[hevi_jos]

You are confusing two different things: Reality and perception of reality.

All countries in the world strive to "steal" tech from those that have it. USA itself "stole" the designs of industrial mills and presses and machine tools from Britain while it was forbidden with capital punishment.

Th USA also "stole" nuclear tech from Germany, that was the first to fission the atom or the first to create semiconductor diodes. They just gave the guys working on that on Europe much better quality of life. The jet engines of Germany (operation Paperclip), their rockets, the chemical industry traveled to the US after the war.

Today the US spy on communications worldwide and the biggest application for it is industrial espionage. With things like Intel ME on every computer or your real name registered on it, it becomes extremely simple to steal the designs created on those computers when you have control of this hardware(intel is an American company and they are required to "cooperate" with secret services).

[eastendguy]

> it becomes extremely simple to steal the designs created on those computers

If it is so simple, so how does it work? (It might or might not happen, but it is certainly not simple or known)

[tonyhb]

Nah, the UK developed nuclear weapons first and gave them to America.