Speaking About Real Economy...

 ... and how military "rankings" are done by bypassing actual capability. As The Guardian reports today: 

The owners of Port Talbot steelworks have rejected a trade union plan designed to keep its blast furnaces running, putting nearly 3,000 jobs at risk and leaving the UK on course to become the only major economy unable to make steel from scratch. In what one union said would be a “crushing blow” to workers and UK steelmaking, Port Talbot’s parent company, the Indian-owned Tata Steel, told workers’ representatives that it could no longer afford to continue production at the loss-making plant in south Wales while it completed a four-year transition plan to greener production. The company, which is getting £500m from the government to help with that plan, broke the news during a summit at the five-star St James’ Court hotel in London, which is owned by the Tata Group.

I have to question, though, what do they mean by "major economy". Yes, UK can still build a ship or two, maybe a sub or two. UK still owns Rolls Royce and, additionally, makes cars. But there is no DEVELOPED economy if you have no domestic full cycle steel production. I feel for workers--it is a horrifying thing to be thrown out on the street with no prospects of decent paying employment, but here is an example--fresh from World Steel org in Brussels, the freshest they got statistics through November 2023.  

As you can see yourself, UK is not even in the Top-10, neither is France or any other EU economy with the exception of Germany. As the truism goes: you do not produce steel, forget about being "major" or any other than the second-third word economy. Output matters, especially in steel and energy. To give you a taste of how steel production of UK and Russia compare--Russia produces 10+ times more steel than UK. In fact, Russia produces roughly the same amount of steel as all NATO countries combined with the exception of Turkey and Germany. In the same time, Russia produces roughly the same amount of steel as Turkey and Germany--Europe's main steel producers--combined. In terms of pig iron production--no EU country is even in the top-10 except Germany, Russia is 4th globally, US is the 8th--Russia outproduces the US and Germany combined. So, the question is: how are you going to fight war? 

UK is simply an unfortunate exhibit of the economic legerdemain, the one which is being discussed this very minute at this collection of morons known as WEF in Davos, who invent all kinds of "plans" to control the world in which the only thing they are able to control are their fantasies. As Joseph Stalin once asked, when told about influence of Pope during WW II, "and how many divisions does the Pope have?" In modern world it is how many: millions tons of steel, terawatt of electricity, crude, gasoline, trains, industrial trucks, good schools, food et all, you produce which only matters. But I repeat myself. Never thought in my life that I would see Great Britain balancing on the verge of becoming a country incapable of producing own steel from scratch. But then again, British Armed Forces and what Douglas Macgregor called them. Boy, it is so nice to be able to refer to a very high profile American and not being accused of being an ass-hole toward Britain anymore.