It's funny, because a similar story played out between britain and the US with machine tool technology. The british were the first to go through the industrial

It's funny, because a similar story played out between britain and the US with machine tool technology. The british were the first to go through the industrial revolution and had the best, most precise machine tool technology. They banned export of this technology to the USA. Well, turns out you can bootstrap precision, moving from less precise to more precise machine tools if you're careful manage your errors well. Soon enough, the USA had caught up and then pulled ahead in machine tool technology.