Elon Musk recently , reposted a video , showing a clip of aircraft crowds in China, declaring that the age of guarded fighter jet was around.
I’m not sure if Musk is right about the F-35 and other manned fighters — drones and fighters play different roles on the battlefield, and may coexist in the future ( for an argument that the F-35 itself has been overly maligned,  , watch this fun video ). But in any situation, Musk’s larger point that drones will occupy the battle of the future should presently be , extremely uncontroversial.
Uavs have already become the standard method of battle surveillance and the necessary army weapon, able to defeat both tanks and soldiers.
For the moment, electronic warfare uses EM indicators to thwart drones ‘ interaction with their pilots and GPS satellites, but even that defense will be largely ineffective once AI becomes more advanced enough to allow drones to explore on their own. Without a large number of drones, it will be impossible to fight and win a modern war, even though this doesn’t mean robots will be the only means of combat.
And who makes FPV robots, of the kind depicted in Musk’s movie? China. China’s DJI and different manufacturers are the biggest players in the market for professional drones, despite the US still being the market leader in military drone production:
And a device is a fundamental part of any FPV aircraft. In fact, the first step in the development of the helicopter revolution was the advancement of better magnet for motors, better magnet for motors, and various types of computer chips for detecting and control. And who makes the chargers? That would also be China:
So I then want you to consider what would happen if the US and its allies engaged in a significant conflict with China, as researchers believe is becoming more and more likely. In the first few days, the majority of the two nations ‘ arsenals of weapons, including robots and the batteries that power robots, will be used up. It will then be up to who can make more ammunition and bring them to the field in time, as it did with Ukraine. 1
What will the US do if our friends and we are unable to produce a lot of munitions at that time? We will have to choose between losing the war to China and 1 ) starting with a nuclear war. Those may be our only choices. Either approach,  , the US and its allies will drop.
Then know that the US and its allies aren’t really falling behind China in aircraft and power manufacturing— they’re falling behind in , all kinds of manufacturing. The table below comes , from a 2024 review by UNIDO, the United Nations Industrial Development Organization:
The United States and its allies in Asia, Europe, and Latin America made up the vast majority of international industrial production in 2000, with China only 6 %, despite decades of rapid development. Exactly thirty years later, according to UNIDO projections, China will account for 45 % of all global manufacturing, completely outperforming or matching the US and all of its allies.
This is a level of production dominance by a single nation that has only been witnessed half in the history of the world: by the UK at the start of the Industrial Revolution and by the US only after World War 2. It means that in an expanded battle of production, there is no assurance that , the entire world united , was defeat , China alone.
That is a really dangerous and unpredictable position. If it does happen, China may be essentially free to start any standard issue it wants without worrying that it will be ganged up because there won’t be a strong enough gang to defeat it. The only thing they’ll have to worry is nuclear arms.
And, of course, other countries will realize this in advance, so in any issue that’s not absolutely philosophical, most of them will likely make the rational alternative to provide China whatever it wants , without , fighting. China wants to conquer Taiwan and occupy the entire South China Sea, according to 2 . Fine, go ahead.
China wants to annex Japan and Arunachal Pradesh. All yours, sir. As retaliation for the agreements China was forced to sign in the 19th century, China wants to make Japan and Europe sign “unequal treaties.” Absolutely. China wants preferential access to the world’s minerals, fossil fuels, and food supplies? Go ahead. And so on.
China’s leaders know this very well, of course, which is why they are unleashing a massive and unprecedented amount of , industrial policy spending , — in the form of cheap bank loans, tax credits, and direct subsidies — to raise production in militarily useful manufacturing industries like autos, batteries, electronics, chemicals, ships, aircraft, drones, and , foundational semiconductors.
This doesn’t just raise Chinese production — it also creates , a flood of overcapacity , that spills out into global markets and forces American, European, Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese companies out of the market.
By creating overcapacity, China is , forcibly deindustrializing , every single one of its geopolitical rivals. Yes, this reduces profit for Chinese companies, but profit is not the goal of war.
America’s most economically important allies — Germany and Japan — are bearing the brunt of China’s most recent industrial assault. In the 2000s and 2010s, Germany’s manufacturing exports boomed, as they sold China high-tech machinery and components. China has now copied, stole or reinvented much of Germany’s technology, and are now squeezing out the German suppliers:
This is one reason, though not the only reason, for German industrial production to have been declining since 2017:
In addition, China has already wiped out a significant portion of Japan’s electronics sector, and a recent glut of cheap Chinese car exports has destroyed the country’s cherished Japanese auto industry:
The democratic countries have all struggled to respond to China’s industrial assault, because as capitalist countries, they naturally think about manufacturing mainly in terms of , economic efficiency and profits , unless a major war is actively in progress.
Democratic countries ‘ economies are primarily set up as , free market economies with redistribution because this is what increases living standards in peacetime. In a free market economy, you permit a foreign country to sell you cheap cars, and you instead use your own productive resources for something more lucrative.
If China is willing to sell you brand-new electric vehicles for$ 10, 000, why should you turn them down? Just make B2B SaaS and advertising platforms and chat apps, sell them for a high-profit margin, and drive a Chinese car.
