I Still Don't Understand...

Why Russians don't rise up and overthrow this tyrant Putin and his government which is like, I don't know, bunch of baddies and nasties. They don't even understand how to run Russia, they literally force Russians to earn money, buy cars, TV sets, go to universities and colleges to study those totalitarian maths and sciencing. Russian cities are horrifying, especially since number of parks and nice totalitarian roads and highways have been growing insulting Russian (and international community) intelligence. Not only nasty Russians continue to build those Stalinist nuclear power station and continue to poison space with their satellites and space ships, they now... what?

Seoul - South Korea ranked second to China in terms of shipbuilding orders for the second straight month, industry data showed Wednesday. Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Co. and others won orders totaling 230,000 compensated gross tons (CGTs) to build eight ships in April, trailing far behind Chinese shipbuilders that bagged 730,000 CGTs in orders to build 38 vessels, according to London-based Clarkson Research Services, the world’s leading provider of data for the shipping and shipbuilding industries. Russia was the No. 3 player after its shipbuilders secured 65,000 CGTs in orders to build seven vessels last month, followed by Japan with 55,000 CGTs in orders for two vessels. China has been the dominant force for new shipbuilding orders this year, taking up 61% of shipbuilding orders placed around the globe in the first four months of the year. South Korea was the runner-up with 17%

Obviously, this is a seasonal data and China and South Korea remain overwhelmingly dominant in commercial shipbuilding, but do not forget, orders for Zvezda shipyard alone only grow and Zvezda builds not some recreational yachts, but massive ships. Get this:

As part of Russia’s ongoing efforts to develop its northern oil and gas fields and promote Arctic shipping, Sovcomflot (SCF Group) and NOVATEK announced a deal to build 10 additional icebreaking Arc7 LNG carriers at the Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex. As part of the agreement, it was also announced that SMART LNG, a joint venture of SCF Group and NOVATEK, signed long-term time charter agreements for the vessels with Arctic LNG 2, the operator of the Arctic LNG 2 project.

What do ya know, Russia is beating Japan, a traditional power-house of commercial shipbuilding, at... commercial shipbuilding. Ah, yes, that gas-station masquerading as a country. Boy, I wish late John was still alive to observe this. This is, of course, not to mention a shitload of large fishing vessels Russia builds and then, of course, this specialty shipbuilding which only Russia can do. You know, those monstrous nuclear (and non-nuclear) ice-breakers. Arktika, one of four nuclear ice-breakers, just arrived to Murmansk, her home port, from visiting North Pole and having no problems with demolishing all this non-existent and disappearing ice. Here is the video in Russian. You know, Putin's propaganda. 

All that was done at Mosfilm studios and Arktika doesn't exist in reality. Come to think about it--Russia herself doesn't exist, she is all but a mirage, a figment of imagination of the combined West, where across snowy steppes Russian muzhiks with their babas ride their horse-driven troika carriages and drink vodka and sing songs under the accompaniment of a garmoshka. But jokes aside, Russia hitting top 3 in shipbuilding only underscores the processes of a massive scale which take place in Russia now. But I am sure Western scholars will find a way to create yet another rating which shows that Latvia has a larger economy than Russia and that Lomonosov Moscow State University is a backwater compared to Harvard. Indeed, those morons do not even have a football team. What kind of a backward shithole of a country is that, which has no NCAA. Indeed.

And It Is Such A Surprise... Not.

Germans are consolidating their industries. Yes, this was so unexpected, wink, wink. 

COLOGNE, Germany — The German government is facilitating talks between major naval shipbuilders in an effort to set up a national conglomerate rivaling industry champions like Naval Group in France and Fincantieri in Italy, according to a local media report. Negotiations to that effect have been ongoing behind closed doors since the beginning of 2020 between ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems, German Naval Yards Kiel, and Lürssen, broadcaster NDR reported Thursday.

But, but, how about all those supranational EU aspirations and this whole European unity thingy. Some are lamenting:

The idea of a unified German naval industry cluster runs counter to the narrative that the European defense market should focus less on national retrenchment and instead bank more on efficiencies through cross-continental mergers.

