Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Consider the drone: Although it is critical to national defense and prosperity, nearly all its components are made in China.
A country’s economic security—its ability to generate both national security and economic prosperity—is grounded in it having significant technological capabilities that outpace those of its adversaries and complement those of its allies. Though this is a principle well known throughout history, the move over the last few decades toward globalization and offshoring of technologically advanced industrial capacity has made ensuring a nation state's security and economic prosperity increasingly problematic. A broad span of technologies ranging from automation and secure communications to energy storage and vaccine design are the basis for wider economic prosperity—and high priorities for governments seeking to maintain national security. However, the necessary capabilities do not spring up overnight. They rely upon long decades of development, years of accumulated knowledge, and robust supply chains.
For the US and, especially, its allies in NATO, a particular problem has emerged: a “missing middle” in technology investment. Insufficient capital is allocated toward the maturation of breakthroughs in critical technologies to ensure that they can be deployed at scale. Investment is allocated either toward the rapid deployment of existing technologies or to scientific ideas that are decades away from delivering practical capability or significant economic impact (for example, quantum computers). But investment in scaling manufacturing technologies, learning while doing, and maturing of emerging technologies to contribute to a next-generation industrial base, is too often absent. Without this middle-ground commitment, the United States and its partners lack the production know-how that will be crucial for tomorrow’s batteries, the next generation of advanced computing, alternative solar photovoltaic cells, and active pharmaceutical ingredients.
While this once mattered only for economic prosperity, it is now a concern for national security too—especially given that China has built strong supply chains and other domestic capabilities that confer both economic security and significant geopolitical leverage.
Consider drone technology. Military doctrine has shifted toward battlefield technology that relies upon armies of small, relatively cheap products enabled by sophisticated software—from drones above the battlefield to autonomous boats to CubeSats in space.
Drones have played a central role in the war in Ukraine. First-person viewer (FPV) drones—those controlled by a pilot on the ground via a video stream—are often strapped with explosives to act as precision kamikaze munitions and have been essential to Ukraine’s frontline defenses. While many foundational technologies for FPV drones were pioneered in the West, China now dominates the manufacturing of drone components and systems, which ultimately enables the country to have a significant influence on the outcome of the war.
[...] China’s manufacturing dominance has resulted in a domestic workforce with the experience to achieve process innovations and product improvements that have no equal in the West. And it has come with the sophisticated supply chains that support a wide range of today’s technological capabilities and serve as the foundations for the next generation. None of that was inevitable. For example, most drone electronics are integrated on printed circuit boards (PCBs), a technology that was developed in the UK and US.However, first-mover advantage was not converted into long-term economic or national security outcomes, and both countries have lost the PCB supply chain to China.
[...] China’s dominance in LiPo batteries for drones reflects its overall dominance in Li-ion manufacturing. China controls approximately 75% of global lithium-ion capacity—the anode, cathode, electrolyte, and separator subcomponents as well as the assembly into a single unit. It dominates the manufacture of each of these subcomponents, producing over 85% of anodes and over 70% of cathodes, electrolytes, and separators. China also controls the extraction and refinement of minerals needed to make these subcomponents.
[...] While the absence of the high-tech industrial capacity needed for economic security is easy to label, it is not simple to address. Doing so requires several interrelated elements, among them designing and incentivizing appropriate capital investments, creating and matching demand for a talented technology workforce, building robust industrial infrastructure, ensuring visibility into supply chains, and providing favorable financial and regulatory environments for on- and friend-shoring of production. This is a project that cannot be done by the public or the private sector alone. Nor is the US likely to accomplish it absent carefully crafted shared partnerships with allies and partners across both the Atlantic and the Pacific.
The opportunity to support today’s drones may have passed, but we do have the chance to build a strong industrial base to support tomorrow’s most critical technologies—not simply the eye-catching finished assemblies of autonomous vehicles, satellites, or robots but also their essential components. This will require attention to our manufacturing capabilities, our supply chains, and the materials that are the essential inputs. Alongside a shift in emphasis to our own domestic industrial base must come a willingness to plan and partner more effectively with allies and partners.
If we do so, we will transform decades of US and allied support for foundational science and technology into tomorrow’s industrial base vital for economic prosperity and national security. But to truly take advantage of this opportunity, we need to value and support our shared, long-term economic security. And this means rewarding patient investment in projects that take a decade or more, incentivizing high-capital industrial activity, and maintaining a determined focus on education and workforce development—all within a flexible regulatory framework.
