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A very large amount of eastern "high tech" lagged behind by a couple of years, because stealing and reverse-engineering the Western designs in order to copy the

A very large amount of eastern "high tech" lagged behind by a couple of years, because stealing and reverse-engineering the Western designs in order to copy them took about that long.

starkd 6y ago
Indeed. They had extensive surveillance and sabotage networks all throughout the world. Simple because it was easier (and cheaper) to just steal it than develop it domestically. With the soviet demise, that apparatus hasn't gone away. Russians and Chinese still work off that approach.
- echelon 6y ago
  How long before they're ahead? Will the West ever have to result to those tactics?
  - PopePompus 6y ago
    It's hard to get ahead by stealing, because you end up under investing in domestic research capability. China probably has a large enough economy to do both theft and cutting-edge research, but the old USSR would never have pulled ahead.
    - p_l 6y ago
      Dropping support for domestic research&development and switching towards "just steal it" are considered part of why USSR failed - and a legacy of Brezhnev era.
  - jariel 6y ago
    I believe everyone is playing the game of industrial espionage in the realm of defence, it's all 'fair game'. It's just that you have to have something worth stealing in order for it to be stolen. Surely 'The West' is analyzing and borrowing every possible concept they can. The thing is, Westerners will have a different view of what 'Public v. Private' means, and 'Open Enterprise' is something completely distinct from 'Government' which is not the case in other parts of the world - hence a lot of ideological confusion.
    - starkd 6y ago
      Good point. I wonder how much it has to do with the very concept of "intellectual property". China seems unfazed by the idea of taking it seriously.
  - RantyDave 6y ago
    Or: open source everything. It's a great way to keep your competitors behind you, provided you're happy with them being /just/ behind you.
pvg 6y ago
It got to be a lot more than a couple of years as time went on and some things - like high precision manufacturing typical in the West is something they never quite pulled off at scale. Dual use (i.e. designing and making things/capacity so that could be repurposed for military use) was a core part of economic policy with predictable results.
jbay808 6y ago
Less so for military equipment. They definitely didn't copy their titanium submarines (which when US intelligence discovered them, the Navy believed to be a false report because they didn't think it would be possible to fabricate). Grid fins weren't copied western tech, either. Nor was Sputnik.
- jonas21 6y ago
  On the other hand... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)
  - jbay808 6y ago
    Buran is much less of a copy than it looks like. It's superficially similar as it has the same mission profile, which was basically because Soviet officials wanted to be able to keep up with whatever nefarious things the Americans might be doing in orbit with such a thing, even if they weren't sure what that would be. But it's far from being a copy in terms of technology, materials, construction, or even major things like the booster. You can read the parent article for more details. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme A much better counterpoint would have been the Tu-4, which was in every detail a reverse-engineered B-29: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4
    - apendleton 6y ago
      Agreed. If anything, the technologically interesting parts compare better to the titanium submarine example, as the RD-170 engine that powered the Energia rocket that lifted the Buran was at least in some ways more sophisticated than anything Americans had at the time, and in particular, used an oxygen-rich staged combustion fuel cycle that American engineers had considered but dismissed as being impossible. Aerojet engineers didn't actually believe the Russians had even built such an engine until they were able to examine one in person after the end of the Cold War.
    - bigbubba 6y ago

A very large amount of eastern "high tech" lagged behind by a couple of years, because stealing and reverse-engineering the Western designs in order to copy them took about that long.

starkd 6y ago

Indeed. They had extensive surveillance and sabotage networks all throughout the world. Simple because it was easier (and cheaper) to just steal it than develop it domestically. With the soviet demise, that apparatus hasn't gone away. Russians and Chinese still work off that approach.

echelon 6y ago
How long before they're ahead? Will the West ever have to result to those tactics?
- PopePompus 6y ago
  It's hard to get ahead by stealing, because you end up under investing in domestic research capability. China probably has a large enough economy to do both theft and cutting-edge research, but the old USSR would never have pulled ahead.
  - p_l 6y ago
    Dropping support for domestic research&development and switching towards "just steal it" are considered part of why USSR failed - and a legacy of Brezhnev era.
- jariel 6y ago
  I believe everyone is playing the game of industrial espionage in the realm of defence, it's all 'fair game'. It's just that you have to have something worth stealing in order for it to be stolen. Surely 'The West' is analyzing and borrowing every possible concept they can. The thing is, Westerners will have a different view of what 'Public v. Private' means, and 'Open Enterprise' is something completely distinct from 'Government' which is not the case in other parts of the world - hence a lot of ideological confusion.
  - starkd 6y ago
    Good point. I wonder how much it has to do with the very concept of "intellectual property". China seems unfazed by the idea of taking it seriously.
- RantyDave 6y ago
  Or: open source everything. It's a great way to keep your competitors behind you, provided you're happy with them being /just/ behind you.

pvg 6y ago

It got to be a lot more than a couple of years as time went on and some things - like high precision manufacturing typical in the West is something they never quite pulled off at scale. Dual use (i.e. designing and making things/capacity so that could be repurposed for military use) was a core part of economic policy with predictable results.

jbay808 6y ago

Less so for military equipment. They definitely didn't copy their titanium submarines (which when US intelligence discovered them, the Navy believed to be a false report because they didn't think it would be possible to fabricate). Grid fins weren't copied western tech, either. Nor was Sputnik.

jonas21 6y ago
On the other hand... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_(spacecraft)
- jbay808 6y ago
  Buran is much less of a copy than it looks like. It's superficially similar as it has the same mission profile, which was basically because Soviet officials wanted to be able to keep up with whatever nefarious things the Americans might be doing in orbit with such a thing, even if they weren't sure what that would be. But it's far from being a copy in terms of technology, materials, construction, or even major things like the booster. You can read the parent article for more details. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buran_programme A much better counterpoint would have been the Tu-4, which was in every detail a reverse-engineered B-29: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-4
  - apendleton 6y ago
    Agreed. If anything, the technologically interesting parts compare better to the titanium submarine example, as the RD-170 engine that powered the Energia rocket that lifted the Buran was at least in some ways more sophisticated than anything Americans had at the time, and in particular, used an oxygen-rich staged combustion fuel cycle that American engineers had considered but dismissed as being impossible. Aerojet engineers didn't actually believe the Russians had even built such an engine until they were able to examine one in person after the end of the Cold War.
  - bigbubba 6y ago