Rebuilding Western industrial advantage

How long would the West need to regain its earlier postwar manufacturing and sustainment advantage?

A couple of decades is suggested only if everyone else stood still. Continued improvement elsewhere makes recovery much slower and uncertain.

The estimate depends on what competing economies do during rebuilding. If everyone else stopped advancing, the earlier advantage is imagined as recoverable in a couple of decades. If competitors kept improving, catching up would take much longer. Regaining the earlier relative advantage could then remain impossible.