Everyone thinks they know but no one can agree. And that’s a problem.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 04 2024, @12:10PM (35 children)
Don't wage war everywhere and you may find military drones less necessary.
(Score: 3, Informative) by khallow on Sunday August 04 2024, @12:57PM (12 children)
(Score: 5, Touché) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 04 2024, @01:05PM (11 children)
The US doesn't use drones to defend itself. It uses them to perform illegal decapitation strikes in other countries and kill innocent civilians in the process [wikipedia.org] - and create the future generations of jihadis with a deep hatred of the US at the same time.
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday August 04 2024, @01:48PM (10 children)
The US and other countries use drones for lots of defensive purposes. Surveillance of the seas, assisting with search and rescue, intelligence collection, disaster management etc. None of which are considered offensive but defensive.
Do you consider the protection of Americans offensive?
https://dod.defense.gov/UAS/ [defense.gov]
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 04 2024, @02:28PM (9 children)
I consider the level of protection Americans require a direct consequence of the hegemonistic behavior of their country and the bad will it's been spreading around the world for almost the entirety of its history [warhistoryonline.com], save for WW2. And it's fair to say that even the US' involvement in WW2 was as much a great business opportunity as it was an disinterested effort to uproot fascism.
Americans should demand that their country slowly return to a pre-WW1 level of isolationism at the very least. Then maybe, just maybe, after a couple generations of angry US victims have passed around the world, America and Americans will stand a chance to be perceived as something other than an unprincipled people who stop at nothing to forcibly take what others have.
(Score: 3, Touché) by janrinok on Sunday August 04 2024, @02:43PM (1 child)
I didn't argue against any of that. Thank you. It is not my country, not my decision to make.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 04 2024, @02:53PM
It's not mine either anymore, thank goodness. Not my decision to make either.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 04 2024, @06:12PM (3 children)
Keep in mind that the last half century has seen the greatest improvement in the human condition ever. And a large part of the reason that happened is the global trade hegemony. To maintain that, you need a lot of protection.
Are you perhaps harkening to the US's gilded age? That alleged isolationism led to the term of art, "banana republic". The US has done plenty wrong over the centuries. But perception of wrong is a very different thing. The global community is very notorious for screwed up perception.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2024, @02:09AM (2 children)
Is that an argument for China to increase their military spending?
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2022/04/01/lifting-800-million-people-out-of-poverty-new-report-looks-at-lessons-from-china-s-experience [worldbank.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 05 2024, @02:30AM (1 child)
Depends on whether they help it or break it. My take is that China should have a goal of making a developed world economy with democracy. That's state of art.
Abandoning economic isolationism and Communism did a lot for them. That's what global trade does for everyone. Some like China take better advantage of it than others.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday August 05 2024, @07:12AM
From what I see China doesn't care that much about democracy[1], but they do trade with other countries a lot more than war[2]. Whether they will continue to be somewhat peaceful who knows but their track record is better than the US or Russia. "Past Performance is Not Indicative of Future Results", YMMV.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-14/summers-warns-us-getting-lonely-as-other-powers-band-together [bloomberg.com]
[1] They do have elections but they have One Blessed Party instead of Two (yes China has more than one political party just like the US has more than two political parties).
[2] There's some ramming of boats and water spraying in the South China Sea though, with some injuries and deaths... Also some fighting at the India-China border...
[3] There are strings attached: https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/chinese-entebbe-loan-deal-is-binding-3739346 [theeastafrican.co.ke]
But unlike the IMF etc China doesn't tell the leaders how to run their country (other than they have to pay China). In contrast when you get a loan from the IMF or World Bank or the "West" there are often more conditions and requirements attached.
Sri Lanka did get quite a good deal even though they couldn't pay up - they got to keep the port. I'd be happy to borrow money from a Bank to buy a house if I got to keep the house even if I couldn't repay the Bank. Sure I'm forced to rent out the house to the Bank and share usage of the house with the Bank but hey whatever I might even buy two houses with such deals. .
https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-hambantota-port-deal-myths-and-realities/ [thediplomat.com]
Archived version: https://web.archive.org/web/20240621032704/https://thediplomat.com/2020/01/the-hambantota-port-deal-myths-and-realities/ [archive.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 04 2024, @10:18PM
>Americans should demand that their country slowly return to a pre-WW1 level of isolationism at the very least.
You know what pre-WW1 isolationism gets you?
WW1.
Nuclear weapons aren't the only thing preventing "all out" WWIII, it's mostly trade interdependence.
