Future social upheavals may well make the 60’s look like a holiday but that’s off topic.
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Yes the state schools could probably handle the load but the question remains whether or not we (the US) are a maritime nation or should aspire to be one. If so, how do we draw from across the country people who want to be a part of that industry versus 6 select states. There are some thirty states that border the oceans and or great lakes (if my count is correct) not to mention the territories, and those inland states that border our major rivers that carry commerce.
Many countries much smaller than us have national maritime academies which bespeaks of the priority they place on the maritime industry.
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Allow me to point out that no other nation professes the same dependence on its merchant marine for its national defense than the US since no other nations consider their militaries requiring overseas deployment like ours does. Frankly, I honestly do not think any branch of the military in the USA has any focus on defending the homeland. The entire US military plans for fighting on foreign soil or in foreign waters…thus there is no other nation with such a close association between its national flagged merchant fleet and its military than ours. Every discussion we ever have concerning the need to keep a US flag fleet revolves around defense so where is the DoD in this equation? What are “they” doing to ensure “they” have the ships and men “they” need? The DoD throws away billions on the ridiculous so why should they not be expected to pony up the funding for the merchant fleet all their warplans call for…further, if the DoD also believes KP to be necessary to their planning then they should pay the freight to keep the place open as well. $700M a year from the DoD towards building and maintaining an expanded US flagged merchant fleet and we would not be having this discussion here today.
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$700 mln. Do you know how many miles of wall that would fund??
OK, maybe not many, but you have to get your priorities right.
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We don’t really know what role KP plays in the big picture of support for the merchant marine. From a bean-counter point of view the school can be closed and the operating fund allocated elsewhere. Maybe no harm done, or maybe it turns out KP is a load-bearing support beam and closing it would be the begining of the end.
For example it could be KP alumni in key goverment postions are critical for contiuned support.
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I would think that KP’s role would be obvious.
Any politician with priviliges to appoint midshipmen gets to offer taxpayer-funded college educations to the offspring of their backers and sponsors.
A perk like that goes a long, long way in Peoria.
That’s why we’ll have a KP even when we don’t have ANY US-flagged ships left.
In that future time, I guess they will all go work for MarAd and spend tens of millions TALKING about supporting the US Merchant Marine.
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From a bean-counter’s point of view the argument could be made for all the service academies to be closed.
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China
That’s true but the resultant loss of support from the alumni or staff of West Point or Annapolis if those schools were closed probably wouldn’t put a much of a dent in the overall political support for the Army or Navy. The constituency for those organizations is much larger and more broad-based then is support for the Merchant Marine.
Not even close. China is going to win the foreign battles it engages in with money and not arms. That is far less costly in the end and makes better international alliances as well.
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Oh I’m not arguing that, I’m just saying they’ve taken overseas transport into consideration. Just look at their military occupation of foreign territory in the spratleys.
You know, I believe there are more embarrassed in Washingtoon over that because no one thought to do the same thing in the name of the US when we were the only country with the ability and money to pull it off. But we were fat and lazy sitting on pur asses in Guam and Subic.
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Spratley Islands are not “foreign territory” since they are claimed, in full or in part, by many countries, based on old historical activity in the area, or based on the EEZ as defined by UNCLOS. (USA has no claim)
Here from Encyclopaedia Britannica:
China claim all the islands, as does Taiwan (as the Republic of China) based on historical activities.
The other claimant (Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia) make their claim based on UNCLOS and partly history.
Brunei and Indonesia claim some of the waters of the South China Sea as their EEZ, but not any islands or reefs.
The Paracel Islands is different and only contested between China and Vietnam:
http://fact.geoba.se/country-page.php?bc=PG1
They also claim Taiwan but that doesn’t magically make it theirs to occupy either.
The official name of Taiwan is Republic of China and they claim to be the rightful Government on the mainland. I presume you find that less “magical” or logical??
(I believe they have stopped having members of parliament pretending to represent individual mainland provinces though)
PS> USA did not recognised PRC as being “China” until 1. Jan.1979.
we’ve jumped the fucking tracks again I see
the Goddamned South China Sea and who has claims to the reefs in it is not the subject of this thread…it is MarAd failing to develop a Maritime Policy to stem the loss of US flagged merchant ships and the serious shortage of opportunities for US citizen mariners to find employment on US ships which we all know means a serious shortfall of mariners to man the RRF and other reserve ships when there will be the next surge sealift.
What? Don’t you think that they’re doing a marvelous job promoting the US Merchant Marine?
I’ll have you know that they’ve won several Major Awards for being so “maritimey”,( and also for swapping out to LED lighting and saving energy faster than those sad-sack clowns at the FAA!).
They’re wonderful, wonderful people who have nothing but our best interests at heart.
So here we go yet again with absolutely ZERO effort on MarAd’s part to make even a timid statement on their own behalf.
Either they are so arrogant and filled with their own selfimportance that we are nothing and not worth the candle to warrant a reply or they know deep within we are right in calling them useless Federal Government parasites sucking on that great Uncle Sam teet and growing more corpulent and indolent every day they breath air on earth.
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