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Legitimately: Could they actually do this? The EU still has so many dependencies on tech provided by the US that could be turned off pretty much immediately whi
by FreezerburnV 9mo ago
Legitimately: Could they actually do this? The EU still has so many dependencies on tech provided by the US that could be turned off pretty much immediately which would shut the country down. How are they supposed to fight back if their government stops because Microsoft shuts down their Azure accounts, Outlook, Teams, etc.?
- impossiblefork 9mo agoI mean, war is war. You work on paper if you have to. So of course we could.
- embedding-shape 9mo agoSame goes the other way, the US has dependencies on Europe when it comes to various technologies, that would stop immediately if the US decides to be violent towards its allies. I'm sure Europe could survive without Microsoft Office, what would the US do if they stop being able to get machine tooling since that industry all but disappeared in the US, and the US doesn't have any allies left?
- riffraff 9mo agoRussia has been theoretically cut off from advanced machinery for years, the west just started selling stuff to central asian countries who resell it to Russia and we all behave as if it's normal.
- TitaRusell 9mo agoIt is normal because this has happened with every sanction. Russia is now forced to pay smugglers marked up prices for their stuff. The whole thing has been a war of attrition from day one. What Putin can't buy is soldiers. Every day another 1000 casualties.
- elektor 9mo agoPutin can and has bought soldiers (Wagner Group and North Koreans).
- John23832 9mo agoAnd apparently Kenyans. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-23/kenyans-lured-to-russia-for-jobs-wind-up-fighting-in-ukraine https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-23/kenyans-l...
- nradov 9mo agoAnd apparently Indians. Unfortunately the worldwide supply of poor and desperate young men is virtually infinite so Russia will be able to recruit more mercenaries as long as they have cash from fossil fuel exports. https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20251111-deceived-and-deployed-russia-recruits-indians-as-cannon-fodder-on-the-ukrainian-front https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20251111-deceived-and-dep...
- _DeadFred_ 9mo agoHuh? Haas 100% supports Russia and does whatever they can to get them stuff. The owner personally is pro-Russia. F Haas, and f' Formula1 with the Haas racing team.
- nradov 9mo agoHaas Automation claims this is incorrect. I don't know what the truth is here but there seem to be two sides to the story. https://www.haasf1team.com/news/team-statement https://www.haasf1team.com/news/team-statement
- _DeadFred_ 9mo agoThe Department of the Treasury thinks they violated sanctions and they were required to pay over a million dollars in fines. I'm not sure how you make 'two side to the story' out of that? https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/933956/download?inline https://ofac.treasury.gov/media/933956/download?inline
- palmotea 9mo ago> Russia has been theoretically cut off from advanced machinery for years, the west just started selling stuff to central asian countries who resell it to Russia and we all behave as if it's normal. China makes advanced machinery, and Russia also buys from them.
- SR2Z 9mo agoThe truth is that Russia is suffering because of this, but they've been able to maintain a semblance of normality by building some parts themselves and obtaining the rest from China. Their fleet of Boeing and Airbus jetliners is slowly falling apart. They're extracting chips from washing machines to put in missiles. They're even sending soldiers to the front lines in flimsy electric golf carts. The sanctions are not working as well as the US hoped but they are working.
- rwmj 9mo agoSome tech companies have been gaming this out. It's also an unspoken reason that hyperscalers are offering sovereign cloud initiatives.
- piva00 9mo agoThe EU also has technologies the US is completely dependent on, advanced industries need European tech to function. The tech stuff from the US is much easier to replace than the US developing litography machines on the level of ASML.
- dataflow 9mo agoIs there any reason to believe the US wouldn't use force to address this?
- impossiblefork 9mo agoI'm not the one you're asking, but how do you mean? This scenario is that the EU and the US would be at war with one another, so each would of course use military means to deal with its deficiencies.
- dataflow 9mo agoYou can imagine anything from the US trying to steal any valuable materials or information related to lithography that it can, to actively destroying what it can't usefully steal, right? It's not like both sides would just sit there and declare foreign strategically-important companies off-limits.
- impossiblefork 9mo agoYes, of course. Both would presumably proceed in that way. Microchip factories etc. are very reasonable targets in a war.
- Zigurd 9mo agoYes. There's been no invasion of Canada, which is actively waging retaliatory economic war on the US.
- dataflow 9mo ago
- hdgvhicv 9mo agoIBM split into subsidiaries with ww2, selling to both sides, didn’t do them any harm.
- eesmith 9mo agoThere are two large pharmaceutical companies named Merck, because of WWI. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_%26_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merck_%26_Co. > In 1887 a German-born, long-time Merck employee, Theodore Weicker, went to the United States to represent Merck Group.[8] In 1891, with $200,000 received from E. Merck, Weicker started Merck & Co., with headquarters in lower Manhattan. ... > After the U.S. entered World War I, due to its German connections, Merck & Co. was the subject of expropriation under the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917.[10] The government seized 80 percent of the shares owned by the German parent company and sold it. ... Merck & Co. holds the trademark rights to the "Merck" name in the United States and Canada, while its former parent company retains the rights in the rest of the world; the right to use the Merck name was the subject of litigation between the two companies in 2016.
- jhjkhkjyuiyuoij 9mo ago[dead]
- flowerthoughts 9mo agoPresumably EU governments require data to be in European datacenters. Those would be seized.
- throw0101c 9mo ago> How are they supposed to fight back if their government stops because Microsoft shuts down their Azure accounts, Outlook, Teams, etc.? Tell ASML that that they couldn't ship any new machines or parts to the US. Tell TSMC that if they want to receive ASML machines/parts they cannot send chips they make with ASML machines to the US. There are US-made parts in ASML machines (AIUI). The two major chip design software companies are also American. So we're in a M.A.D. situation when it comes to tech.
- vdupras 9mo agoIt's as if, like, the whole tech supply chain could crumble overnight.
- SR2Z 9mo agoThank God our president is known for making cool, rational decisions, or else we might be screwed.
- Chris2048 9mo ago> Tell TSMC that Interesting. what would be in the best interests of Taiwan here? It seems Europe is even less likely to shield it from Chinese aggression/invasion.
- palmotea 9mo ago> Legitimately: Could they actually do this? The EU still has so many dependencies on tech provided by the US that could be turned off pretty much immediately which would shut the country down. How are they supposed to fight back if their government stops because Microsoft shuts down their Azure accounts, Outlook, Teams, etc.? Or more relevantly: shuts down the flow of spare parts and supplies for military equipment. Globalization makes this kind of stuff hard to reason about. The end result will probably be something like China can go to war (and win) whenever it wants, and no one else can fight without Chinese permission. The reason is the Chinese seems to be the only ones smart enough to prioritize manufacturing capacity and actually keeping their supply chains local, while everyone else's military supply chains will be low capacity and/or intersect with a Chinese choke point.
- nradov 9mo agoChina lacks internal supply chains for many crucial commodities including fossil fuels, soybeans, iron, copper, fertilizers, etc. They are themselves quite vulnerable to import disruptions and have minimal capability to secure their sea lines of communication beyond the first island chain.