Even during "all out war" in Ukraine, they continue to export grain at 89% of their pre invasion level.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 04 2024, @10:26PM
>the US' involvement in WW2 was as much a great business opportunity as it was an disinterested effort to uproot fascism.
War, and defensive preparations, are some of the biggest business opportunities out there, since forever and continuing today.
US involvement in WWII wasn't a whim. Copper was diverted from many uses to munitions production, pennies were made of steel during the war. Big steel and aluminum users switched to wood where possible, like the woody wagons, and the Source Goose... Major civilian manufacturing operations switched to war products.
By comparison, the "Cold War" built a long term sustained military industrial complex alongside civilian endeavors.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Monday August 05 2024, @01:12AM
The effort to destroy fascism was not disinterested.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday August 04 2024, @01:02PM (21 children)
The thing is, you can't predict the future. You can't predict where bad guys will pop up next. You have to be prepared, unpleasant and costly as it is.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 04 2024, @01:14PM (4 children)
Why do you think so many people around the world want to attack the US, that requires the US to be prepared to defend itself so badly? Don't you think drone attacks have something to do with that?
It's a vicious circle. And so I stand by what I said: if the US minded its own business, didn't go to war with other countries and killed so many people to defend its crass business interests, it wouldn't have to defend itself and wouldn't need drones - either for defense or to attack others.
Switzerland doesn't need military drones.
Hell, even Finland, which has the same problem neighbor as the Ukraine and shares a 800 border with it only has a couple thousand tiny intelligence-gathering drones.
Why? Because Switzerland and Finland mind their own business and invest solely in their defense, and don't go bombing people in the middle east to control their oil supplies.
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday August 04 2024, @02:06PM (2 children)
From https://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?noupdate=1&sid=61701&page=1&cid=1366989#commentwrap [soylentnews.org]
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday August 04 2024, @02:17PM (1 child)
You do know the difference between a 10-lb battery-powered quadcopter with a camera and a MQ-9 Reaper with a quarter ton load of missiles and guided bombs, right?
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Sunday August 04 2024, @02:58PM
Finnish assets are now taking part in the routine surveillance of events in eastern Europe as part of the NATO effort.
I am not interested in knowing who people are or where they live. My interest starts and stops at our servers.
(Score: 2) by ChrisMaple on Monday August 05 2024, @01:26AM
It's been known for a long time that the Swiss are well armed and waging war against Switzerland would be ruinously expensive. Finland once defeated Russia.
Russia and China are militarily aggressive. All that's required for either of them to attack are their belief that they can win and an excuse that they can sell. The U.S. hasn't started a war to gain territory since 1846.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 04 2024, @03:30PM (15 children)
To some extent, a lot of us predicted the future. But we were mocked for insisting on "Buy American". Lemme think a moment. 1983, when the steel mills started moving out of the US, is when we started the alarm. We've been sounding the alarm ever since. OK, a couple steel mills moving to Europe or to India wasn't "the end of the world as we know it". But, we've seen 40 years of follow on outsourcing of most of American industry.
I could be content if the US had merely lost dominance in the world market. There's no reason that we should hoard all the wealth, other people deserve an equal break. But we've shipped damned near everything overseas! We are no longer independent, we are dependent on China, India, Korea, Japan, and more. Think about that first one, China. China doesn't like us very much, and we are DEPENDENT UPON China's goodwill.
Kissinger and all the rest who touted that 'service economy' were all traitorous bastards. Politicians especially like to blather on and on about their legacies. Well, I'm still waiting for those legacies to be defined by impartial observers. We've had an entire generation of idiot leaders undercutting Americans, bending us over a barrel and sticking it to us.
So, yeah, some predictions are just no-brainers.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by turgid on Sunday August 04 2024, @05:12PM (2 children)
Yes, we've been saying exactly the same thing in the UK. In the 70s we were still building our own ships. We made oil platforms for a while. We used to have a computer industry. Now what do we have?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 3, Informative) by jelizondo on Sunday August 04 2024, @09:09PM (1 child)
Well, you had Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Who gets the blame?
You people for voting for clowns and for BREXIT
(Score: 3, Funny) by ChrisMaple on Monday August 05 2024, @01:41AM
The European Union was a net drain on Great Britain and a continuing threat to the freedom of the British people. The E.U. did provide economies of scale and efficiencies of not having internal tariffs. Time will tell if the choice was good, bad, or of little net effect. I think it was the correct decision.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by khallow on Sunday August 04 2024, @05:25PM
OTOH, US brands are notorious for being poor quality - even the ones that were good [soylentnews.org].
