The Real Cost of De-Industrialization

I was reading an article today regarding the Chinese eventually making a foray into the North American auto market, which got me thinking. What will happen, say 20 years from now, we keep going, and sure, we do other things in the economy (knowledge industries, etc) but lose our industrial base. Then it hit me: we lose our ability to turn ploughshares into swords! That alone should leave us to ponder...