That said, we should be somewhat worried about desperation-fueled endeavours.
For example, Fourier Transform was there but no one use it because it is too slow and there was no urgency to use it until the nuclear testings were common place. In order to detect underground nuclear testing there was an urgency to detect the events using Fourier Transform and voila Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) was invented to speed up it up considerably without loosing the accuracy. Then we have Fast Inverse Fourier Transform and the rest is history.
Another great example was the need for robust command and control (C & C) during the Cold War. US military was looking for C & C infrastructure that can survive nuclear catastrophe and voila the Internet was invented. People keep denying this fact but since it's initially and fully funded by DARPA, it's kind of giving away the main motivations. The basic tenet of the Internet design is essentially to have a highly reliable communication in the face of nearly total or 99% infrastructure destruction. If I can recall correctly someone actually simulated the 99% infrastructure down scenario and the results US Internet is still working fine, and if someone know this report or publication please let me know the original source.
It's also a very common practices in many countries to have isolated and reliable nationwide network infrastructure for emergency usages for example disaster management purposes including military operations.
I think this is how humans and maybe most living things work.
Motivation is not that easy to come by.
Israel is threatened by resource-constrained guerrillas, not well-funded / nuclear-powered military like Taiwan and South Korea are.
Further, resource constrained guerrilla/terrorist groups love valuable targets like a $25B factory that provides a critical input for a significant portion of the global economy.
If they were well-armed by the West, they'd be called a military.
> love valuable targets like a $25B factory
Until 7 Oct, Israel had proven more than capable of protecting its assets (at a cost). Since 7 Oct, it looks like they seek to do that once again (at a cost). I don't think megacorps are worried that much given none of the G7 really seems to care about those costs.
There's actually an argument to be made that we wouldn't even be having this conversation unless the Viet Cong existed. The Internet and modern distributed networks are a direct consequence of western intervention in SEA and the creation of counter-insurgency.
You and others are making the same mistakes as the USSR and others have when countering Islamic Insurgency.The USSR's underestimation of Afghan fighters was their downfall, it's why they called Afghanistan the graveyard of empire, and I would not be surprised at all If we see Isreal meet a similar fate because of this exact same ignorance. In fact I'd bet my entire net worth that is the outcome based on what I see currently. The insane confidence, as displayed by your comment is a great summary of this type of ignorance.
Taiwan has transitioned from an authoritarian regime under martial law (lifted in 1987) to a vibrant democracy. Regular, free elections have become a norm, and political power transitions smoothly.
Taiwan's economy has grown significantly, becoming one of the "Four Asian Tigers" with a strong technology sector. Companies like TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) are global leaders.
Taiwan has seen advancements in social issues, such as becoming the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in 2019.
South Korea has also moved from a period of military dictatorship to a stable, democratic society with regular and peaceful elections.
South Korea has transformed from a war-torn country in the 1950s to one of the world's largest economies, excelling in technology, automotive, and other industries. It is home to major global brands like Samsung, Hyundai, and LG.
South Korea has made significant strides in education, healthcare, and quality of life. Its cultural exports, like K-pop and Korean dramas, have gained international popularity, enhancing its soft power.
Comments about comments being LLM generated are getting old pretty fast though.
People need to understand fabs are both skilled labor and automation intensive. Apart from that there are supplier ecosystems that only exist in those regions. Korea and Taiwan needed to have globalized export economies. Their education standards and culture are a good fit for scale manufacturing, both still had conscription military service. The labor at the time 80-90’s and currently is still highly competitive for their skilled labor force.
EU semiconductor is not a joke but the tools and wafer size are not state of art. I know EUV machine is a product of EU, but that moonshot tool is something that can only come out of a long dev government subsidized program like CERN and the bosson. They aren’t exporting that tool into the EU too it’s going right to Asia.
The EU is full of high living standards and well educated people but the semiconductor production is mainly serving local consumption (or local companies supply chains, automotive parts). EU does research but that doesn’t translate to at scale fabs.
EU gets protective and wants to secure local supply for their own tool vendors and needs to understand that smaller local machine brands cannot compete with the majors for the run of mill machines. EUV is a different story that thing is anomaly and power to them for following up on it.
Also strong labor organizations don’t attract capital. And semiconductor cannot take the month of August off.
US has capital and plenty of cheap land and cheap labor but still more expensive than Asia standards. Depending on state non existent labor protections and competitive environment permits. Not great education standards. Excellent skilled immigration. But still not leading in semi production especially with the old guard just keep losing. Still strong #2 though. And the ecosystem is nowhere near as integrated as Seoul. Like would you leave your hame family and friends in Oregon to startup a next gen Fab in Phoenix? No way. Geography isn’t doing US favors there for dynamism.
Your complaint is basically that some countries in potential conflict zones ended up being economically successful.
(btw, Intel actually has a lot of production capacity in the US[1]. The US don't need Taiwan and SK intact for bare minimum survival in an unlikely event of a global thermonuclear war)
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_semiconductor_fabricat...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_si...
Related if you look at "(R&D) expenditure as share of gross domestic product (GDP)" the top are (https://www.statista.com/statistics/732269/worldwide-researc...)
1 Israel
2 S Korea
3 Taiwan
4 USA