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America still has an outstanding amount of industrial capacity. That's not patriotic bluster, because I'm saying that as a European. There's a two-horse race be

America still has an outstanding amount of industrial capacity. That's not patriotic bluster, because I'm saying that as a European. There's a two-horse race between China and America to be the global industrial powerhouse and nobody else is even remotely close. The scale, sophistication and adaptability of American manufacturing still boggles the mind. Whether you believe it or not, America is still the same country that furnished the allies with Sherman tanks and Liberty ships. America could start an Operation Warp Speed for 155mm shells and Stinger missiles, but there isn't yet the political will to do it. The DoD are still deeply entrenched in their leaden bureaucracy, they're still doing procurement in their usual way, their processes are still oriented around providing pork barrel jobs in key constituencies. America isn't at war, but if it wants to remain a global superpower in an increasingly volatile world, it needs to adopt a wartime mindset when it comes to industrial strategy. You have the steel mills, you have the forging presses, you have the CNC lathes, but you don't have the sense of urgency to actually use them. That doesn't require legislation or a fundamental restructuring of the economy, it just requires a bit of creative thinking about procurement. With the stroke of a pen, your president could set the wheels in motion to rapidly replenish your arsenal and resume your role as the armoury of the free world. For the sake of Ukraine, for the sake of Israel, for the sake of all of us, write to your representatives.

schneems 3y ago
> Operation Warp Speed I know you’re using this as as example. It has me curious though: I feel like this wasn’t a failure, but also could have been a lot more successful. This is just a gut feel, has there been any good quantitative retrospectives on operation warp speed?
- zdragnar 3y ago
  Aside from the effectiveness of the vaccine, and reluctance to take it, what would you like about it to have been more effective? What would normally have taken years took less than one- from research to production of hundreds of millions of units.
  - schneems 3y ago
    That’s why I’m asking for a retrospective. What went well? What could be better?
    - zdragnar 3y ago
      You said you felt it could have gone better. I just now noticed that you qualified that as a gut feeling. I'd assumed there was something specific that you felt wasn't done well. For my money's worth, I would have preferred that government officials were more honest- especially fauci. The whole escalation of what percentage was needed for herd immunity (they knew the initial numbers they talked about were too low), the threats that Grandma would die at Thanksgiving if you didn't get it (despite it not actually preventing spread) and the assertion that it was totally safe (despite causing myocarditis in young men, about 50% or more with permanent heart damage according to a new study). Yes, COVID was terrible, and people needed to take steps to avoid getting it. The dishonesty surrounding what those steps were (and what we did vs did not know) made making informed decisions impossible. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.064772 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.0...
- claytongulick 3y ago
  I'm trying to think what the missile equivalent of Operation Warp Speed would be? 100% effective missiles that no one wants to shoot, don't require thorough testing, launch in unpredictable directions, and when they detonate have surprise effects depending on the target? Sometimes they explode! Other times, maybe deliver a nice cup of tea, or a burst of roses.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
mike_d 3y ago
> America still has an outstanding amount of industrial capacity. Small arms ammunition manufacturing is controlled by a very small number of players that are incentivized to keep production capacity low. There is enough production to meet government demand, but law enforcement and civilian markets are seen as a pure profit center since ammo is an at-any-price purchase. Shortages fuel increased demand and higher prices, while production costs stay flat.
cbozeman 3y ago
It isn't a race. China's already lost and has no hope of winning. The reason you don't hear about it is because entirely too many people make entirely too much money pontificating over it. China has the oldest population in the world. The highest youth unemployment rate in the developed world. Millions more men than young women to marry them to. A leader that "disappears" anyone who tells him something he doesn't want to hear. They're done for and they've been done for, for some time. They have no chance to turn around their situation because the Chinese people are stridently - hilariously - racist and xenophobic. How could they not be? They're bombarded with propaganda nonstop from the CCP. Buying all the real estate in America they can, loading up on US Government bonds, and stealing all the IP in the world can't save them - because they don't have enough young people to keep it all going.
- miohtama 3y ago
  The US does not have supply chains to to dominate anymore. Even if China's authorianship is a massive issue for everyone except CCP, they have the manufacturing base. No one can compete. It's almost twice as United States where, as the article points out, capital is allocated to inefficient stock buybacks. Top 10 manufacturing countries in the world China – 28.4% Global United States – 16.6% Global Manufacturing Output Japan – 7.5% Global Manufacturing Output Germany – 5.8% Global Furthermore, the life expectancy in the US is nosediving. It has massive internal problems not only on the health of its people but political coherence, which needs to be fixed before the US can get back to the growth track.
- gustavus 3y ago
  > he highest youth unemployment rate in the developed world. Millions more men than young women to marry them to This is actually the most worrisome part for me. A bunch of young unemployed men who have no prospect of marriage and no real stake in society. That's the kind of thing that leads to some guy declaring himself Jesus's brother and starting a nasty civil war that kills 10 of millions, especially if it spills over into neighboring countries.
- feoren 3y ago
  > China has the oldest population in the world. Source for this? Monaco and Japan have the highest median age in the world, at 55.4 and 47.3 years, respectively; the United States is 62nd at 38.5 years, with China just below at 38.4. What do you mean when you say China has the oldest population in the world? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag...
Workaccount2 3y ago
A huge problem is enticing people to take on skilled work in manufacturing. If you like problem solving, yeah blue collar work can fill that void in spades...but so can sitting on a laptop in your living room spinning code and getting paid way more.
- nojvek 3y ago
  The thing with manufacturing, at-least in the US is that it is very capital intensive. Doves of undergrads applying to YC get funded for SaaS apps, but only a few startups building hardware. The money isn’t there from investment or returns.
yogthos 3y ago
What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that manufacturing accounts for only around 11% of the GDP in US https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-to-the-us-gdp-by-industry/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-... We can look at steel production volumes to get an idea of the size of the productive industry in US. According to official data, US produced 6.8 million metric tons of steel in June this year https://www.trade.gov/data-visualization/us-steel-executive-summary https://www.trade.gov/data-visualization/us-steel-executive-... This is comparable to Russia, which produced 5.8 million metric tons https://www.statista.com/statistics/1079878/russia-steel-production-volume/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1079878/russia-steel-pro... US might be the most industrialized western economy, but turns out it’s steel production is only slightly higher than in Russia. And it’s important to keep in mind that Russia has a much smaller population, so per capita production is actually higher than in US. Meanwhile, China where 90 million metric tons of steel is produced in a month https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-june-crude-steel-output-up-04-yy-stats-bureau-2023-07-17/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-june-crude-steel-... China’s productive industry is a whole order of magnitude larger than US. This shows just how absurd the notion that US is in some sort of meaningful competition with China. It's like an ant by comparison.
- gustavus 3y ago
  Yes but all the steel production in the world may not help when you're ports are blockaded and your country is no longer able to feed it's citizens. Remember Germany was close to the top of the world in manufacture and population in 1914, but that didn't do it a lick of good when it's citizens were starving in 1918.
  - yogthos 3y ago
    If you ever look at a map, you'll realize that China has plenty of trade routes through Eurasia. This is literally the whole idea behind the BRI initiative. China can ship goods to the majority of the world without relying on seaborne shipping. The routes also go through countries that are friendly to China and are increasingly hostile towards the US. However, it's also absolutely laughable to think that US could actually blockade China effectively. Every single war game that the Pentagon ran against China they lost decisively.

