US seems to be in a hardware/science renaissance, now that there is a new Cold War enemy, and manufacturing and research are being brought back to US.
How much can a nation progress if its youth is pessimistic about everything? It doesn't matter whether the pessimism is based on actual problems (healthcare, housing prices etc.) or learned through terminally online reddit/twitter consumption.
Cold war = rocket science, new fuels, materials science, major computing advancements, supply chain changes, innovation, science hype, broad optimism
I know most of this is happenstance and that peace time doesn't itself cause lackluster development, but it is interesting and palpable.
I was so down on 2000 - 2020, but the decade ahead is exciting, and I'm filled with motivation.
Next time the cold war cools down, we need to invent something to replace it.
Colonial wars in the asteroid belt and beyond. Interstellar wars. Maybe the first FTL drive could be on an autonomous space torpedo, and that could be lore explanation for the shape of warp nacelles in this timeline.
If America and China are dead set on having another dick measuring contest, we're all much better off if they do it with drones halfway between here and the moon, instead of near earthbound population centers. By all means let's make outer space the future of war, as far away from humans as possible.
The US declared war on the concept of terrorism in 2001, directly invaded two nations as part of that effort, and overthrew multiple governments before ultimately abandoning the war and handing a broken Afghanistan back to the Taliban in 2021.
We did an excellent job of making sure the war was fought on foreign soil and largely stayed out of our daily life back home, but we definitely were at war.
(I'm focusing on the US here, but there were quite a few other major conflicts and military coups around the world during the same time)
Its worth noting that Afghanistan may be less developed technologically but they have now successfully fended off invasions from both the Soviet Union and the US. Never underestimate your enemy in war, especially if you're Goliath invading David's home.