Goodbye, Production (and Maybe Innovation)

AMERICAN manufacturers no longer make subway cars. They are imported now, and the skills required to make them are disappearing in the United States. Similarly, imports are an ever-bigger source of refrigerators, household furnishings, auto and aircraft parts, machine tools and a host of everyday consumer products much in demand in America, but increasingly not made here.

the experts shifted the emphasis from production to design and innovation. Let others produce what Americans think up.

But over the long run, can invention and design be separated from production? That question is rarely asked today. The debate instead centers on the loss of well-paying factory jobs and on the swelling trade deficit in manufactured goods. When the linkage does come up, the answer is surprisingly affirmative: Yes, invention and production are intertwined.

"Most innovation does not come from some disembodied laboratory," said Stephen S. Cohen, co-director of the Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy at the University of California, Berkeley. "In order to innovate in what you make, you have to be pretty good at making it — and we are losing that ability."

Franklin J. Vargo, the association’s vice president for international economic affairs, sounds even more concerned than Mr. Cohen. "If manufacturing production declines in the United States," he said, "at some point we will go below critical mass and then the center of innovation will shift outside the country and that will really begin a decline in our living standards."

"It is hard to imagine," Mr. Tonelson said, "how an international economy can remain successful if it jettisons its most technologically advanced components."

[That's how long the war will last.] {Wow. That is way, way, too long.} [Did you have a point?] Yes. A long, drawn-out-war-of attrition...

The original comment was about the time it took for an ICBM to get here. How does that relate to a war-of-attrition? Stay on the subject.

Actually, your remarks are empically invalid

You mean "empirical"?

Definition: 1. 1. Relying on or derived from observation or experiment: empirical results that supported the hypothesis. 2. Verifiable or provable by means of observation or experiment: empirical laws. 2. Guided by practical experience and not theory, especially in medicine.

We were talking about total war against a major nation state, not car bombing. The original subject was keeping heavy manufacturing for war preparation within the US, remember? How does a number of car bombs make it necessary to do that? We could purchase weapons to fight such an enemy anywhere in the world, and that enemy could not prevent it, thus such a war does not justify trade protectionism to retain that heavy industry.

Those car-bombs are being freshly manufactured right under our noses, evidently...

Demonstrating that car bombers don't require trade protected industrial production. We don't either.

The original comment was about the time it took for an ICBM to get here. How does that relate to a war-of-attrition? Stay on the subject.

I was on subject. Your thesis that we would ever actually use nuclear weapons again with the PC lobby ruling the roost...was denied.

Anyways, we are not alone in having ICBMs, you know. China has a secret mutual defense pact with Russia. They also have their most advanced missile designs...and stole our solid-rocket fuel technology. Hence their DF-31, and the new SLBMs with very advanced range, and payload capability.

How does a number of car bombs make it necessary to do that? We could purchase weapons to fight such an enemy anywhere in the world, and that enemy could not prevent it, thus such a war does not justify trade protectionism to retain that heavy industry.

You don't know any of those points. And empirically, they are dubious. We learned throughout our history, from the War for Independence forward...how critical it was to have industrial autonomy. Ready domestic supplies for what we need. Preached over and over again by George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and eventually...even the agricultural idealist Thomas Jefferson got the message...after his disastrous War of 1812.

And as GWB should have learned when the Swiss withheld componentry at the last minute from our cruise missiles in the Iraq invasion. And other elements for British hand grenades.

And the Swiss are likely the least of our worries...as we are now outsourcing key stuff to China.

{Those car-bombs are being freshly manufactured right under our noses, evidently...} [Demonstrating that car bombers don't require trade protected industrial production. We don't either.] So you want to wind up like Iraq?

You have trouble staying with the discussion. This was about trade protectionism, remember. Iraq didn't get the way it was because of trade protectionism or a lack thereof.

WWII style military production is not required to deal with car bombers, and it is not required to deal with nation states (because of my earlier point that modern warfare of that type is too rapid to ramp up production).

You have not provided any argument contrary to my points. Smart remarks about me "wanting to wind up like Iraq" are not an argument in favor of trade restrictions.

WWII style military production is not required to deal with car bombers

Yes, it is, because of the lack of an adequate technological base to keep ahead of the "engineers" amongst the Iranian/Syrian-backed remote-detonation device-builders. That has been the conclusion of more than one commentator proficient in electronics.

... and it is not required to deal with nation states (because of my earlier point that modern warfare of that type is too rapid to ramp up production).

This point was especially egregious, and was replied to directly. I would say conclusively. Iraq and Afghanistan were wars against nation states. They required massive buildups and replacements of arsenals before the actions could commence. Clinton had drained away most of our cruise missiles and a lot of our JDAMS. Which unfortunately needed components which had been allowed to be outsourced, although formerly invented and produced here. The Swiss example destroyed your claims. The continued erosions we are witnessing make this even more forceful as a future issue.

And I would add that you fail to acknowledge the elements of politics short of war in having capacity. I.e., if you have a reasonable capacity, that will also add to the deterrence factor. Because the enemy will know we actually can respond to an arms race with a prompt "ramp-up"...which if the industrial infrastructure is lost due to neglect such as you advocate it will not be reconstitutable in any reasonable way. The Defense industry is now alleging it would take ten years to reconstitute the U.S. machine tool industry to even get back to 65% of U.S. content. You are on a slippery slope and falling fast...approaching supersonic as you are about to plow into the ground on this one.

Your failure to reply to the substance, except to be annoyed by the occasional smart remarks, is not persuasive. Real deterrence requires capacity in depth, across the board, and without smug over-confidence, and narrow reliance on a slim technical advantages which are thinly-deployed can be easily countered by being either politically-checkmated or asymmetrically neutralized, or overwhelmed the old-fashioned way: Surprise and numbers.

Not a single real defense expert believes in your notion that the retention of a real U.S. "hot assembly" capability is irrelevant in warfare. The Mideast wars in Afghanistan and Iraq proved not to be a "knockout" but merely a "first round", and a major reason they have dragged on is because of the permitted survival of the other terror-sponsor states such as Iran and Syria being allowed to wage a proxy war against the U.S. Draining us of treasure, manpower, and existing military capital which is being seriously eroded in harsh conditions.

Meanwhile the US military is being retooled for guerilla warfare..short-shrifting its ability to handle a major conventional attack (just as was South Vietnam's ARVN who were then overwhelmed by North Vietnam's direct tank invasion) while the Chinese and Russians are gearing up for Great Power War. The Reds are coming. It's easily seen. The Pentagon analysts have more or less said so, but are politically muzzled. But you think outsourcing to China is just dandy.

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