schneems 3y ago

> Operation Warp Speed I know you’re using this as as example. It has me curious though: I feel like this wasn’t a failure, but also could have been a lot more successful. This is just a gut feel, has there been any good quantitative retrospectives on operation warp speed?

zdragnar 3y ago
Aside from the effectiveness of the vaccine, and reluctance to take it, what would you like about it to have been more effective? What would normally have taken years took less than one- from research to production of hundreds of millions of units.
- schneems 3y ago
  That’s why I’m asking for a retrospective. What went well? What could be better?
  - zdragnar 3y ago
    You said you felt it could have gone better. I just now noticed that you qualified that as a gut feeling. I'd assumed there was something specific that you felt wasn't done well. For my money's worth, I would have preferred that government officials were more honest- especially fauci. The whole escalation of what percentage was needed for herd immunity (they knew the initial numbers they talked about were too low), the threats that Grandma would die at Thanksgiving if you didn't get it (despite it not actually preventing spread) and the assertion that it was totally safe (despite causing myocarditis in young men, about 50% or more with permanent heart damage according to a new study). Yes, COVID was terrible, and people needed to take steps to avoid getting it. The dishonesty surrounding what those steps were (and what we did vs did not know) made making informed decisions impossible. https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.064772 https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/CIRCULATIONAHA.123.0...
claytongulick 3y ago
I'm trying to think what the missile equivalent of Operation Warp Speed would be? 100% effective missiles that no one wants to shoot, don't require thorough testing, launch in unpredictable directions, and when they detonate have surprise effects depending on the target? Sometimes they explode! Other times, maybe deliver a nice cup of tea, or a burst of roses.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

mike_d 3y ago

> America still has an outstanding amount of industrial capacity. Small arms ammunition manufacturing is controlled by a very small number of players that are incentivized to keep production capacity low. There is enough production to meet government demand, but law enforcement and civilian markets are seen as a pure profit center since ammo is an at-any-price purchase. Shortages fuel increased demand and higher prices, while production costs stay flat.