Oh no, this is a very wrong POV. It is not "counter" it is "naturally", because, as was predicted by many--nation-state remains and will continue to be the main subject of international relations, and thus of geopolitics. All those supranational organizations such as EU or NATO are nothing more than moribund useless bureaucracies set up by globalists and today they are losing their appeal really really fast. As they say in Russia: own shirt is closer to the body and suddenly feels the urge to think about.... Germany first. The era of national egoism or egoisms, rather, is upon us. But as with many things in this life--crisis is not just the time of grief, of course it is, but also the opportunity. Germans taking care of their own industry--sounds absolutely natural, I would say even organic. Russia does the same. Recall what a mammoth modern Russia's OSK (Unified Shipbuilding Corporation) is. Speaking of which: evidently updated (7th and 8th) hulls of project 22350 Frigates Admiral Amelko and Admiral Chichagov will carry additional 8 cells (3C-14) on board thus allowing them to carry up to 24 3M22 Zircons (in Russian). I don't think they will carry that many of this specific type, but just the whole notion of some platform out there in the ocean being able to launch 24 hypersonic weapons at the enemy is rather terrifying, for the enemy, of course. But in general, I think we will see more and more measures of state regulations in industries which are strategic for developed nations. Including, especially so, in a defense sector and that may see some really bizarre alliances emerging in the nearest future.

Commercial Shipbuilding in Russia.

No, it is not about monster Zvezda shipyard whose portfolio now is more than impressive:

In the second six-month period of 2018, Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex’s portfolio of orders grew by 42 percent, and currently Zvezda has contracts for construction of 37 vessels. Zvezda’s anchor customer is Rosneft, which placed an order for 26 vessels, including 12 Arc6 and Arc7 ice-class tankers, 4 ice-class multi-purpose support vessels, and 10 Aframax tankers. Gazprom ordered 3 support vessels, 1 vessel for transporting drilling crews, and 1 multi-purpose service vessel for offshore production unit. Rosmorport ordered 1 shallow-draft icebreaker. The contract also provides for an option to build three similar vessels. Sovcomflot ordered at Zvezda Shipbuilding Complex 2 Aframax tankers and 3 medium-range tankers of the MR class.

The news is actually about Krasnoye Sormovo shipyard which in 1960s-80s was known for building project 670 SSNs (NATO Charlie-class). The shipyard for all intents and purposes was dead by the end of 1990s--courtesy of young "effective managers" (euphemism for thieves and criminals) who apart from being greedy are, for some reason, incapable to produce anything of value. Yet, the shipyard endured somehow and after recovery started to build ships again. Here is the economy of scale kicking in:

Krasnoye Sormovo Shipyard, a unit of Russia's largest shipbuilding company United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC), has been awarded a contract to build dry cargo ships under Project RSD59 for State Transport Leasing Company (STLC). Three vessels from the batch are set to be delivered by December 2019, another four are to join the fleet by the end of 2020, while the remaining four units would be delivered by the end of 2021. According to a press release, Krasnoye Sormovo has won an open competition for construction of 11 ships over a period of three years, by the end of 2021.  Krasnoye Sormovo shipyard was the only participant of the competition announced by STLC. The tender is valued at approximately 10.67 rubles (US$161 million). This is the third series of RSD59 ships ordered by STLC to Krasnoye Sormovo. The first series of five ships was completed in October 2018, the second one numbering four units is under construction.

These 141 meter long, 8,093 tons of DWT (for sea), vessels are nothing to sneeze at--these are very respectable dry and general cargo transports capable to navigate Russian rivers and coastal sea areas. 

And here is the question--what's the deal with this "economy growth" thingy, which, supposedly, barely grows? Russian "opposition", especially its so called liberal part is in constant agony of this backward "Russhka", yet this "backward" country seems to be doing pretty well in restoring once mighty shipbuilding industry. The first one, medium tanker for Russian Navy, Academic Pashin is on trials now. 

Really fascinating how things pick up speed in Russia. Which merely confirms some of my suspicions on what really drives Russia's economic policies. For people who fanatically believe in monetarism and post-industrial myth it will be very difficult to comprehend how, somehow, Russian industry is not only increasing the number of enclosed technological cycles, but is getting ready for space arms race. There were some other, non shipbuilding related news--about MC-21. Borisov today stated that MC-21 by 2022 will be localized 97%. That means that 97% of parts for MC-21 will be manufactured in Russia. What are the remaining 3%? Who knows, some electronic parts, maybe some other few trinkets. Judging by the way MC-21 will be introduced into service through Aeroflot, which is main MC-21 customer (wink, wink), one has to ask--what does this remind me of?        

Moving Stuff.

Stumbled upon this interesting piece and discovered for myself that the situation with US merchant fleet is even grimmer than I expected.

