[xemdetia]

If you are unfamiliar with the American procurement process it is:

1. demand is generated by the military

2. bid out contract

3. selected a bidder (bidders are defense contractors)

4. deliver contracted goods and also maintain inventory parts and tooling for sometimes up to 25 years

5. local economy becomes dependent on this manufacturing income, bidder lobbies their local congressperson directly or indirectly

6. congressperson does these wacky ass requisition appropriations

7. the factory keeps production at the same level and with same employment

8. military gets delivery for goods they never wanted so they go into storage, because what else are you supposed to do with these things? You can't resell them because it contains military secrets, you can't scrap them from both an optics level and the general military logic that having a spare is generally fine.

This happens even moreso when it is navy vessels that are much larger cost investments (submarines and destroyers) as just making one will take years potentially and there are legitimate concerns for stopping the means of production but it really just turns into a jobs/national pride story.

[toomanybeersies]

Navy vessels are slightly different though, because you really have to think 10 years ahead when building them. It takes a long time to build and commission a ship.

As an example, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Royal Navy's new carrier, was ordered in 20089 and laid down in 2014, it was commissioned only last year, and is still undergoing sea trials and isn't operational (they also have no planes to fly off it). It's planned to be in service in 2020, 6 years after being laid down and 12 years after it was ordered.

[xemdetia]

I agree with this in entirety there is a whole set of production steps that take it from a skeleton to seaworthy to battle ready. The issue from the American perspective is that those shipwrights, technicians, and other workers do not have a job past the conclusion of their phase. After primary construction is done you just don't need as many welders. If the ship has been wired properly to completion you don't need as many electricians, and so on and so forth. This especially holds true because after acceptance by the military most of the maintenance roles will be taken over by enlisted personnel or contractors separate to the production staff. The problem is it turns into 'if we don't order a new ship we're down 5,000 high wage jobs.' So while Ship A is being polished for deployment the original company has a bunch of staff that they don't have any work for. The next contract that comes in provides money to cover those 5,000 jobs to do that primary construction over again to build Ship B.

I'm also not sure in the comparison between foreign governments and US defense contractors but US defense contractors generally only sell to the military markets (domestic or international) so it's not like their facilities are designed to be able to build ordinary commercial goods side by side with the military spec hardware.