US must adopt the Finland model for producing warships

Last month, President Trump issued a memorandum on “Rebuilding the United States Navy and America’s Shipbuilding Industrial Base.” It called for the Navy to adopt what it terms the “Finland Model” for warship construction.

The memo states that “this Finland Model” is to be used to produce surface ships for anti-submarine warfare, “consolidated cargo replenishment” tankers, and “roll-on, roll-off vessels.”

The arrangement, whose official designation is the Icebreaker Collaboration Agreement or ICEPact, is a three way agreement among the U.S., Canada and Finland to modernize the American and Canadian icebreaker fleets. The deal will enable the Coast Guard to acquire four icebreakers from Finland, with seven more to be built in American shipyards. As a result, the Coast Guard will be able to replace its aging icebreaker fleet quickly.

Construction on the first of the Coast Guard Arctic Security Cutters began in June at the Sata Shipbuilding yard in Finland. Delivery of the icebreaker is on schedule and according to local observers in Helsinki, the program also is on budget.

Two months earlier, the Bollinger shipyard in Houma, La. welded together the first steel sheets of an Arctic Security Cutter design for an icebreaker being built in parallel with a second Finnish shipbuilder, Rauma Marine Constructions.

Trump’s memorandum incorporates several aspects of the Finland model. It requires that foreign shipbuilders building U.S. military craft establish a robust presence within the U.S., building shipyards and hiring U.S. workers even as they build ships abroad. They must also license........

© The Hill