I don't have the time to read through this study but what was so objectionable about it? One of the author served in the U.S. Navy for 26 years and therefore is fairly acquainted with the subject matter, not to mention has graduate degrees in national security from the National War College while the other author has a PhD in Economics a graduate of McGill University of Montreal, Canada which isn't a shabby school by any means. While the economist author is of the Libertarian strand (based on some of his writings but mostly from the institutions he worked for) we can expect some semblance of nuance with their analyses right?
If you don't mind providing a breakdown of the study that would be helpful and appreciated. If not, I'll find some time to read through the article and see what's happened with America's supposed premiere think tanks like the right wing Heritage Foundation.
What is insane about it is that the authors propose to use
helicopter, drone and ferry ships insteads of docks to unload container ships as a way to
save cost. Except that:
1. No helicopter or drone currently can lift a 40 ton container (Mi-26, the largest helicopter in the world, can lift 20t)
2. A helicopter or drone capable of carrying a multi-ton payload would have to be turboshaft powered and therefore extremely expensive to acquire and operate
3. A helicopter or drone can lift one container at a time when a large ship can carry tens of thousands of containers and is thus extremely inefficient
4. In the diagram, the containers seem to magically teleport from the large ship into the smaller ferry
This is
obviously a terrible idea from an engineering/logistics/economics/physics point of view. Which shows how detached from reality these "strategists" that work for think tanks are. And is it any surprise the rationale for this absurd plan is to "counter China?"
