> It is plain why US manufacturing isn't the global top dog.

i do believe the US still does high-end (but low volume) manufacturing. It's just mass manufacturing that went away.

> The real question is whether it is a bad outcome or not.

It's definitely bad. The U.S. won't even have the world's biggest navy pretty soon because of that. And there are tons of scenarios where the U.S. is economically hosed because of some international conflict. Not only does the U.S. not make things, it doesn't know how to.

We should absolutely increase our industrial capacity but who gives a shit about the biggest Navy? Outside of the problem countries like China and Russia, we have military alliances with nearly every country on earth..

US has somewhere around 450 Navy vessels.. China has closer to 350 but is rapidly adding new tonnage. Sounds ominous! Except Japan has another 150, Australia has 50 more, the UK has 70 more, Spain has 150, France 180, Korea has 160, if some war ever comes down to the sheer number of available ships -- it literally won't matter who has more since the nukes will have flown long before some Canadian frigate is exchanging fire with some Chinese gunboat.

Also, number of ships doesn't mean too much. I could buy 1,000 canoes. And tonnage only means a bit more - there is plenty of tonnage in old ships rusting at docks.

Naval power isn't easily measured with statistics. The capabilities of a single US 100,000 ton aircraft carrier overwhelms entire fleets, unless their capabilities include long-range anti-ship missiles or submarines. Then adding tonnage won't help the US; they need capabilities to counter those two threats.

You should look into it. I wasn't referring to canoes. Even then, you're wrong. Number of ships and ability to replace ships correlates to wins in times of conflict.

I actually know it pretty well.

> Number of ships and ability to replace ships correlates to wins in times of conflict.

Do you happen to remember a source for that? I'd be interested.

Yes, but you forgot about informational war, which started long before direct armed conflict. Today, it's possible to influence a foreign election with an army of bots, to turn a country into a self-defense mode, so alliance will not work, because domestic problem, like border with Mexico, will overweight.

Beyond security, it was an example of the inability to build.

Why is 'making things' tied to income or wealth? In the mid-20th century it was, but those are the 'good old days'. We don't want a mid-20th century economy.

The US has the most productive, wealthiest economy in the history of the world, and a very strong one at the moment, without so much of the 'making things'. Why change?

(And why do American taxpayers have to subsidize someone else's uncompetitive, unproductive business? Perhaps they are better off letting the free market allocate the revenue.)

Outcomes of major wars were directly tied to domestic manufacturing ability. By not having manufacturing ability, the U.S. exposes itself to great risk.

The US has by far the most powerful military in the world, with its current domestic manufacturing capability. The idea that the US will be self-sufficient - a path followed only by North Korea - isn't realistic or desireable. They'd give up all the enormous advantages, including manufacturing capability, of all those allies, including S Korea, Japan, Germany, etc etc.