Remember when I told you America runs on geniuses and burns normies for fuel?
America Runs On Geniuses And Burns Normies For Fuel
It doesn't matter that the average American is a below-average loser by international standards. High IQ is the most valuable asset in the world and the world's high IQ people prefer the United States. You might call them godless heathens, degenerates, or cucks. That's fine. That's why they moved away from you. They are the reason why the dollar will no…
USA’s manufacturing is up to $3 trillion
https://nam.org/mfgdata/facts-about-manufacturing-expanded/
This is real manufacturing. 10 years ago, there was no Anduril. Now they make more missiles than all of Europe.
Ten years ago, few seriously considered SpaceX’s agenda to colonize Mars and scale space infrastructure. Yet here it is, a trillion dollar enterprise with enough value to finance whatever component stream it likes. Nobody has this capability. Not China. Not Russia. Not Europe. Not Japan. Nobody.
This is why, even though America has problems, they are not even close to existential. By 2030, we should have built over 30,000 missiles. Europe won’t even have built 1000 real ones (I don’t count these baby 15kg warhead missiles as missiles). If we had to step on the gas, I’m sure we could make that 100k missiles. That’s even enough to make the Russians sweat.
Europe has spent... hundreds of billions since 2022 for a few hundred baby missiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aster_(missile_family)
https://www.csis.org/analysis/europe-needs-asap-program-air-defense
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-eyes-huge-missile-boost-new-defense-plan-document-shows/
https://www.marketdataforecast.com/market-reports/europe-rocket-and-missile-market
https://thedefensewatch.com/policy-strategy/eu-defense-spending-418-billion/
https://theins.press/en/economics/295801
Buying old drones in boutique batches that crank out at 35 a day:
https://dronelife.com/2026/02/26/unprepared-for-drone-war-europe-and-the-us-face-procurement-crisis/
Not very impressive compared to current Russian drone output, 3k Geran/mo and 15k FPV drones a day.
https://www.missiledefenseadvocacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Geran_Spotlight.pdf
I’m not going to bother treating Europe to a PPP arms comparison. What little they produce is a joke. One US company outproduces them. Not Boeing. Not Raytheon. Not Lockheed-Martin. Anduril. A startup that didn’t even exist 10 years ago, when the Ukraine crisis was 2 years old already. Europe had the hubris to stop ordering Storm Shadow and Taurus missiles even as it was preparing for war and then actually in one!
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/production-of-taurus-missiles-suspended-due-1711849693.html
These are not serious leaders. Neither politically nor militarily.
Considering the artillery PPP of 8k Euros per 155mm, it is not hard to accept that compared to the US cost of $4k, and the Russian cost of 100k RUB, that European military industry PPP is at least less than half its supposed manufacturing value.
Russia Is Producing More Artillery Shells Than All of NATO Combined
The fog of war doesn’t just reference battlefield conditions, it also references information conditions.Thanks for reading Autodidact Obsessions! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
$4k/$9200 = 43.47% military industry PPP compared to the USA. 100k RUB/$9200 = 12.5... One EIGHTH Russia’s military PPP. So whatever you want to call Europe’s manufacturing GDP, $2 trillion, $3 trillion, whatever its still PPP at best 1/2 the USA’s manufacturing power and is also totally undeployed. Compared to Russia, and it’s wild. Because then even if you want to call Europe’s manufacturing $4 trillion, that means for war PPP, it can only generate about $500b of industrial output.
The USA can literally regain leadership in many categories of production over Russia in a few years. Europe couldn’t even in 2 decades. The trend is clear, the USA is pulling far ahead of everybody else, except Russia (5.4% annualized industrial gain since 2022). We can do a quick census. But first we need to consider China:
China: 1.39b, GDP $20t, Manufacturing $5.14t, $283b Nominal Military Spending with 2/3 going to arms, just like Russia.
But this China number is not right:
How much not right depends on your biases. I personally think China overstates its GDP by 100%, so at best, I think manufacturing is worth $2.5t for the whole thing. That’s a lot. But also accounts for the crap factor.
The Major Regions
USA: Population: 342m, GDP $33t, Manufacturing $3t, Military Production: $225b
Russia: 146m, GDP $11t PPP, Manufacturing $1.6t, Military Production: $1 trillion PPP
China: 1.39b, GDP $20t, Manufacturing $2.5t, Military Production: $100b PPP
Europe: Pop: 353m, GDP: $18t, Manufacturing (pro forma 15% of GDP): $2.7t, Military Budget: $500b, Military Production: $50b ($200b budgeted, 24% fulfilled in Europe)
Japan/Korea: Pop: 175m, GDP: $6.2t, Manufacturing: $1.3t, Military Budgets: $109b, Military Production: 2/3 budgets $70b
Clearly the USA, Russia, and China belong as first rank powers. USA has people, money, industry, and military power. Russia has less people, less money, less industry, but more military power.
