[nostrademons]

That's a large part of the issue, though. The narrative 10 years ago was that we were preventing Chinese from dumping low-cost crap on the U.S. market. Okay, fair enough, keep the crap out. But recent U.S. protectionism has been targeting very high-quality, best-in-class Chinese manufacturers that honestly outcompete anything their U.S. competitors bring to market. Without that competition, there's no incentive for U.S. makers to raise their technological game, and the sector just stagnates and falls behind the rest of the world.

North America has the benefit of two oceans for national defense, but the risk associated with that is one of insularity and stagnation. Ask an indigenous person (if you can find one) how well being a couple hundred years behind European technological development worked out once hostile colonists are on your shores.

[MonkeyClub]

I don't think they were just

> a couple hundred years behind

[otabdeveloper4]

They were, 16th century muskets aren't much better than bows and arrows.

[jltsiren]

They were at least 2000 years behind Europe in weapons and armor technology. Some cultures had bronze weapons, but no iron smelting or steel.

Even before muskets started becoming common, European professional infantry had largely abandoned shields. Mass produced plate armor provided sufficient protection from arrows, and two-handed pikes were better than a pike and a shield.

On the other hand, bows became more effective again as muskets improved. When a musket could penetrate any reasonable armor, personal protection became less important.