If you're trying to compete with some country who can do things that you can't and there's nobody to be found who knows how to do the thing, isn't teaching your people the obvious thing to do?

The cost of not doing so will be cumulative, so sooner or later the ROI will be there. It's just a matter of how bad things need to get first. That is, unless there's something else we've got going for us that we can fall back on, but I'm not sure what that thing might be--we've been busy dismantling contenders for the job lately.