Letters to the Editor
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Stolen Tech
When we saw that, we mobilized all our industrial and human resources and we outpaced the Soviet space program with our brains and determination.
Yes, our German scientists worked harder than their German scientists. We didn't just steal the technology, we stole the scientists themselves!
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Operation Paperclip
The quote as well as your post both ignore that much of the Soviet and American space initiatives were fueled by German scientists, notably Wernher von Braun.
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Gee...
...sounds a lot like what investment firms and other corporate entities do. Buy the technology they haven't developed by acquisition and merger. Apparently the "free market" isn't so holy when it's one's own ox being gored. (Yeah, I know that was a terrible mixed metaphor).
I wouldn't be surprised if the real, underlying issue is that the people selling the technology aren't cutting in the Bush Administration and their cronies--or not cutting them in enough. Damned upstart entrepreneurs.
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Go read the public charter of the French intelligence service
Industrial espionage against anyone including their allies is an official and officially blessed component of their activities. Or if you'd prefer to simply give away millions or billions in sunk R+D, I guess you could. Also - a good classified technical manual is probably worth at least as much as a replacement part.
BTW there is one country in the world that purports to still maintain and use F-14's. It's Iran. And considering that the PRC has put men in orbit and has some cumbersome ASAT capability, you shouldn't short sell their wish to jump ahead their aerospace programs as quickly as possible through any means possible.
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Anyone read "Unrestricted Warfare"?
It's available for free online. Published by the PLA (People's Liberation Army [of the PRC]) it outlines the modern view of warfare along all axes. Anyone interested in China's desire to become a world power should thumb through it.
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What about India
I notice that Bush left out India, who does have a habit of stealing our technology, and IS an industrial competitor, but did include Iran who is about 30 years behind us in everything and will never be able to compete with our industrial base.
Ulterior motive?
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Are they going to ban the export of portable GPS?
Oh, wait, we import those. And someone with even a small amount of electronics talent could use them for some very nasty devices indeed.
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Industrial and Military espionage is as old as civilization ...
Most of this technology transfer is done by our patriotic corporations opening plants in cheap labor markets . What they are seeing are companies popping up using their ideas and profiting without any R&D.
Corporations are cutting our throats , with technology transfer , outsourcing manufacturing and funneling the profits through off shore bank accounts .
But then again , they could just incorporate in Qatar , like Halliburton.
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@Alan Lloyd
Good point, but slightly off.
Regarding those GPS dongles being dangerous. Many of the commodity GPS chips/receivers are designed to get flakey above certain speeds/altitudes. So, the delivery vehicle would need to be a slowish plane instead of a rocket.
I also find it particularly funny that DoD likes dual use technology (meaning they can buy parts through normal commercial channels) and then gets irate when those same technologies are available through commercial channels.
Another good example is computer CPUs. Lots of them are imported from Taiwan. About 8 years ago, I took delivery of a few dozen and tried to ship them to the UK for installation. Getting a permit was a real chore because they were "defense related." In the end, it was cheaper to have a new box shipped straight from Taiwan to the UK. And that was before "911 911 911!".
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HaHaHaaa
"When we saw that, we mobilized all our industrial and human resources and we outpaced the Soviet space program with our brains and determination."
Or, rather, we wooed all the "human resources"- scientists and engineers from the Soviet Bloc and Germany- back to America following WWII, and had them mobilize to outpace the Soviet space program. A$$holes.
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Oh, yeah
as far as F-14 parts, we've been selling them around the globe for a good while now. Maybe their just pissed because third parties are making the profit margin, not the gov't. We've gotta have something to shoot down with our next-gen airfighters.
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F-14 parts have been restricted for years
In fact the AF isn't allowed to even keep any around as monuments. They have to be cut up.
In as much as the Soviets beat us into space - there was a good reason for it. They kept their atomic weapon and missile programs separate from one another. The missile weenies had no idea how big a rocket they would need so they overbuilt by at least a factor of 3. Right away they had a rocket they could send into orbit. Then they slapped together the payload in 90 days because it had to do nothing but exist and hold together. Also you'll note that hundreds of people have died in 3CP era rocket disasters. Hundreds. A big part of cutting edge technology is making sure it doesn't kill you. If you don't care about that you do things pretty rapidly. For instance - Chernobyl. A 1950's era RBMK design reactor with none of the safety systems that were used even in Three Mile Island. For instance the 3CP nuclear sub program. Pretty much a complete failure with at least 5 critical sub losses because or reactor failures, fires or noxious fumes killing their crews.
Our 'Project Paperclip' Germans who put together the rocket program didn't really do an awful lot until the mid 50's. And because of interagency problems the Army, Navy and Air Force all had competing rocket programs with no sharing of resources. That's why we were so far behind. It wasn't 'our' Germans it was our organization.
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Are we still trying hard?
Impugning the technological manhood of other countries seems kind of dumb. What, you want them to get mad and try even harder?
They're already trying pretty hard. One indicator is the number of science and engineering Ph.D.s granted in the U.S. The total number hit a peak in 2005 (the last time I looked at the data), but the number of those degrees granted to U.S. citizens was slightly below the 2001 level. That 1950s effort in the U.S. was great, but we can't coast on it indefinitely.