Yes, IMO why DoD wanks about replicator and drone hellscape, when PRC doing the same thing. Everyone is trying to sink each others entire surface fleet... but those with industrial base (even if degraded) can reconstitute faster, i.e. PRC navy is "only" 3m GTs... about 1 month of current production, 2 months for all of USN @4.5m GT (yes 9 women can't make a baby in 1 month), but just to give scale of how "small" modern navies, including USN, are relative to modern shipbuilding.
I also doubt US built ships will ever be globally commercially competitive vs east asian builders (or whoever comes next), but the point is modern ship building has gotten efficient, and it's feasible for US to reshore enough ship building for domestic needs. I think for American's sake, it's illustrative to stop nostalgical pine for US WW2 ship building prowess, because it's really meagre compared to modern ship building scale.
Also be aware that if US WW2 shipping buildig dial was set to 10, PRC set the dial to not just 11, but 50. The consolation is it's very feasible for US to move dial from current 2 back to 10, perhaps even 20. And for US strategic interests (and ego) that's probably enough.
Hence "even if degraded" / "reconstitute faster"... relative post war reconstituting shipbuilding including infra is downstream of capable workforce. During war surface industry can't be protected (likely including CONUS). Post war, shipyards / industrial supply chains can be rebuild faster than it takes to train the workforce to man them. Shipyards also inherently fortified structures, the labour intensive part - earthworks, concrete - are hard to crack, at scale. Jiangnan (launched more GTs than whole of US post WW2 production), is like ~5x the size of all WW2 JP shipyards combined, it's not something US can substantively blowup. PRC a whole different scale of adversary vs what US historically calibrated to fight conventionally. VS relatively weaker USSR, US plan was basically to nuke their industry, nuke the fulda gap - conventional forces not scaled to cripple peer powers in their backyard. Regardless domestic shipbuilding isn't about ongoing sustaining war efforts anymore, it's about recovering from one, especially for maritime powers who knows their entire surface fleet could be wiped.
I also doubt US built ships will ever be globally commercially competitive vs east asian builders (or whoever comes next), but the point is modern ship building has gotten efficient, and it's feasible for US to reshore enough ship building for domestic needs. I think for American's sake, it's illustrative to stop nostalgical pine for US WW2 ship building prowess, because it's really meagre compared to modern ship building scale.
Also be aware that if US WW2 shipping buildig dial was set to 10, PRC set the dial to not just 11, but 50. The consolation is it's very feasible for US to move dial from current 2 back to 10, perhaps even 20. And for US strategic interests (and ego) that's probably enough.