“It’s been an 80 percent reduction in the overall global (U.S. military) footprint since circa 1990,” said Eric P. Ebeling, chief executive of American Roll-on Roll-off Carrier Group out of Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey, the third-largest U.S. flag carrier in international trade. “When cargo goes down, that’s less cargo on U.S. flag ships.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article210623279.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article210623279.html#storylink=cpy

Obviously, the United States is a SLOC-dependent nation but, of course, naval, that is military, considerations are also at a prime and reflect a rather moribund concept of US Armed Forces fighting some conflict which would require a steady supply train of merchant marine vessels to Europe. It is a moribund doctrine since, while implying that US will be fighting in Europe (a suicidal scenario), presumably Russia, and will require an intense operations on Atlantic SLOCs, forgets how things changed since the good ol' Cold War 1.0. It doesn't mean that Russia will not try to interdict those Atlantic SLOCs, but as even some US experts admit:

Some experts said that in a world of hypersonic missiles, laser satellites and smart bombs, discussion of ships and long land wars may seem obsolete.

“People today don’t have the same sense that they did in the 1950s or before then of the possibility of a large-scale conflict. They say, ‘Uh-uh, no way,’” said Seth Cropsey, a former deputy undersecretary of the Navy now affiliated with the Hudson Institute, a conservative think tank in Washington. For his part, Buzby said future conflicts will carry additional risk if the Pentagon must send cargo on foreign flagged vessels – especially if enemy vessels try to stop the supplies.

“What other country is going to want to stand up and say, ‘Yeah, I’ll carry American stuff’ and get potentially shot at?” Buzby asked.

It has to be stated very clearly that the United States simply has no real resources to fight any REAL war against Russia in Europe, because:

1. Russians are absolutely not interested, nor intent, in attacking, or invading, or what have you, anything in Europe unless, see below...

2. NATO commits suicide and does attack Russia, as some people in D.C. and Brussels are convinced they can. Well, in this case no amount of supplies will help them. US simply has no military hardware for sustaining a large conventional combined arms war against such peer as Russia. Why so--is a separate issue here.

3. Russia is certainly not going to interdict Atlantic SLOCs in a peace time.

Reality, however, is rather simple and reduces all this strategic maritime (mambo-jumbo) talk to a few simple facts:

1. Mediterranean is already largely (Eastern and Central parts) "closed" for any combat activity and in case of real war (God forbids) will be closed up to Majorca or even Gibraltar by merely deploying a squadron of MiG-31K (yes, that is official now--MiG-31K)  with Kinzhal to Khmeimim Base in Syria. 

2. Northern "approaches" are also "controllable" both on water and on land by a variety of means ranging from already proverbial Kinzhal to a variety of stand-off land and ship attack weapons carried both by Russian Navy and VKS. 

So, one may ask, what's left then for US Merchant Marine? The answer is simple--get competitive and try, by whatever means necessary, to restore American civil shipbuilding industry. In the end, the United States has some very legitimate commercial interests which are tied to SLOCs and nobody, at least not in the Atlantic, is going to mess with them. The faster this delusion that US can fight the war in Europe will be dispelled the better it will be for the shipbuilding industry. For now, however, this is a situation:

One move is afoot to stimulate shipyards by again requiring some energy exports to sail on U.S. flag vessels. Garamendi said he will introduce a bill in the House later this month that would require a growing percentage of LNG and other energy exports to move on U.S.-built ships, starting at only 1 percent and slowly rising to 30 percent.

“We would simultaneously rebuild the American fleet and the ability of our shipyards to produce blue water ships,” Garamendi said.

Shippers said the 2015 end to the ban on U.S. energy exports hit them hard.

“It caused a huge reduction in the demand for American-flagged tankers. But nobody ever talks about that stuff in Congress,” said Crowley, who called the move “highly disruptive.”

“Some companies scrapped ships,” he added.

His own company laid up two tankers for up to a year for lack of work.

“Everybody suffered because the revenue per ship dropped dramatically because there was more capacity,” Crowley said.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article210623279.html#storylink=cpy

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article210623279.html#storylink=cpy

So, it is yet to be seen if the US, once mighty, merchant shipbuilding industry and Merchant Marine will recover, but there is very little doubt that this, unlike many insanely dubious and useless military programs, is a worthy goal to pursue. I, somehow, prefer economic competition to military one. As Garamendi's Bill state:

“We’re the most powerful nation in the world, but 99% of our trade travels on foreign-flagged ships,” continued Garamendi. “To develop the kinds of jobs that will keep the American economic engine moving, we need to right this ship and grow America’s maritime sector.”

I have some news for Garamendi, however, "most powerful nations in the world" do not have 99% of their trade traveling on foreign ships. The faster this will be understood and BS mantras of American exceptionalism be dropped--the faster this nation will find much needed real economic recovery.