America wants a stronger navy to face China. Can it build one?
Its shipyards are emerging from a long decline
WIND WHIPS the unfinished flight deck of the USS John F. Kennedy, scaffolding swaying as workers scramble to their stations. Derek Murphy, the ship’s construction manager at Newport News Shipyard, gazes proudly at the electromagnetic aircraft-catapult running along the ship’s length, one of 23 new technologies on board. “At launch, she’ll be the most powerful warship in the world,” he says.
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “All at sea”
United States December 4th 2021
- The buried boon to the wealthy in the Democrats’ tax plan
- Fixing the lead-pipe problem in Benton Harbor, and across America
- Are gunshot-detecting microphones worth the money?
- The Supreme Court seems ready to scrap the constitutional right to abortion
- America wants a stronger navy to face China. Can it build one?
- As Americans get back into their cars, road-rage shootings are spiking
- A racial-history lesson from the son of a slave
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