Service economies tend to grow out of and get strength from related industrial activities. They can go on for quite a while once those industrial activities are gone from a certain era, but after a while the countries and regions that took over those industrial activities grow to want in on a piece of the services action too.

I think one of the biggest mistakes the West made in thinking about globalization are the beliefs that: 1. You could completely decouple the service and industrial economies and it would gone on working forever. 2. In doing so, the developing countries that took over those industries would be happing eating the scrapes of Western nations and never have an ambition to enter into related service activities.

It's no coincidence that the country with the largest economy in Europe happens to have a vibrant manufacturing base. And in the U.S., while it plays a much smaller role and employs significantly fewer people than in the past, the manufacturing base is still quite large.

Did anyone in the west actually think that? I thought it was just I'll/we'll get rich outsourcing this to the east, and who cares about the impact long term or to others.

In the 1990's this was an extremely common view, at least in the U.S. Teachers, parents, politicians, and practically anyone else in a position of authority all routinely told us that sending all the manufacturing to the east was going to enable us all to become designers, lawyers, writers, etc. This was "The Future", and everyone in America was going to go to college and become a knowledge worker.

Any time someone would raise concerns about potential negative impacts, they would either be told that they were living in the past, or that the answer was education. This was a staple of the economic and domestic policy of both the Clinton and G.W. Bush administrations.

It seems laughable now, but man, at the time, most of us bought that crap hook, line and sinker.

And in a wartime era in a world that is de-globalizing, how does that strategy play out for a country?

How would going nuclear help compete against renewable-powered industry in much sunnier places than the UK?

Europe's industrial growth was based on fossil fuels. In a post fossil age, it's not a great place for industry.

Rolling blackouts.

Which is a big mistake. There is a reason why Germany is the export powerhouse it is.