American manufacturing is at an all-time high [1]. Are you conflating manufacturing employment with power?
> if China stops selling tiny electric motors the drone warfare will be lost as the west can't produce this stuff
Uh, I’m fairly deep into drone manufacturing in America. This is multi-level nonsense.
One: you’re confusing quadcopters with military drones, whose motors aren’t tiny and often aren’t motors but turbofans.
Two: we produce lots of electric motors and turbofans. In the case of the former, not at China’s scale, though far more autonomously (and thus easier to scale up if needed). In the case of the latter, far better and similarly quickly after adjusting for effective yield.
Is USA capable of producing huge number of electric motors? Other "not profitable enough to produce here" stuff?
Remember how the west wasn't able to deliver enough artillery shells simply because it can't produce enough? Now it might be ramping up in the shells department but there's so many things that the west can't make anymore in large quantities.
You’ve made a series of wrong, uncited claims. This is another one.
> Is USA capable of producing huge number of electric motors?
Siemens is the world’s largest manufacturer of electric motors. They have massive plants in Germany, Ohio and Missouri [1][2]. Toshiba, the second largest, in Houston and Canada [3]. ABB, third largest, with plants across 8 states, directed from Arkansas, as well as in India [4].
China has cheaper labour and laxer environmental laws than America. But we have some of the world’s cheapest and most-abundant energy. Motor manufacturing isn’t dirty or labour intensive. I’m not sure where your obsession with electric motors comes from, because it’s an example of Allied manufacturing vastly outstripping China.
> Remember how the west wasn't able to deliver enough artillery shells simply because it can't produce enough?
Yes, in part because we want to maintain reserves. We matched Ukraine’s military budget to the entirety of Russia’s [5]. As a side project.
[1] https://www.siemens.com/us/en/company/about/siemens-in-the-u...
[2] https://www.siemens.com/us/en/products/drives/electric-motor...
[3] https://www.toshiba.com/tic/inside-toshiba/manufacturing-ser...
[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ABB_Motors_and_Mechanical
[5] https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/w...
It's like India going to the moon at cost that would be considered pocket change in the USA.
Ping me when Ukrainian drones are made by US/European parts and not Chinese.
You’ve made a series of wrong, uncited claims. This is another one. (And the last one I’m responding to. You are not arguing in good faith.)
You called out electric motors. By mass and production volume, China is outstripped by Allied production.
> cheap energy is cool but Russia too has cheap energy
Much less than America production-wise. We’re counting volumes and mass, right?
> like India going to the moon at cost that would be considered pocket change in the USA
You really keep picking terrible examples to spitball on.
The SSLV’s launch cost per kg is over 3x Falcon 9’s [1][2]. American access to space is orders of magnitude cheaper and more extensive than India, Russia and China’s combined, despite massively higher labour costs and design requirements.
That said, India actually got to the Moon. Can’t say as much about Russia [3].
[1] https://www.newspace.im/launchers/isro
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_launch_market_competit...
Check your own biases at the door next time you're looking to engage in intelligent discussion, lest you come across as quibbling in bad faith.