This is a tough one close to my heart.<p>Working in semicon back in the 80’s, my dad travelled once to the Soviet Union for a semicon show.<p>Once returned, he had a debrief with someone from an intelligence agency.<p>But the fact is that during the Cold War stealing some semiconductors was of limited utility without the directly associated and massive sunk cost of the semicon fab supply chain.<p>So in some respects, we may have over-classified and been too aggressive with export controls, however the Toshiba-Kongsberg scandal did help the Soviets to substantially reduce submarine propeller noise.<p>Today, when you mix several off the shelf capabilities they can be recombined into a new capability with significant military applications.<p>Even describing some of these examples in sufficient detail could be enough to lose perishable advantage over an adversary.<p>I don’t know what the answer is or agree with mass export controls, but I also see the problem of dual use technology transfer to adversaries as much harder today than the Cold War of yesterday.