Same thing happened to the big three US automakers. Chrysler became a channel stuffing parking lot and now is another foreign-owned brand. GM placidly loses market for 50 years. Ford seems moderately invested, but not enough to bother buying their gear.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 04 2024, @10:24PM (4 children)
Then stop voting for the people who funnel literal trillions of dollars to giant multinational corporations that have zero or even less loyalty to the US. You Republican voters have been useful idiots, emphasis on "idiots," for the corporate mega-rich for decades on decades.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 04 2024, @10:41PM
The big petrochemical facilities in Houston are mostly owned and operated by foreign companies.
It's depressingly similar to Union Carbide Bhopal.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 05 2024, @01:09AM (2 children)
I've posted my voting history on SN at least a couple times. Which of the people that I have voted for have funneled trillions of dollars to those giant multinational corporations?
If it weren't for that foul creature who should not be named, I might actually post an image of my voter registration. I am NOT a Republican. I've made it clear time and again that I find Republicans generally less obnoxious than Democrats, but I am Independent. Officially. Since 1974, I've been registered as an Independent. I participate in one, or the other, primary in my state, but not both. I examine the ballot, and decide for myself how I will vote. I vote 3rd party far more often than not. I readily vote for almost anyone listed as "Independent". When I must choose between an incumbent and a challenger, I almost always vote the challenger. There have been exceptions, but that is basically my voting profile. To be clear, I have never voted Trump, nor do I intend to vote Trump this time around. How about you? I strongly suspect that you vote for whichever candidate caters to whichever special interest group you support the most - meaning you probably consistently vote Democrat. Do you actually give any thought to each individual mark you make on a ballot, or do you just "vote blue"? I mean, there are no Democrats invested in the military industrial complex, are there? That's just an evil introduced by Republicans, and all Dems are innocent.
Go on, little girlie, lecture me some more about voting.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 07 2024, @12:01AM (1 child)
Would you listen or understand it though?
Just because you're an independent (and, surprise surprise, so am I!) doesn't absolve you of your past votes. A third-party vote, which is in effect "choosing not to choose," is still a choice. Besides which, *who* was that third party? I am going to guess it wasn't the Greens! It may interest you to know I've never voted a straight ticket before, either :) You badly underestimate me, time and time again, and you pay the price.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday August 07 2024, @10:16AM
Pay what price? And, what wasted vote? I've consistently vote against the two parties that fuel the military industrial complex. Absolution for my past votes? Get over yourself, I certainly never asked you for anything, and certainly not absolution. Voting for communists is better than voting for the uniparty. Voting for Nazis is often better than the uniparty. Helping ANYONE get a toehold in congress is better than the unibody. Note that the worst members of congress are Democrats, and the second worst are Republicans. If the Satanic baby eater's party were elected . . . . oh wait, I'm being silly. That is the Democrat party and their unabashed support of abortion. Gotta kill American babies, to make the immigrant invasion more palatable.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Sunday August 04 2024, @10:38PM
>Kissinger and all the rest who touted that 'service economy' were all traitorous bastards.
Kissinger was a bastard in many ways, but I honestly believe that 90% fewer American armed service personnel, and also 90% fewer foreign civilians, have died from 1980 to the present due to US led military action as would have had the global interdependence of the US service economy not been implemented. It was a strategic move that I believe has worked so far, and possibly prevented serious large scale conflicts, potentially including nuclear weapons.
Is there room for improvement? Hell yes. But overall US global influence is stronger when we aren't invading other countries, and our dependence on them does effectively prevent that. (Iraq was a competitor to US petroleum production, not a source of imports.)
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Sunday August 04 2024, @11:19PM (4 children)
A big part of the problem is the standard of living we in the US insist upon, and even more, the wasteful ways we use to live like we do. Some corruption too. For instance, in telecommunication and medicine. Costs more to live in the US, in many cases way, way more, than in the rest of the world. To support this, we have to pay workers a lot more. There's a lot of fat in the US lifestyle that could be cut before we reached the point of sacrifice. We have built all this suburban sprawl that forces much more and longer travel for which we turn to our too beloved cars. Our cars are wasteful, tending to be overly large and heavy, and why? Ego, for one thing. USians aren't exclusively practical about cars, and routinely buy bigger than they need, for display. I have heard that in the nation of Columbia, 2L is the boundary at and above which a car engine is considered big. In the US, a 2L engine is kinda shrimpy. Australians refer to big US cars as "Yank tanks". Europeans have noted that the American driver wants jackrabbit starts, and wants to drive all day long. This desire for jackrabbit starts is another factor that pushes up engine sizes.
