Do you think manufacturing pagers in Lebanon is a viable alternative?

Undoubtedly, this attack has proven that it certainly is, at whatever cost.

The idea of the majority of manufacturing being external to a country is a little under 100 years old, yet people talk as if it is unthinkable.

Unthinkable, or at least not feasible, in the sense of supporting the current level of technological advancement and average quality of life in many countries.

lebanon has an economy that's currently in shambles, and its never been known for its productive capacity. even if they wanted to start making simple comms devices it might rely on infrastructure that they can't invest in, and take tech/capital they have not accumulated

it would be more realistic for them to receive it from the iran but there might be political hurdles to this and it would end up costing the iranians as hezbollah can't be expected to pay much for it

100 years ago Lebanon didn’t have running water and still had slavery. The Middle East hasn’t been a producer of goods, even domestically, since antiquity.

Except for oil, the Middle East produces allot of oil and has for quite some time.

I wouldn’t count it as a good produced though. It’s just a commodity pulled out of the ground and processed elsewhere (largely in the US). It requires no ingenuity or hard work, just the luck of being on top of oil fields due to geographic peculiarity.

Australia: <puppet looking sideways meme>

100 years ago there were no pagers or mobile phones I guess, or any other kind of modern advanced tech.

No, there were engines that were capable of flight, guns capable of rapid fire, television technology and radios.

That was "advanced modern technology" then, and as the passage of time has marched forward, what we consider modern changes - so what's your point?

How many of TVs were there back then? I can tell you that very few in my country, now everybody has a smartphone.

Also I can tell you, no airplanes or TVs were built in my country either. They never were, 100 years ago, 50, 20 or nowadays.

So when you said “The idea of the majority of manufacturing being external to a country” you must have meant the US.

I meant the UK.

Domestic production of goods such as televisions, radios and even extremely high technology such as tractors has been declining since the 70's.

If you go far enough back (100y or so) then "imported" usually referred to raw materials, spices or very exotic equipment such as furniture - the supply chain and tooling was mostly domestic.

There are probably Muslim-aligned and sympathetic countries in which such manufacturing might occur.

Perhaps not national self-sufficiency, but global-bloc self-sufficiency. The principal groups I'd suggest would be "Western" democracies (US, EU, UK, JP, KR, CA, AU, NZ), Russian-aligned states (RU, BY, CU, possibly IR), China somewhat independent though RU-friendly, India as another independent, Islamic states (Levant generally, much of the Middle East, North Africa, ID, PK, NOT Iran), and perhaps groups of African and Latin American states, though the latter two would generally fall under the Western umbrella, perhaps others (Islamic, Chinese, Russian).

(Edits: some clarifications, added India above.)

You assume the muslim-aligned countries wouldn't be compromised. There's the potential for supply chain attacks from a domestic manufacturing partner.

The initial objection was the lack of sufficient size or institutional robustness for indigenous manufacturing capacity. I addressed that.

The question of the integrity and trustworthiness of a collective bloc structure had occurred. It's another factor, and of course poses its own challenges. Then again, the Western bloc, most capable of the set, seems to have persistent issues along those lines already. Several of Israeli origin, as it happens. (Though of course not solely.)

100% this.

Doesn't matter, they could have intercepted a shipment and done the same thing

It does matter if it would have been much more difficult to intercept the shipment that never left Lebanon.

Arguably, it's off-topic, though I agree with the point. Lebanon has been struck by poverty, and as a result, they might have far fewer choices when it comes to providers in general. Manufacturing within Lebanon or trading with neighboring countries might not be affordable for them.

It’s important to take a step back before generalizing an economic or political statement that may not be applicable in other contexts. There are little chances that the supply chain in Lebanon is in the same state as Europe countries' ones, for instance. Thus, this is not another example.

Just because something is not affordable doesn't mean its affordable alternative is a viable option, especially when information asymmetries caused by foreign manufacture obscure plastic explosives in the devices or whatever triggered these.

It is the same attitude. "Outsourcing is the only way we can be competitive" / "Buying these cheap pagers is the only way we can afford it"