The rise of a great power: starting with military industry

Newport News Shipbuilding.

This is a century-old shipbuilding factory in the United States. It was founded in 1886 with funding from Collins Huntington and is located adjacent to the city of Newport News. After years of development, it has long become the largest private shipyard in the United States.

Newport News Shipyard is not only the largest shipyard in the United States, but also the only shipyard capable of designing, building, replacing nuclear fuel and overhauling nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

As a result, it is responsible for the construction of 100% of the US Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, is one of the two major nuclear submarine manufacturers in the United States, and is responsible for the construction of 50% of its destroyers.

It can be said that it is no exaggeration to call the Newport News Shipyard a national treasure of the United States.

Today, the United States held a groundbreaking ceremony for the "Ford" nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with great fanfare.

Barack personally attended the groundbreaking ceremony, and the Newport News Shipyard also invited George Walton to attend.

Newport News Shipbuilding regarded George Walton as its best friend, and during George Walton's two terms in office, Newport News Shipbuilding made considerable profits.

The U.S. Navy has given Newport News Shipyard orders to build four Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and ten nuclear-powered submarines. Even now, the company is still benefiting from the orders to build nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and nuclear-powered submarines.

It was also during George Walton's two terms that the Newport News Shipyard received an order to develop a new type of nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the 'Ford-class', and received an order to build as many as ten 'Ford-class' nuclear-powered aircraft carriers.

The Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is a new generation of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers in the United States, which is designed to replace the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. This class of aircraft carriers adopts many high-tech technologies, mainly including integrated electric propulsion and electromagnetic catapult technology, and is positioned as the center of the US Navy's maritime strike force in the 21st century.

After years of research and development, the design of the "Ford-class" nuclear-powered aircraft carrier has been completed, and now it is finally time to start construction.

Even using reconnaissance satellites, you can see the Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier being built in the shipyard.

Although Barack and George Walton both attended the groundbreaking ceremony, they were far apart from each other. It was obvious that their relationship was very ordinary and they were too lazy to even do superficial work.

The person in charge of the Newport News Shipyard stood between the two men, but was more inclined towards George Wharton, and the relationship between the two was obviously better.

There was no way around it. During George Wharton's tenure, Newport News Shipyard got too much.

Not to mention other things, the development cost of the "Ford-class" nuclear-powered aircraft carrier alone is as high as 60 billion US dollars.

The construction cost of the first "Ford-class" nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was as high as 135 billion US dollars, making it the most expensive ship in the history of the US Navy.

As early as George Walton's first term, Newport News Shipbuilding received as much as $735 billion, of which $675 billion was for the construction of five Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers and $5 billion was for research and development. Later, during George Walton's second term, he added an order for the construction of five Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, another $60 billion.

It is precisely because of the large orders given by George Wharton that the Newport News Shipyard has been doing very well in recent years. Even during the subprime mortgage crisis and the economic crisis, the Newport News Shipyard was not affected at all.

After all, they got all the money they deserved. In fact, because of the inflation caused by the subprime mortgage crisis and the economic crisis, Newport News Shipbuilding applied to the US government for a bailout of up to $300 billion.

This $300 billion bailout was passed with the help of George Walton.

This time, Newport News Shipbuilding applied for another $250 billion in bailout funds. It was also with the help of George Walton that it was included in Barack's $8700 billion bailout plan, and Barack had to accept it in order to pass the plan.

Naturally, Newport News Shipyard became closer to George Wharton.

Many media reporters attended the groundbreaking ceremony, even authoritative media from other countries.

Fox Broadcasting Company also broadcast the event live across the United States, so you can imagine how grand the groundbreaking ceremony was.

Barack delivered a speech in which he highly praised the Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier as an aircraft carrier with very advanced performance and the most advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier in the world. The Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier is also the most powerful combat platform of the US Navy in the future. With the Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the US Navy will dominate the oceans in the 21st century.

Since the beginning of the Age of Discovery, the world has officially entered the Ocean Age.

Whoever dominates the ocean dominates the world!

Some people say that the West dominated the world for 500 years. The basis for this statement is that the West started the Age of Discovery.

As a maritime power, the United States attaches great importance to sea power.

All over the world, there are theories of land power and sea power, and therefore countries in the world are divided into two types: land power countries and sea power countries.

What is the Land Power Theory?
To put it simply, it is a theory of power or hegemony that controls the entire world through land.

This theory was proposed by the British Mackinder, who believed that with the development of land transportation, the "heartland" of Eurasia became the most important strategic region. Mackinder published "Britain and the British Sea" in 1902, which is recognized as a milestone work in British geographical literature.

Two years later, he gave a speech entitled "The Geographical Pivot of History" at the Royal Geographical Society of the United Kingdom. In this speech, Mackinder did two main things: First, he proposed the land-centered theory, that is, the heart-land theory. While he called Eurasia and Africa the "world island", he called the most remote places in the world the "hinterland".

The matter of the 'hinterland' can be ignored. The 'world island' and its 'heart' are such a concept: the central region from Eastern Europe to Central Siberia is the heartland, and its periphery is divided into two crescent-shaped zones according to the distance: the inner crescent, including Germany, Austria, Turkey, India and China; the outer crescent, referring to the continents and islands outside the Eurasian continent, including Britain, South Africa, Australia, the United States, Canada and Japan. Mackinder's central argument is that the heartland is the hub of world politics, rich in human and material resources, far from the ocean, almost isolated from the world, and the forces of maritime powers cannot enter, making it the world's largest natural fortress.

Therefore, Mackinder believed that Eastern Europe was the gateway to the heart of the "world island", or that Eastern Europe was the heart of the "world island". Whoever ruled Eastern Europe could control the heartland. Later, he further proposed that whoever ruled the heartland could control the world island; whoever ruled the world island could control the world.

These are also Mackinder's three famous quotes on land power theory.

These three famous sayings are also very familiar to many people. (End of this chapter)