China seems closer to Europe, except that it at least has volume. The world reacts to China. Not so much Europe. Superpower.
I don’t think the crap factor is reflected enough in the Chinese PPP, but that’s ok. It at least explains massive waves of garbage ships and vehicles and cement warhead missiles.
Obviously Europe should be in the first rank, except it lacks military-industrial power.
Japan-Korea have military-industrial power, but are too small to matter.
Every other would-be power cluster is so much smaller and weaker by orders of magnitude, that they are not relevant in this game, in this era. Maybe the next era. Not this one.
The major trait the superpowers have in common is swing production.
The US requires huge profits to keep on the cutting edge. It can borrow what it needs to scale production if it’s motivated. Its capital markets give it this power.
China needs to keep the lines running just to debt service. It can draw from its line of components and build out its composite lines, but it’s not generating it by market so there isn’t the dual use factor helping. And then the in-general low quality factor which bears repeating.
Russia holds its profit-neutral enterprises in Rostec, and uses the high tech components developed at Skolkovo and other high tech clusters. Mikron and import substitution serve a different purpose from Silicon Valley. The economy nets to profit with downstream ventures.
Despite crisis, Europe still can’t scale up production. Can barely squeeze out 1% of GDP in additional manufacturing. Strategic incoherence does that. Russian sanctions? Yes. Russian oil? Yes. What?
Scale is why the US is the winning system. $3t USA + $2.7t Europe + $1.3t Japan/Korea= $7t
China and Russia trade, but they aren’t opening up each others’ strategic parts line to the other. China has chosen to try to undercut components and get tech that way. Russia sticks to frontier military composites and lets the dual use generate the profits to pay for the system. For both, their strategy has to be to peel off Europe and Japan/Korea from the US centered trading system.
What do they have to offer?
China offers trade. But it already offered trade and everybody knows what that costs.
Russia offers arms. Again, not really satisfactory for Europe or East Asia, which have access to US centered arms.
China and Russia can fight over the developing world and each others’ markets. China already has Belt and Road on Offer.
Russia has a new generation of weapons that are battlefield tested. Even China can’t resist and wants to buy more of everything as soon as Russia can spare it.
$15b in exports during war. Clearly when the war ends this number is going to surge to $60b+. The volumes required to win modern war mean this is a modest estimate. $15b to China, $15b to India, $15b MENA, $15b SE Asia, etc.
The Western trading system has such a deep pool of components, it’s very hard for competitors to keep up.
China’s ace has been to hack the trading system and try to climb up the value chain. It would have worked if they weren’t so sloppy.
Russia’s ace has been staying ahead in an industry few want to own--arms. End result, their investment made everybody else’s base obsolete.
Buy 5k Russian drones, 1k EW kits, S-400, 1000 missiles, 250k munitions, 100 tanks, 12 Mig, 4 KA-52, and 5k trucks for $5 billion, or risk getting Nagorno-Karabakh’ed by your neighbor.
Conversely, buy $5b and settle that longstanding dispute before your ancient enemy can rearm.
Russia keeps its advantage by imposing costs on its strategic adversaries. It can now fight China, accept Trans-Siberian getting cut in multiple places, and still fight on with its 2m military grade civilian truck pool and x military trucks.
1200 tons a day a division a day. That’s only 200 Kamaz. Russia buys 18,000+ Kamaz a year. Whatever trucks China buys will get bogged down in a deathtrap traffic jam like Russian forces using Yellow Sea tires driving to Kiev.
How much does China need to spend to stop Russia’s $89 billion in 3 Borei, 2 Yasen, and 1 Belograd? I’m sure it’s a lot more than $89 billion. Funny enough, they need to buy S-500 from the same guys generating the strategic pressure.
At 70 billion rubles a pop and selling north of $2.5 billion a unit, Russia has learned to sell the sickness and cure.
Can Europe replace its rickety navy as Russia swarms it with corvettes and diesel subs and old-ass Cold war Bombers while saving the good stuff to fight the US and China?
Or will everybody pretend their militaries are ok until they’re the next Ukraine?
Up to 12.378 Million Unaccounted Ukrainians
Well, you ‘International Law’ people got what you wanted. A war of principle! A fight for what’s right!
Strategically, Russia’s best hope is to remove Europe from the US centered component chain. If they can’t flip them, then maybe they should destroy them.
