Lots of shady missile deals went down in West Asia/North Africa in the 60/70s. Somewhat related: Israel was collaborating with Iran on missile projects but allegedly planned to deceive them by providing outdated missiles while using Iranian funds to develop superior versions for themselves [0].
This is something that’s actively happening nowadays as well. One way to slow down a country development is hunting its top scientists that are working in military tech.
In recent years US has been hit so hard, probably it will have even worse side effects since this discourages other scientists from following that career path as well.
If you want an interesting related story that's so incredible people wouldn't believe if it was a film plot, look up Otrag. Not the Wikipedia page, that only tells a fraction of the full story. There's a documentary floating around somewhere about their work in Zaire under Mobutu before they started building ballistic missiles for Gaddafi.
Both cases remind me of Project Harp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP). After the project was shut down by the US and Canada, the engineer behind it (Gerald Bull) decided to work for Saddam Hussein to build a "Babylon Cannon" which then caused Mossad to 'intervene' in 1990:
I wonder how many similar but unknown cases there are involving former Soviet scientists and engineers trying their luck with 3rd world despots after the Soviet Union collapsed.
PS: just remembered that Willy Messerschmitt also ended up building a jet fighter for Egypt after the project was abandondend by Spain. Egypt then also eventually cancelled the project in 1969 though and instead decided to become close buddies with the Soviet Union - I wonder if that decision saved Messerschmitts from the same fate as Krug and Bull:
Lots of shady missile deals went down in West Asia/North Africa in the 60/70s. Somewhat related: Israel was collaborating with Iran on missile projects but allegedly planned to deceive them by providing outdated missiles while using Iranian funds to develop superior versions for themselves [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Flower
This is something that’s actively happening nowadays as well. One way to slow down a country development is hunting its top scientists that are working in military tech.
In recent years US has been hit so hard, probably it will have even worse side effects since this discourages other scientists from following that career path as well.
https://archive.ph/d7dLv
If you want an interesting related story that's so incredible people wouldn't believe if it was a film plot, look up Otrag. Not the Wikipedia page, that only tells a fraction of the full story. There's a documentary floating around somewhere about their work in Zaire under Mobutu before they started building ballistic missiles for Gaddafi.
Both cases remind me of Project Harp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_HARP). After the project was shut down by the US and Canada, the engineer behind it (Gerald Bull) decided to work for Saddam Hussein to build a "Babylon Cannon" which then caused Mossad to 'intervene' in 1990:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Bull
I wonder how many similar but unknown cases there are involving former Soviet scientists and engineers trying their luck with 3rd world despots after the Soviet Union collapsed.
PS: just remembered that Willy Messerschmitt also ended up building a jet fighter for Egypt after the project was abandondend by Spain. Egypt then also eventually cancelled the project in 1969 though and instead decided to become close buddies with the Soviet Union - I wonder if that decision saved Messerschmitts from the same fate as Krug and Bull:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helwan_HA-300