From Korea to Vietnam

Abstract

This article provides a prehistory of the “container revolution” that occurred during the Vietnam War. It situates containerization in Vietnam within the broader history of US military-led capitalist globalization, demonstrating how US military contracting influenced the development of labor relations and business practices around the globe. Starting in Korea, US military leaders implemented a range of policies to promote cost savings and efficiencies in the construction and operation of its supply chains. Of most consequence was its promotion of racialized labor practices and privatization. These distinct but interrelated processes spoke to the US military’s complicity in the exploitation of workers in the pursuit of cost savings. Further, they ultimately led to the US military’s embrace of containerization. Though the negative impact for workers was abundantly clear even at the time of Vietnam, the US military rigorously promoted the technology and helped make the “box” the standard in the shipping industry.

State Capitalism and Spanish port development along the Maritime Silk Road

“…In the critical geography literature on maritime transportation and logistics, the state has been conceived competing to secure the circulation of goods and the openness of strategic trade routes (Cowen, 2014;Khalili, 2020;Campling and Colás, 2021). For example, containerization and the Vietnam War went hand in hand reveals the leading role of the US in establishing the contours of the global trading system (Attewell, 2021;Chung, 2019). In jockeying for hegemony, and through the ties between shipping and logistics and war and politics, states play a central role in underpinning the global flow of commodities through different means, including SOEs that carry the goods, large contracts and subsidies provided to national carriers, and the securitization of international spaces for the benefit of states' trade and geopolitical interests (Lin, 2019).…”

Who Rules the Waves in the 21st Century? The International Political Economy of Global Shipping

“…In the critical geography literature on maritime transportation and logistics, the state has been conceived competing to secure the circulation of goods and the openness of strategic trade routes . For example, containerization and the Vietnam War went hand in hand reveals the leading role of the US in establishing the contours of the global trading system (Chung, 2019;Attewell 2021). In jockeying for hegemony, and through the ties between shipping and logistics and war and politics, states play a central role in underpinning the global flow of commodities through different means, including SOEs that carry the goods, large contracts and subsidies provided to national carriers, and the securitization of international spaces for the benefit of states' trade and geopolitical interests .…”