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Comment by FreezerburnV | Hacker News Reader

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.?

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Same 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?

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.

It 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.

Putin can and has bought soldiers (Wagner Group and North Koreans).

And apparently Kenyans.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-23/kenyans-l...

And 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-dep...

Huh? 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.

Haas 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

The 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

> 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.

The 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.

> 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.

It's as if, like, the whole tech supply chain could crumble overnight.

Thank God our president is known for making cool, rational decisions, or else we might be screwed.

> 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.

The 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.

Is there any reason to believe the US wouldn't use force to address this?

Yes. There's been no invasion of Canada, which is actively waging retaliatory economic war on the US.

It seems naive to assume Canada isn't on Trump's shopping list given he has said the exact opposite in the past, though I'm also not sure I understand what you mean/what that had to do with my comment.

It's naive to think there isn't already a 5th column at work.

This guy:

https://provincialtimes.ca/questions-mount-over-jamil-jivani...

Is best buds with the VP:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/trum...

Premiers are also being courted:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/alberta-danielle-smit...

And there's some sketchy things going on in her province:

https://www.desmog.com/2025/07/22/trump-officials-discussed-...

Honestly feels like we're asleep at the wheel as a country..

Yeah, our Premier is doing her best to be as lobbyist as she can, if it ain't American oil n gas she doesn't care.

I'm stupid, so I still haven't figured out how both of these petitions were approved, other than she really wants a referendum on separation.

https://www.thealbertan.com/innisfail-news/forever-canadian-...

https://lethbridgenewsnow.com/2026/01/02/citizen-petition-on...

What do you think a sucker punch is?

I'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.

You 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.

Yes, of course. Both would presumably proceed in that way. Microchip factories etc. are very reasonable targets in a war.

This whole thread is about the case where the US goes to war with the EU (taking Greenland is war, no matter how the Trump admin tries to spin it).

That's exactly what I'm talking about too. Some combination of intelligence/military operations would almost certainly target companies like ASML during war, no? Why would you assume its assets would stay intact and remain on the Europe side?

Would ASML be able to produce these machines without parts from the US? My guess is no, because they represent the culmination of decades of research across the entire developed world.

Some tech companies have been gaming this out. It's also an unspoken reason that hyperscalers are offering sovereign cloud initiatives.

Presumably EU governments require data to be in European datacenters. Those would be seized.

IBM split into subsidiaries with ww2, selling to both sides, didn’t do them any harm.

There are two large pharmaceutical companies named Merck, because of WWI. From 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.

I mean, war is war. You work on paper if you have to.

So of course we could.

> 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.

China 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.

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