cbozeman 3y ago

It isn't a race. China's already lost and has no hope of winning. The reason you don't hear about it is because entirely too many people make entirely too much money pontificating over it. China has the oldest population in the world. The highest youth unemployment rate in the developed world. Millions more men than young women to marry them to. A leader that "disappears" anyone who tells him something he doesn't want to hear. They're done for and they've been done for, for some time. They have no chance to turn around their situation because the Chinese people are stridently - hilariously - racist and xenophobic. How could they not be? They're bombarded with propaganda nonstop from the CCP. Buying all the real estate in America they can, loading up on US Government bonds, and stealing all the IP in the world can't save them - because they don't have enough young people to keep it all going.

miohtama 3y ago
The US does not have supply chains to to dominate anymore. Even if China's authorianship is a massive issue for everyone except CCP, they have the manufacturing base. No one can compete. It's almost twice as United States where, as the article points out, capital is allocated to inefficient stock buybacks. Top 10 manufacturing countries in the world China – 28.4% Global United States – 16.6% Global Manufacturing Output Japan – 7.5% Global Manufacturing Output Germany – 5.8% Global Furthermore, the life expectancy in the US is nosediving. It has massive internal problems not only on the health of its people but political coherence, which needs to be fixed before the US can get back to the growth track.
gustavus 3y ago
> he highest youth unemployment rate in the developed world. Millions more men than young women to marry them to This is actually the most worrisome part for me. A bunch of young unemployed men who have no prospect of marriage and no real stake in society. That's the kind of thing that leads to some guy declaring himself Jesus's brother and starting a nasty civil war that kills 10 of millions, especially if it spills over into neighboring countries.
feoren 3y ago
> China has the oldest population in the world. Source for this? Monaco and Japan have the highest median age in the world, at 55.4 and 47.3 years, respectively; the United States is 62nd at 38.5 years, with China just below at 38.4. What do you mean when you say China has the oldest population in the world? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_median_ag...

Workaccount2 3y ago

A huge problem is enticing people to take on skilled work in manufacturing. If you like problem solving, yeah blue collar work can fill that void in spades...but so can sitting on a laptop in your living room spinning code and getting paid way more.

nojvek 3y ago
The thing with manufacturing, at-least in the US is that it is very capital intensive. Doves of undergrads applying to YC get funded for SaaS apps, but only a few startups building hardware. The money isn’t there from investment or returns.

yogthos 3y ago

What a lot of people don't seem to realize is that manufacturing accounts for only around 11% of the GDP in US https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-to-the-us-gdp-by-industry/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/248004/percentage-added-... We can look at steel production volumes to get an idea of the size of the productive industry in US. According to official data, US produced 6.8 million metric tons of steel in June this year https://www.trade.gov/data-visualization/us-steel-executive-summary https://www.trade.gov/data-visualization/us-steel-executive-... This is comparable to Russia, which produced 5.8 million metric tons https://www.statista.com/statistics/1079878/russia-steel-production-volume/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1079878/russia-steel-pro... US might be the most industrialized western economy, but turns out it’s steel production is only slightly higher than in Russia. And it’s important to keep in mind that Russia has a much smaller population, so per capita production is actually higher than in US. Meanwhile, China where 90 million metric tons of steel is produced in a month https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-june-crude-steel-output-up-04-yy-stats-bureau-2023-07-17/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/china-june-crude-steel-... China’s productive industry is a whole order of magnitude larger than US. This shows just how absurd the notion that US is in some sort of meaningful competition with China. It's like an ant by comparison.

gustavus 3y ago
Yes but all the steel production in the world may not help when you're ports are blockaded and your country is no longer able to feed it's citizens. Remember Germany was close to the top of the world in manufacture and population in 1914, but that didn't do it a lick of good when it's citizens were starving in 1918.
- yogthos 3y ago
  If you ever look at a map, you'll realize that China has plenty of trade routes through Eurasia. This is literally the whole idea behind the BRI initiative. China can ship goods to the majority of the world without relying on seaborne shipping. The routes also go through countries that are friendly to China and are increasingly hostile towards the US. However, it's also absolutely laughable to think that US could actually blockade China effectively. Every single war game that the Pentagon ran against China they lost decisively.