic sealift capability than has been done during any period since World War II, the commercial sealift component, on which we would surely have to depend to transport the bulk of our strategic and economic lift capacity in time of war, is in serious trouble.
In 1970, 18 major U. S. liner cargo companies operated five or more ships in international trade—a total of 434 such ships. Today, only four U. S. liner companies that operate in international trade have five or more ships each, and among them they possess only 88 vessels. Even in the protected domestic trade, the number of liner cargo ships has dropped by more than a quarter, from 21 to 15.
Ironically, the decline in the U. S. merchant fleet come at a time when international trade, which nearly doubled in the 1970s, is projected to expand by roughly 40% by the end of the century. Unfortunately, during that same period, if nothing is done to prevent it, the U. S. liner^ fleet will shrink to about 50 ships, in addition to the 15 ,n protected domestic trade. The overall U. S. merchant fleet—the tankers, bulk carriers, barge carriers, container ships, and the like, which totaled 416 privately owned, active, and laid up units at the beginning of 1988—is Pr° jected to decline more than 50%. During 1987 alone, vvC lost 29 ships and 823,445 deadweight tons, and in January 1988, there were only 341 operational U. S.-flag mereha^ ships. Today, our Merchant Marine carries less than 491 0 our international trade; by the end of the century, if c°r' rections are not made, we will have about a 1% share o much larger market.
Why should this sad economic situation concern miHta™ leaders? After all, it has been argued, the United States can always obtain the sealift capacity it requires from ships of the U. S.-owned flag-of-convenience fleet or fr° the merchant fleets of our allies, can’t it? Alas, no. BaS' ing our strategic sealift plans on the availability of such fleets is, at best, imprudent, and, at worst, dangerous- There is simply no way of knowing whether foreign ere on U. S.-owned ships operating under the flags of Pan" ama, Liberia, Honduras, and the Bahamas will be will'0® to follow the U. S. flag into battle. NATO merchant fleets, on which we have depended to provide as many a 400 ships to lift strategic cargoes, are also declining Pre' fleets to aid the United States in areas outside of NATO- Can’t we turn to the expensively procured Ready Re' serve Force (RRF) of moth-balled merchant ships main' tained by the Maritime Administration? We could, if t*lC _ were trained crews to operate them. But the RRF is c°n posed mainly of aging ships propelled by steam, ships which trained operators will be increasingly difficult to find in a merchant ship world gone diesel. Moreover, 11 decline in the U. S. merchant fleet also means there are fewer skilled merchant seamen. The First Report of thL Commission on Merchant Marine and Defense estimates that by the year 2000 there will be a significant shortage of merchant mariners able to man ships reactivated fr°n'j the RRF. The Commission also estimates that by the en of the century the U. S. Merchant Marine will support skilled workforce less than one-third the size needed to sustain a global war.
Adding further to this dismal equation is the loss
186
Proceedings / Naval Revie"'
odd withdrew its bid for construction (DD °n Navy’s new ^rleigh Burke 0-class gUided-missile destroy- JS 011 26 May, just hours before bids k ere to be opened. The company so acted ecause the Navy would not pay Todd’s tl.art UP c°sts for the $162.1 million con- vv?Ct, was a severe blow to Todd, lch had hoped the Navy work would
rekindle its finances.
Todd revamped its management in early July, by removing its chairman and chief executive, Hans K. Schaefer, and shifting him to the presidency of Todd’s West Coast subsidiary. David W. Wallace, a board member with a reputation for resurrecting financially troubled firms, was elected chairman.
By late July, Todd was restructuring its operations. First, it gave its dry docks, cranes, and related equipment to the port of San Francisco to entice the port to break a lease agreement with Todd. Then, a few days later, Todd turned over its shipyard in New Orleans to the port there, in exchange for ending a lease valued at $6.9 million. On 17 August the
ac*ily w°rse unless drastic action is taken immediately.
A “c|e "1ur°'P 50u“’
is thc Z ant* Krovv*ng danger to the national security” indusp6 TeCt *hc deterioration of the U. S. maritime MercheS’ reP°rted the presidential Commission on chaired *h ^ar'ne al,d the Defense. The commission is by Jeremiah Denton (above, with Reagan).
port
solve the
„ 5*e PUH cooperation and attention of the various fed- ► Urbanizations concerned with sealift
etnient of a meaningful operating differential subsidy
j|^e eased 30 December 1987, offer an integrated plan The Vhe nat‘on s strategic sealift shortfall. They include: SUfe thp rtCS,i,dent stating a national maritime policy to en- erai ° "
chant1 ?.S*1'Pyard resources. With no new orders for mer- rnai .. Ps’ anc* w'th a declining inventory of ships to sun |am’ t*le shiPyard industrial base and the irreplaceable alscf lerS shipbuilding and ship-repair components will low Wlt'1Cr away- The shipyard manpower is already so and aS t0. hmit severely the nation’s ability to mobilize for
sustain a major conflict, and the situation will get lily -
proni
Only rln‘he Plow of raw materials during wartime. Thc onr .dy apparent alternative to reversing the decline of strjtep^1!'010 industries is to change basic U. S. military This h ruhng out military responses requiring sealift, if jt ^ °|'Vever’ *s a price this nation cannot afford to pay c°ntrol • CS t0 remain a leader of the Free World and to The *tS 0Wn Political and economic destiny.
^‘commendations in the Commission’s Second Re
__________ By Representative Charles E. Bennett
program to restore the prospects of ship operators
► Implementation of a government-funded “procure-and- charter” program to begin the buildup and modernization of the merchant fleet and the shipyard industries
► The imposition of reforms to stimulate foreign trade and the use of U. S.-flag ships in that trade (for, without cargo, a peacetime merchant marine cannot be maintained)
► Support and improvement for the existing cabotage laws that are intended to reserve U. S. domestic seaborne trade for U. S.-flag ships and craft
► Improvements to federal policies, practices, and regulations to ensure that the maritime industries are not unfairly disadvantaged
► Government spearheading of a joint public and private effort to improve efficiency in the maritime industries.
Obviously, several of the Commission’s recommendations cannot be carried out without considerable public expense. But it must be remembered that government expenditures in support of the Merchant Marine are a necessary part of the overall cost of national security. Moreover, expenditures for the U. S. Merchant Marine also produce U. S. jobs, income tax receipts, and consumer savings.
The Commission on Merchant Marine and Defense concludes its Second Report with thc warning that if its recommendations are not followed now, it sees no alternative but the eventual imposition of more drastic measures, such as reserving commercial cargo to U. S.-flag ships or implementing a massive program of direct subsidies to the Merchant Marine to assure that enough ships, shipyards, and trained personnel are available to meet the nation’s crucial sealift needs. Our Merchant Marine, the “fourth arm of defense,” is as crucial a component of national security as are our armed forces.
The Commission on Merchant Marine and Defense presents the facts of the deficiencies we face. It outlines a plan of action. We now need estimates of the costs of implementing these recommendations. Then, the Commission must work with the relevent congressional committees and industry representatives to draft legislation to put their recommendations into action.
One hopes that some major legislation can be passed in 1988. But these challenges are great and it will probably take more than one Congress to pass the laws needed to provide a more viable Merchant Marine to improve our national security.
Representative Bennett (D-FL) is Chairman of the Seapower Subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, and a member of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee.
cdlnRs / Naval Review 1988
187