I see that defense analysts are beginning to catch on to something I’ve been warning about for decades. The United States’s ability to wage a Third Generation War (the kind we fought in World War II) is extremely limited. From Breaking Defense:
CAPITOL HILL: Is the arsenal of democracy out of business? Probably not, but America’s “increasingly brittle industrial base†may not be able to sustain our forces in a protracted war, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Joseph Dunford, warned the Senate in a written statement this morning. It’s a problem a lot of people are wrestling with, from Dunford’s subordinates on the Joint Staff to academics and a White House-commissioned task force. There are solutions, a panel of experts said this afternoon on the Hill – if we just invest enough to research and develop them.
The article focuses on aerospace but there’s an even simpler example: RAM memory. We produce little RAM memory in the United States any more and we do need a continuing supply to prosecute war in the way to which we’ve become accustomed. The biggest producers of RAM memories are China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan.
The article is largely a pitch for additive manufacturing but I doubt that as a society we’re capable of the sort of sustained crash program that led to producing 400,000 airplanes a year and turned typewriter plants to manufacturing machine guns.
A minor quibble about RAM and general semiconductor production in regards to China.
China produces little in RAM and semiconductors; and what it produces is relatively obsolete. In fact, the Chinese government has identified this as a strategic weakness and is furiously spending money to buy the technology and move production into China. The US and its allies (Taiwan, South Korea, Japan) have a deliberate policy to prevent the production from moving into China — including blocking multiple corporate takeovers.
The US produces little RAM (I think Micron is responsible for almost all of it); but US has the know how so it could ramped up quite quickly in an emergency.
To the best of my knowledge nearly all of Micron’s memories are produced in Japan. SanDisk’s memories are certainly produced in Japan.
In 1980 almost all computer memories were produced in the United States (mostly designed by the same guys with whom I was acquainted). Since then we’ve lost almost all memory production. I’m not as optimistic as you are about our ability to ramp up the production rapidly. We just don’t have the production engineers any more.
This is a persistent complaint of mine. Something that managers and policymakers don’t seem to appreciate is that junior engineers become senior engineers, at least some of them do. Without junior engineers today tomorrow there will be no senior engineers and the career paths for engineers in the United States are narrowing practically on a day by day basis.
China has more super computers than any other country, and they have the two fastest supercomputers. All of this, chips and operating systems is home grown.
The Chinese manufacturing section is larger than ours, and it produces a much wider range of products. If anyone is, they are “the arsenal of democracy.” Sarcasm intended.
Essentially none our high tech stuff can be replaced. Combat attrition will grind down all aspects of our military. This is also true of our troops. Our current highly trained, highly professional, highly experienced force will simply disappear, replaced by half-trained, unwilling conscripts.
Whatever high tech, sophisticated operations our military envisions will only be possible for a few months. After that, its WW II, or even WW I.
Here is a list of semiconductor fabs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabrication_plants
Micron has fabs in Idaho and Virginia that make RAM.
Well, you are pointing out why the US doesn’t have a choice when it comes to defending Taiwan from China (or South Korea and Japan from North Korea).
“Without junior engineers today tomorrow there will be no senior engineers and the career paths for engineers in the United States are narrowing practically on a day by day basis.”
Could you elaborate on that? The very reason I went to a steel mill after graduation was that it was run by a bunch of engineers. Admittedly, that’s quite awhile ago. But a quick mental spin through the companies we have purchased suggest more have been owned by engineers than any other discipline.
Sure. Kids straight out of school don’t get hired as senior engineers. They start as junior engineers and become senior engineers later.
Wages in engineering have been stagnant for decades and they’re being pushed down by a propensity to hire foreign engineers. Additionally, jobs for engineers just aren’t increasing in number (other than in computer engineering) at the rate they used to. If you can’t get an entry level engineering job or the entry level engineering jobs aren’t worth taking, you’ll do something else. Engineering is hard.
Fewer entry level engineers today by definition means fewer senior level engineers tomorrow. That’s just the way it works.
And those businesses you’re talking about were probably owned and operated by senior engineers not by juniors.
I kinda got the junior to senior thing. I’ve heard rumors teenagers become young adults too…. ;-).
The wage issue extends to manufacturing execs in general. It’s been true throughout my career. The stated reason is that the guys who can make it faster, cheaper, better are more plentiful and generally have less financial influence on the enterprise as a whole.
I’m not sure engineering is any more or less difficult than a variety of disciplines. It’s very situational. I do know that the last time I looked at some starting salaries engineers were doing quite well. They just have more limited upside.