Then there's the houses. Big, and very expensive to cool and heat. The house envy is just crazy. Keeping up with the Joneses. Whole lot of my fellow citizens just have to have the bigger house, and get so unhappy and jealous about an acquaintance who has a bigger house, they'll look for ways to cut that homeowner down to size, maybe criticizing the kids, or, for those homeowners so unfortunate as to not have any kids and even worse, not be married, slamming them for that. Marital probs, infidelity, and such like gossipy things are the dirt that these rivalrous citizens eat up.
Lots more problems than cars and houses. Unhealthy diets and junky fast food and the obesity epidemic, noise pollution, light pollution, consumerism, tremendous wealth inequality, this violence and gun loving subculture (how many more mass shootings is it going to take to convince enough people to reduce the firepower?), anti-intellectualism, denialism especially of Global Warming and vaccines, evangelism, sensationalist and propagandistic journalism, and demagoguery. Hope we can work things out without resorting to Civil War 2.0.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 05 2024, @01:18AM (2 children)
Not gonna argue any of that - but:
Highway driving almost requires a vehicle capable of jackrabbit starts. You come down the on-ramp, and traffic is flowing somewhere between 60 and 80 MPH, with few openings. You MUST accelerate firmly and decisively, or risk being run over. I've seen far too many accidents that were caused by timid drivers failing to merge into traffic properly. Don't get me wrong, overly aggressive drivers cause their share of accidents in the same situations. There's a right way, and many wrong ways to merge. And ,for what it's worth, Virginia drivers get it wrong most often. They like to treat a yield sign as a stop sign, to they come to a stop, then try to accelerate to highway speed from a standing stop when they are already 50 to 80% down the ramp.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Monday August 05 2024, @04:55AM (1 child)
Badly timed traffic lights and old highways with substandard engineering make jackrabbit starts more desirable. US 75 in Dallas was the first freeway in the nation, so I've heard, and being the first, there was no experience in how freeways should be designed. It suffered from on ramps that were too short. When traffic was light, it was no problem, but as Dallas grew in population, the traffic on 75 increased to the point you needed a pretty fast car to merge onto that safely. It's no longer a problem since they rebuilt the freeway some 20 years ago. Fix such issues, and jackrabbit starts won't much matter.
(Score: 1) by Runaway1956 on Monday August 05 2024, @12:45PM
Good point there. I wonder, have you visited Texarkana in recent years? It's been built up with a lot more service roads, or some may call them feeder roads. That abominable exit on State Line Avenue has been torn out and reworked. Believe me, it was a death trap! But, the new construction still requires decisive acceleration in some spots. If Grandma dawdles along, she can easily cause a wreck as she merges. The engineers are still working with a presumption of powerful cars, and assertive drivers.
Lemme back up a little bit. Texarkana Texas is growing and building out. Texarkana Arkansas has all the signs of a dying city. Downtown Texarkana would be dead, except for the Bistate Justice center, and the for-profit jail, and the corrections department offices. Texarkana Texas is growing by leaps and bounds, westward from the city center, while the Arkansas side just shrivels up, losing business to the Texas side of town. St. Michael hospital moved from the Arkansas side of downtown to the Texas side on the interstate about 25 years ago. Wadley is moving from the Texas side of downtown out to the Texas side interstate in the near future. The entire district on the opposite side of the interstate of St. Michael's is being converted into clinics and other medical offices. All the growth is on the Texas side, none that I can see on the Arkansas side.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday August 05 2024, @02:49AM
Unlike Runaway, I strongly disagree with the premise. Here's why. First, that standard of living solves the biggest problems of humanity like poverty and overpopulation. Second, the alleged problems of a high standard of living are grossly exaggerated, particularly the "wasteful ways". What's worse? Wasting the potential of 6-7 billion people in the world or consuming some energy and resources that the Earth readily has?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday August 04 2024, @03:37PM (1 child)
Without an economy, you have no national security. Stated differently, economics are a national security concern. And, conversely, national security is an economic concern. If one is apparently healthy, and the other unhealthy, you can bet everything you've got that the other is going into decline.
“I have become friends with many school shooters” - Tampon Tim Walz
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 04 2024, @05:43PM