Iran war exposes U.S. shipbuilding decline, author calls for public investment
More than 20 commercial vessels were hit in the Persian Gulf during the roughly six-week Iran conflict that ended with an April 8 cease-fire, highlighting the decline of U.S. maritime power. If U.S. shipyards had to replace the lost tonnage, the process would take over 12 years, while China could build that capacity in about eight days, according to a new analysis. The author, Mary Bridges, proposes publicly owned "Liberty Yards" and a maritime infrastructure bank to reverse the decline.
More than 20 commercial vessels were hit in or around the Persian Gulf from the start of Operation Epic Fury until the April 8 cease-fire, a roughly six-week conflict that has laid bare the decline of U.S. maritime power, according to a new analysis by Mary Bridges.
If U.S. shipyards had to replace the gross tonnage lost in the conflict, the process would likely take more than 12 years, Bridges wrote. By contrast, China could build that capacity in about eight days. At the peak of the conflict, more than 700 ships were stranded near Iran, leaving some 20,000 mariners hostage at sea, Bridges noted. Some vessels reflagged under registries more favorable to Iran; others became "zombie ships" by claiming the identities of scrapped vessels; still others falsified locations or went dark.
Roughly 80 percent of global trade by volume moves by sea, Bridges wrote, and open maritime exchange has underwritten decades of rising global prosperity. But the Iran conflict has revealed the fragility of that system. U.S. shipyards have delivered well under 1 percent of global commercial tonnage. Singapore, a country smaller than the Atlanta metropolitan area, built more gross tonnage in 2024 than the entire United States. Roughly 90 percent of U.S. military equipment moves by sea, but the government's fleet of military cargo ships held in reserve for wartime sealift now averages 46 years old, more than twice the typical lifespan of a commercial vessel.
The United States faces a 45 percent shortfall in tankers and less than a quarter of the commercial vessels needed to sustain a wartime economy in the Pacific, Bridges wrote. A U.S.-built refueling tanker costs five times more than Japanese- or South Korean-built counterparts. More than 80 percent of U.S. Navy ships under construction are behind schedule, and delays stem from obsolete equipment, employee turnover as high as 100 percent, and supply chain unreliability. The second Trump administration's first secretary of the Navy held the job for 13 months.
Bridges, a senior fellow at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator and an Ernest May fellow in history and policy at Harvard's Belfer Center, proposes publicly owned "Liberty Yards" and a maritime infrastructure bank to expand the U.S. share of global shipbuilding from 0.1 percent to 1.5 percent within eight to 10 years. The Liberty Yards would be anchored in major maritime regions and specialize in different vessel types, with public ownership providing long investment horizons and coordination across sectors. The maritime infrastructure bank would lend to buyers of U.S. vessels, stabilize order pipelines, and reduce borrowing costs, Bridges wrote.
"In a moment when the United States has taken equity stakes in Intel and critical minerals producers, the Iran conflict makes the case that support for domestic shipbuilding is a national security priority," Bridges wrote. "Iran's effort to charge tolls for passage through the Strait of Hormuz underscores that the world can no longer take for granted free navigation of the seas."