Except for a war, you discover that B2B SaaS, advertising platforms, and chat apps aren’t very effective at defending your freedoms. Oops! The right time to worry about manufacturing would have been , years before , the war, except you weren’t able to anticipate and prepare for the future. Manufacturing doesn’t just support war — in a very real way,  , it’s a war in and of itself.
Democratic nations appear to be still largely in “peace mode” with regard to their economic models. They believe that manufacturing needs to be preserved and expanded in peacetime to be prepared for the resulting, growing likelihood of a major war.
Thankfully, Republicans and Democrats in America have slowed down this deadly complacency in recent years. However, the tariffs supported by the GOP and the industrial policies promoted by the Dems are only partial solutions and do not provide essential components for a military-industrial strategy.
Republicans and Democrats don’t have a comprehensive plan for winning the manufacturing war.
Three components must be included in a military-industrial strategy for the US and its allies to compete with China:
- To stop sudden surges of Chinese exports from forcibly deindustrializing other nations, China is subject to tariffs and other trade restrictions.
- promoting and expanding manufacturing capacity in democratic countries through industrial policy.
- A sizable common market outside of China for non-Chinese manufacturers to gain scale-savings.
The GOP’s tariffs-first approach achieves the first of these, but actively sabotages the third by putting tariffs on allies. The Democrats ‘ industrial policy-focused approach achieves the second goal, but it severely undercuts its own efforts with regulations and contracting restrictions.
First, let’s talk about the GOP, since Trump is about to come back into office. In his first term, Trump moved the US away from the free trade consensus and from the model of “engagement” with China. He was the first to use tariffs and export controls as economic weapons. In his second term, he’s almost certain to , double down on tariffs.
This will help prevent a wave of subsidized Chinese imports from suddenly destroying the remaining US industries, as happened in the US solar panel industry in the 2010s. However, Trump is making a number of errors that will severely limit the impact of his tariffs.
First, he’s threatening , broad tariffs , on most or all Chinese goods, instead of tariffs targeted at specific, militarily useful goods. In a post two weeks ago, I explained why broad tariffs are of limited effectiveness.
Broad tariffs cause bigger , exchange rate movements, which cancel out more of the effect of the tariffs. Putting tariffs on Chinese-made TVs, clothing, furniture, and laptops weakens the effect of tariffs on Chinese-made cars, chips, machinery, and batteries.
Second, Trump is threatening to put tariffs on US allies like , Canada , and , Mexico. This will make American manufacturers less competitive with their Chinese rivals by removing the cheap parts and components they need to build things cheaply. It will also provoke retaliation from allies, limiting the markets available to American manufacturers.
As for industrial policy, Trump doesn’t seem to see the value in it. He has  , threatened to cancel the CHIPS Act, as well as , the Inflation Reduction Act , that subsidizes battery manufacturing.
However, tariffs cannot simply force chip and battery factories to sprout from American soil like mushrooms after the rain. Tariffs protect the domestic market but do absolutely nothing to help American manufacturers in the far larger , global , market, only industrial policy can do that.
Democrats do back industrial policy. And in fact, Biden’s industrial policies have been , one of the few small successes , that any democratic nation has had in the struggle to keep up with China’s manufacturing juggernaut. In the US, a colossal amount of factory construction is currently happening:
Although almost all of the actual money being spent is private, the construction is heavily concentrated in the industries Biden subsidized.
This is great, but the effort has been slowed by progressive policy priorities.  , Stubborn progressive defenses , of NEPA and the American permitting regime have prevented major reform of that formidable stumbling block, while various , onerous contracting requirements , — the dreaded “everything bagel” — have held up construction timelines.
Even more fundamentally, progressives tend to see the point of industrial policy as , providing jobs for factory workers, rather than in terms of national defense. Because of these, they end up providing more jobs even as they prevent anything physically from actually getting built, which makes them complacent about delays and cost overruns:
This is why some progressives oppose automation in the manufacturing industry because they claim it will destroy jobs. China, meanwhile, is racing ahead with automation, having recently , zoomed ahead of both Japan and Germany  , in terms of the number of robots per worker, and leaving America in the dust:
Meanwhile, although Democrats may become negatively polarized into opposing all tariffs ( throwing the baby out with the bathwater ), they still , oppose measures like the TPP , aimed at creating a common market capable of balancing China’s internal market.
In other words, neither political party in America has yet fully understood the nature, scope, or difficulty of China’s manufacturing might, or the nature of the steps required to take in order to respond.
While his progressive opponents view reindustrialization as a massive make-work program, Trump is still having the same basic protectionist dreams he had in the 1990s. Meanwhile, America’s allies overseas seem even less capable of averting their decline.
The manufacturing war is waning, and we need to start the process right away.
1 Of course, those munitions will have to be of a similar caliber, but it’s obvious that China is now technologically advanced in almost every area on par with other major powers.
2 Insert , overused Sun Tzu quote , here.
This , article , was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion , Substack and is republished with kind permission. Become a Noahopinion , subscriber , here.