If west is in decline please stop sending your top students abroad to study (and stay there). Great job promoting brain drain.
I am tired of this unfounded narrative that the west is in decline. No, it’s not. It’s actually getting stronger by the day especially the US.
The center of technological innovation still resides here in the west.
In the west the industrial and technological prowess are demonstrated through its corporations. For a recent example, look at the speed of development, and efficacy of the vaccines developed in the West compared to the ones developed in China. Beating the west by creating a better vaccine, faster would have been like the Moon landing in terms of raising China's prestige and stature.
SpaceX, despite being only a mid sized company in the US, has a space program that is more advanced that any nation on Earth. Companies like Boston Robotics and Waymo continue to sprout up in the US.
In the event of a total war situation, the west would have a better chance of calling upon the expertise and knowledge of companies like these, much as it did in World War II.
However, things do change. China continues to rise. If it plays its cards right, it can become a rival to, and even eclipse the west. However the fact is, the west continues to be a center for innovation, that pulls in the smartest and brightest from all over the world. People from everywhere, including China, continue to immigrate to it and bring new blood to its competitive economic engine. Feeding the creative destruction of economic and technological innovation. China does not yet have this. It's corporations sit in service of their bureaucracy, its public discourse and innovation is hampered by its great firewall.
A Chinese proverb comes to mind - "We'll see"