I'm surprised that there's been no mention of Operation Paperclip, neither in the article nor in the comments here. Seems like a huge part of the story to leave out.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

Being the sole western industrialized nation that hadn't just had most of their infrastructure bombed to rubble can't have hurt.

There are a couple fundamental flaws here:

One is that the number one Science and Engineering powerhouse prior to WWII was Germany, not Britain.

Two this totally neglects that the US received the lion's share of Scientists and Mathematicians from countries like Germany, Hungary, Poland etc with the encroachment of the Soviets and persecution of the Jewish people.

While the down up approach of the US and heavy funding probably helped a lot. Bringing in the Von Neumanns and Erdos of the world couldn't have hurt.

Worth reading in its entirety. The following four paragraphs, about post-WWII funding of science in Britain versus the US, are spot-on, in my view:

> Britain’s focused, centralized model using government research labs was created in a struggle for short-term survival. They achieved brilliant breakthroughs but lacked the scale, integration and capital needed to dominate in the post-war world.

> The U.S. built a decentralized, collaborative ecosystem, one that tightly integrated massive government funding of universities for research and prototypes while private industry built the solutions in volume.

> A key component of this U.S. research ecosystem was the genius of the indirect cost reimbursement system. Not only did the U.S. fund researchers in universities by paying the cost of their salaries, the U.S. gave universities money for the researchers facilities and administration. This was the secret sauce that allowed U.S. universities to build world-class labs for cutting-edge research that were the envy of the world. Scientists flocked to the U.S. causing other countries to complain of a “brain drain.”

> Today, U.S. universities license 3,000 patents, 3,200 copyrights and 1,600 other licenses to technology startups and existing companies. Collectively, they spin out over 1,100 science-based startups each year, which lead to countless products and tens of thousands of new jobs. This university/government ecosystem became the blueprint for modern innovation ecosystems for other countries.

The author's most important point is at the very end of the OP:

> In 2025, with the abandonment of U.S. government support for university research, the long run of U.S. dominance in science may be over.

>> Prior to WWII the U.S was a distant second in science and engineering. By the time the war was over, U.S. science and engineering had blown past the British, and led the world for 85 years.

Citation needed. The United States has been a scientific powerhouse for most of its history. On the eve of WWII the United States was the largest producer of automobiles, airplanes and railway trains on earth. It had largest telegraph system, the largest phone system, the most Radio/TV/Movie production & distribution or any country. It had the highest electricity generation. The largest petroleum production/refining capacity. The list goes on. This lead in production was driven by local innovations. Petroleum, electricity, telephones, automobiles and airplanes were all first pioneered in the United States during late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We can debate the causes of this but saying that the United States was a 2nd tier power behind the British or the Germans is demonstrably false.