11 ms·

>However, it's arguably a better export that commoditized goods, from a margin standpoint. Importantly, this is the same dynamic that causes economies to move

• palmotea 1y ago
  No. The US will win the next world war by replying on its advanced capabilities in restaurant work and business consulting.
  • kevin_thibedeau 1y ago
    The US will withhold their advertisements until they capitulate.
  • ijk 1y ago
    You joke, but wars are won on logistics. Famously, the US military can deploy a Burger King anywhere on Earth within 24 hours.
    • palmotea 1y ago
      > You joke, but wars are won on logistics. Famously, the US military can deploy a Burger King anywhere on Earth within 24 hours. But not only on logistics. If the "US military can deploy a Burger King anywhere on Earth within 24 hours," but little else, it's fucked. Right now its production base is so addled and weakened that it can't even sustain the wartime production really needed by Ukraine without cleaning out the cupboards. It has only enough missiles to last days in a high intensity conflict, and the lead time for more is years. It definitely can't win in a sustained conflict against China (who has 40-effing% of world manufacturing capacity.
      • goatlover 1y ago
        A sustained conflict with a nuclear power is a no go. The risk of nuclear escalation is too great.
        • palmotea 1y ago
          > A sustained conflict with a nuclear power is a no go. The risk of nuclear escalation is too great. That was the rationale for letting the US military get into this state, but the conflict in Ukraine proved it to be unwise and founded on false assumptions.
          • ikiris 1y ago
            When did the us join that conflict and when did it run out of tanks?
          • sorcerer-mar 1y ago
            Huh? Ukraine isn't a nuclear state.
            • bumby 1y ago
              “With a nuclear power” != “between two nuclear powers”
      • ijk 1y ago
        Which was part of the rationale for supporting Ukraine: the best way to build up a manufacturing base is if you have customers, and so supplying munitions to Ukraine was a win/win/win from the military's point of view: Ukraine gets ammo, the US gets to ramp up domestic military production with, effectively, someone else paying the bill. (Granted, some of that was US funds, so the 'someone else' was often another part of the US government, but the point stands in terms of manufacturing capacity.) While there are shortages in some areas, I'm not aware of any reports of across-the-board procurement issues. In 2023 there was a shortage of 155mm artillery shells (at a production rate of ~8000/month), but no shortage of small arms ammo, APCs, or tactical vehicles [1]. By February 2025 the US was "manufacturing 30,000 155mm rounds per month" and "the Army is now “on a path” to producing 70,000 to 80,000 rounds per month by the end of 2024 or early 2025" [2]. That might not be enough to sustain a conflict with China if it started today, but it does demonstrate that the US is perfectly capable of scaling up domestic arms manufacturing if they choose to invest in it. [1] https://www.csis.org/analysis/rebuilding-us-inventories-six-critical-systems https://www.csis.org/analysis/rebuilding-us-inventories-six-... [2] https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/9/11/arms-manufacturers-catching-up-with-worlds-insatiable-need-for-155mm-rounds https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2024/9/11/a...
    • tialaramex 1y ago
      No, in order to win a war, it must have a clear objective which can be successful. The US is terrible at this because the objectives of war by a democratic country will be set by politicians, who've never seen an objective which couldn't be made vaguer. Operation Iraqi Freedom had so many sub-objectives key military leadership didn't even agree what the goals all were - and even then some of those goals are nonsense, predicated upon false narratives spread by politicians who wanted a war and needed some sort of justification. Remember the Weapons of Mass Destruction your army was sent to find? Never existed. Terrorists they were sent to eliminate? More were created than had existed previously. Battles may be won on logistics but you can't win a war without a clear and achievable objective. Corporate had a clear objective. Overlord had a clear objective. Take Desert Shield, to give an example of a US-led operation with clear objectives. If you turn up and the Iraqis all say "Fuck this, I'm off home" freeing Kuwait that's success. If you kill half the Iraqi population but they're still occupying Kuwait when your funding runs out that's failure. That's what you need if you want to win a war, clear objectives.
      • bumby 1y ago
        >key military leadership didn't even agree what the goals all were This seems to imply vague leadership is a very human issue, and not necessarily relegated to just politicians.
      • philistine 1y ago
        Under your premise that you must have a clear objective to the exclusion of other things, Russia would have handily won its war against Ukraine years ago. Their objectives are very clear.
        • tialaramex 1y ago
          It's a necessary but not sufficient criterion.
          • philistine 1y ago
            > No, in order to win a war, it must have a clear objective which can be successful. You said no.
    • aeternum 1y ago
      The US military used to be good at logistics. Is it still?
• pirate787 1y ago
  The US is manufacturing more than ever and is the second largest manufacturer in the world after China. The US middle class has actually "eroded" upwards -- our wealthiest population cohort has tripled in the last thirty years.
  • bumby 1y ago
    Counterpoint: We aren’t necessarily manufacturing the things that contribute to national security in the same way we were after WW2. The DoD has listed lost manufacturing capacity as a major risk. And I think you’ll need to elaborate more on your point about the middle class. Depending on how you measure it, people can move from middle class into upper class, but also into lower classes. Your post acts as if class mobility is only in one direction. A bifurcated distribution supports the point that the middle class is eroding.
  • jerkstate 1y ago
    That’s what the data shows until you peel back the covers and understand that nothing at all could be manufactured here at all without enormous imports of not just raw materials but partially completed goods. US manufacturing output looks large economically because it’s mostly final assembly of imported partially completed goods, but if you looked at the value added (manufacturing output minus imports) it would be much smaller than other countries like China which own entire supply chains.
    • sorcerer-mar 1y ago
      Outside of a few strategic industries or products, why is this bad?
      • aeternum 1y ago
        Because we can't actually make the strategic products. You might have a factory to assemble the highly strategic fighter jet in the US but it is problematic if you are dependent on foreign countries to source or manufacture the multitude of parts.
• hypeatei 1y ago
  > weakened national security manufacturing capacity, What products specifically would be a national security concern? The CHIPS act was passed to revitalize semiconductor manufacturing because we rely heavily on Taiwan. From my understanding, we already have a lot of domestic manufacturers for various parts, who are too expensive for the average American but are the main suppliers to the DoD.
  • bumby 1y ago
    As mentioned in another post, the DoD lists lack of manufacturing capabilities as a growing risk. There are many small batch parts that the US could manufacture, but companies aren’t interested. There are also those items which they no longer have the capacity to make, or deliver. Ted Koppel’s book Lights Out gives examples of long lead time items that can’t be made in the US and we also lack the ability to deliver them because the necessary infrastructure is no longer there