I bumped into a recent USNI blog post advocating for a strong US Merchant Marine. If you haven’t seen it, you might find it interesting. My only stake, is that I happen to be a USNI member. It was written by a LT Alex Smith, a Navy Liaison Officer at the U.S. House of Representatives:
That was one of the most well written appraisals of the USMM I have ever read. He didn’t just deliver a scathing indictment of the current state of the USMM, those numbers speak for themselves, he also provided a course of action for how to move forward and got a little bit fire-and-brimstone there at the end about who’s fault it is that we’re in this mess (our own, the American people that is…), all of which I thought was very good. I hope someone NOT affiliated with the USMM reads this because otherwise if it’s just us then you can chock this one up to a bunch of mariners jerking each other off, just like every other time the Jones Act is discussed…