[t_mann]

My point is that it's about political weight, and in that regard Germany is still a long shot from where it was the 19th century. Political power comes into play in two ways: one, the research being done in the US is truly excellent, but secondly, research done outside the US is arguably being underrated. Looking at Germany again, a lot of the cutting-edge work is being done outside universities in places like Max Planck Institutes, which would arguably deserve to be high up in any global ranking. In reality, however, they're not even included in most rankings (eg US News, THE, QS, ARWU) because they don't fit into the university-centric model of how research is being done in the US.

The point is simple: if you can impose your standards on others of what it means to excel in any discipline (and that's what I mean by political power), you're much more likely to come out on top in any comparison. And then you can harvest a lot of objective benefits as well from the best people wanting to move to the places that come out on top.