Navy Faces Critical Shortage of Merchant Marines, Threatening National Security

Duh, ya think? One of my favorite contracts was writing a computer program to record maintenance logs, vibration tests, and spare parts inventory with automatic reordering of parts via Marisat. It was then that I learned of the multiple agencies that merchant ships had to appease - Coast Guard, American Bureau of Ships, Insurance Companies, etc. Without that system, ships' engineers had to break down equipment for inspection on demand. This cost them tens of thousands of dollars in parts and labor and more in delays. However, flying foreign flags, they could greatly cut costs. Today, there a few hundred merchant ships under U.S. flags, not nearly enough to supply a major army in any field of battle on a foreign shore. How simple would it have been to require foreign manufacturers to ship their products to America on U.S. flagged ships? Is there any doubt that they would have complied to have access to the richest consumer market in the world?