Wars are won on the factory floor To survive the geopolitical turmoil of the 21st century, the West needs to revive its industrial base. Joel Kotkin

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/06/24/wars-are-won-on-the-factory-floor/

As recent events in Iran have so aptly demonstrated, technological progress married to industrial might produces the most tangible form of power. In the recent conflict in the Middle East, this meant that a second-tier power like Iran was clearly outmatched – first by Israel, then by America.

The West needs to learn this lesson and apply it to its rivalry with a far more formidable foe: China. Unlike the theocrats of Tehran, China’s ambitions are distinctly material. And, until recently, China has made tremendous headway facing relatively little, and largely ineffective, Western opposition.

Fortunately, in America at least, there is an emerging industrial renaissance, led by a wave of new firms investing in key technologies, such as drones, satellites, fuel-efficient jet engines and robotic drilling. These and similar companies remain the West’s best hope of slowing China’s bid for global pre-eminence – a campaign that now extends into space and advanced military systems.

China, the most important ally of Tehran’s beleaguered mullahs, cannot be easily dismissed. Since its accession to the World Trade Organisation in 2000, China has grown to the point where it boasts as many factory exports as the US, Japan and Germany combined. In 2023, the Middle Kingdom forged roughly half the world’s steel and became the world’s largest automobile market – including for electric vehicles, whose batteries are linked to an industrial economy that’s highly dependent on coal-burning power stations. It also accounts for more than half of all shipbuilding.