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Comment by gnopgnip | Hacker News Reader

This is literally what the military is now. Under the berry amendment a lot of what the military buys needs to be 100% domestic. A significant fraction of military spending is to ensure that the logistics are in place in case of a greater need in the future, not just to fulfill current needs and training, or any specific mission.

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This is a great 99PI podcast about the US Army Natick center, which develops military rations.

https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/war-and-pizza/

Part of the mission is to develop the technology and then commercialize it. Now you have a number of factories that are capable of switching into ration production if the need arises.

Things like powdered cheese, condiment packets, and retort packaging came out of this research.

Off-topic, but my podcast list has been so enriched through reading HN comment. Thanks for the link.

Same reason there are rules about ships going between US ports been manufactured in the US - to keep strategic ship building capacity in the event of a war.

That well meaning law means there’s one cruise ship that fits the requirements, all the others visit one foreign port. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America

It looks like the cargo ship law, Jones Act, is more successful in creating capacity.

Even then, it took a special exemption from Congress since it was towed to and finished in Germany after the initial company filed bankruptcy.

> Norwegian Cruise Line Ltd acquired the unfinished ship and was towed to Germany for completion as Pride of America for their newly launched NCL America division. > A special exemption on the part of the U.S. government allowed the modified, mostly German-built ship to attain U.S. registry. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America

The Jones act is a complete failure. https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/jones-act-...

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