Shipyards Matter More Than Aircraft Carriers

How Britain Lost the Seas — and Why History May Be Repeating Itself?

There is one aspect of the history of the British Empire that is often viewed somewhat incorrectly.

The conventional story is that Britain lost its status as the world’s leading empire after the Second World War because the war had exhausted the country, Britain was deeply in debt to the United States, the colonial system began to unravel, and a new global leader emerged: America.

All of that is true. But if we look specifically at sea power, the process began much earlier.

Britain began losing its empire when it gradually lost the ability to reproduce, on its own, the industrial foundations of its maritime dominance.

In 1913, British shipyards accounted for roughly 58% of global shipbuilding output by tonnage. Think about that: more than half of all the ships being built anywhere in the world. Britain also controlled roughly 40% of the world’s steam and motor merchant fleet.

That is what a genuine maritime empire looks like.

Not aircraft carriers. They did not yet exist in anything resembling their later form.

There was the Royal Navy, the merchant fleet, British shipyards, steel production, engines, insurance, banks, a worldwide network of ports and naval bases. All of it belonged to a single integrated system.

The Royal Navy was merely the visible tip of a vast industrial and financial machine.

The Germany

The Germany appeared.

And here it is worth correcting a common misconception. German U-boats did not destroy the British battle fleet as such. They did something considerably more dangerous.

They began destroying the system that the fleet existed to protect.

Germany did not need to build more battleships than Britain. It did not necessarily have to defeat the Grand Fleet in some decisive fleet engagement.

It could simply bypass the entire structure.

The objective was to sink merchant shipping faster than Britain could replace it.

In April 1917, German submarines sent roughly 860,000–880,000 gross register tons of Allied and neutral shipping to the bottom in a single month.

For an island empire dependent on imported food, raw materials and fuel, as well as the movement of cargo between its colonies, this was essentially an attack on the circulatory system.

Britain survived. Convoys were introduced on a massive scale, anti-submarine warfare improved, and, most importantly, the United States entered the war.

But the warning had already sounded.

Because an unpleasant fact had become clear: possessing the world’s most powerful surface fleet was not enough. If an enemy could make the use of maritime communications prohibitively expensive, the very meaning of command of the sea began to change.

Then came another, much less visible process during the interwar years.

The Royal Navy remained enormous. Britain still looked like the world’s great maritime power. But the industrial foundation beneath that power was gradually shrinking.

Before the First World War, British shipyards accounted for roughly 58% of global shipbuilding.

Before the Second World War, the figure was already down to around one-third.

Britain’s share of world merchant shipping had fallen from roughly 40% to about one-quarter.

The flag was still flying over the oceans, battleships still lay in naval bases, and the map of the world was still painted in British colours. But the material foundation of hegemony had already begun to slip away.

And then Germany came again.

Admiral Karl Dönitz effectively turned the Battle of the Atlantic into a mathematical problem.

You did not necessarily have to defeat the Royal Navy.

You had to destroy merchant tonnage faster than the enemy could produce it.

In 1940, the Allies lost roughly 4.4 million tons of merchant shipping, while Britain and the United States built about 1.2 million.

In 1941, another roughly 4.4 million tons were lost, while about 2 million were built.

In 1942, the situation became critical: approximately 8.25 million tons were lost. Britain built around 1.84 million tons; the United States was already building 5.34 million.

Germany had almost won its arithmetic.

Then came the development that, in my view, decided not only the outcome of the Battle of the Atlantic but also the future structure of global maritime power.

In 1943, the Allies lost approximately 3.66 million tons.

Britain built 2.2 million.

The United States built 12.38 million tons.

That is where Germany finally lost the Battle of the Atlantic.

On American shipyards.

The Germans could have built another hundred U-boats. They could have improved their torpedoes. They could have refined their wolf-pack tactics.

But you cannot win a tonnage war against an industrial system that can build several times more ships in a year than you are capable of destroying.

During the war, the United States built more than 2,700 Liberty ships.