You think that’s wasteful? Here’s an estimate of reasonable pillage from Europe: 25m+ GPU made in the last 2 years, $15b, 25m cars $250b @ $10k each, and really trillions in factories.
If 80% got destroyed, that’s still potentially $1 trillion in capital goods to loot.
Gold, art, all that stuff is nice. Blueprints, designs, all that stuff is more valuable.
If Russia pulls off #2, it could potentially pillage $10 trillion + from Europe.
Hey, I Hear You Like Almost-Hot, Deniable, Sub-Redline, State-On-State Action
If Russia chooses to attack a NATO power as per a threat in the news recently, what form would it take?
But why project forward? The current situation is this: the USA is reducing exposure to Europe, Russia is wrapping up in Ukraine, and Europe has experienced something like strategic defeat.
Former Soviet states now have an object lesson. Ukraine shows the cost of defying Russia. Do you think Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan are going to take anti-Russian security promises seriously anymore?
The USA is retrenching and using its natural speed of growth to create strategic pressure on everybody else.
China is Late Soviet.
Ultimately, there are three pressures that the superpowers exert on everyone else.
The first is the technological/economic game. The USA never stops. It’s relentless. It consumes everybody else’s capital and builds its own components and composite chains and everybody else has to find out where they fit in.
Russia exerts a different pressure: its military investments impose obsolescence on competitors. Then competitors can either keep up (USA) or face strategic obsolescence of installed military base, like China. China is ordering PPP $100b or so in products, but they suck. To retool to maybe fix it, and that’s a big maybe, it would need more capital and more seriousness. To buy $100b requires probably another $100b in capital investments per year to maintain minimal quality standards. This is based off the observed fixed investment to manufacturing value ratio. Since Russia’s military industrial chain is built around its military industry, the whole thing is dual use.
China has competing commercial and quality priorities. It picks neither. So it has neither. It has volume. It pressures entrenched industries by infecting the component chain with ‘cheaper better’ promises that fail. This is why the US has stopped importing so much from China.
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/exports/united-states
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/imports/china
So now China has to see if its components can pay for themselves. It looks like they can’t.
https://tradingeconomics.com/china/corporate-profits
Despite all that financial engineering, the profits are declining.
Their size was supposed to impose a new industrial reality on the world. Instead the US is just removing Chinese components from its value chain.
Still, we can see China’s impact on the rest of the world in the way they suppress new industrial clusters from even forming.
Want tech? Buy US. Want guns? Buy Russian. Want cheap? Buy Chinese.
What’s left for everybody else?
The USA takes the frontier.
Russia imposes military pressure.
China undercuts with components.
So to keep up, Europe needs to invest trillions in its military industry. Trillions for tech and AI. Trillions to keep in front of China.
How’s it doing? What is it imposing on the other superpowers?
International law? Russia and China flout. Europe has no serious intentions of applying it to America. Refuses to apply it against actual rogues in Dar-Al-Islam. Punches down on Israel to try to invert Nazi-Jew relationship to absolve itself. This insanity is why Europe is now being absorbed into Dar-Al-Islam. Villainizing Jews makes Jihad into freedom fighters.
That’s pretty much the only power Europe has. Legal influence to mess with money. Does it work? Is it slowing Russia? Not really.
Russia Outspends The USA On Arms By 2 To 4 Times, But All You Want To Talk About Is The Missile Gap
Despite what you’ve read in the news, the real issue is not that the US is low on missiles.
What about Japan/Korea?
If they made societies that were tolerable to live in, they’d probably have a higher birth rate. But they don’t call it Hell Korea for nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell_Joseon
And Japan’s marriage and birth rate tell you everything you need to know about how much Japanese women love their choices.
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/backstories/4884/
So I guess what makes for good trading economies is not necessarily good for the people living in them.
What are we going to do, now that we’re post Peak Japan/Korea? Expect lower quality precision components, because Japan/Korea won’t be able to fill the demand anymore.
With peak Japan, we had healthy competition that helped the US push its tech advantages. Nintendo and Sony and Hitachi and Panasonic and Toyota and Honda etc. With peak China, we’ve seen the enshittification of everything.
The global economy has become too dependent on Japan and Korea and without their components, global composite value will plummet. But we won’t see it, because prices will go up, even as unit production drops. The modern world can’t live without Japan and Korea, but we don’t have viable replacements. That almost sounds like a superpower, but really is more like super-sidekick power.
Bottom Line: If your ordinary growth isn’t imposing strategic costs and risks on all of your competition, then you aren’t a real superpower. That’s why there are only 3.