And here is a particularly amusing detail, especially when com

pared with today’s discussions about “technological superiority.”

Liberty ships were not technological masterpieces.

They were powered by old-fashioned, simple triple-expansion steam engines producing roughly 2,500 horsepower.

The Americans could have installed more sophisticated propulsion systems. But why?

They needed a ship that could be built quickly, cheaply, in huge numbers and almost on an assembly line.

By 1944, the average construction time for a Liberty ship had been reduced to roughly 42 days.

That was the real technological superiority.

Not the ability to create the most sophisticated weapon.

The ability to create an industrial system capable of producing weapons that were good enough, faster than the enemy could destroy them.

And this is where something happens that is rarely connected directly with the collapse of the British Empire.

Britain won the war.

But it had effectively transferred the function of maritime hegemon to the United States.

First came American loans.

Then American ships.

American shipyards.

American industry.

American oil.

The American Navy

And after the war, the American dollar and an American-led system for securing global maritime communications.

The British Empire still existed. The Royal Navy remained one of the world’s largest fleets.

Only the centre of the system was no longer in London.

It was on the other side of the Atlantic.

Germany therefore played a rather curious historical role. It did not inherit the British maritime empire. Twice, it attacked its most vulnerable point and thereby accelerated the transfer of maritime hegemony to the United States.

Now let us move to the present.

And this is where the historical echoes become rather uncomfortable.

Today, the United States possesses a vastly more powerful global naval system than China. American carrier strike groups, nuclear submarines, overseas bases, satellites, intelligence capabilities, allies and logistics cannot simply be removed from the equation.

But I am interested in something else.

Where are the Shipyards Now?

In 2024, China accounted for roughly 55% of global shipbuilding output by gross tonnage.

That is almost exactly the kind of share Britain possessed on the eve of the First World War.

China accounted for roughly 74% of new orders.

Its share of the global orderbook had already approached two-thirds, and some more recent industry estimates put it even higher.

The American share of global commercial shipbuilding, by contrast, is now measured in tenths of a percent.

This produces a very strange configuration.

The world’s maritime hegemon barely builds the world’s merchant fleet.

The potential principal challenger to that hegemon is the world’s largest shipbuilding power.

And China does not merely build ships.

It produces roughly 95% of the world’s maritime shipping containers, a huge share of port equipment and marine components, operates some of the world’s largest ports, and possesses an enormous steelmaking base.

In other words, what is gradually emerging is not simply a large Chinese navy.

It is a maritime industrial ecosystem.

And that is an entirely different conversation.

Especially if we remember what German submarines did to the economics of British maritime power.

Because the modern equivalent of a “Dönitz submarine” may look completely different.

An unmanned surface vessel.

A cheap long-range drone.

An anti-ship missile.

A mine.

An autonomous underwater vehicle.

Satellite reconnaissance combined with an inexpensive strike system.

The Houthis have already demonstrated, in the Red Sea, a small-scale version of how this can work.

You do not necessarily need an aircraft carrier to disrupt global trade.

Sometimes it is enough to create a threat that sends insurance premiums soaring, makes crews unwilling to sail a particular route, and forces shipping companies to send vessels around Africa.

Once again, the asymmetry appears.

The means of attack is relatively cheap.

The asset being protected is extremely expensive.

And the system protecting it is even more expensive.

That is precisely the economic problem Britain once confronted.

But it gets even more interesting.

The American military sealift fleet is also ageing. The average age of dozens of major U.S. roll-on/roll-off ships intended for the emergency movement of troops and equipment across the oceans is approaching half a century. Some of them will have to be retired over the next decade.

And the United States is already considering the acquisition of foreign-built vessels.

Where have we seen this before?

The maritime hegemon still possesses an extraordinary military fleet, a global network of bases and the ability to project power virtually anywhere on the planet.

But the industrial system required to sustain and reproduce that dominance is increasingly located outside its borders.

Britain once compensated for the erosion of its own industrial capacity by relying on American ship.