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related: Israel was collaborating with Iran on missile projects but allegedly planned to deceive them by providing outdated missiles while using Iranian funds to develop superior versions for themselves [0].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.
> hunting its top scientists [...] this discourages other scientists from following that career path
I take it you mean this literally (assassinations) rather than figuratively (getting hired by the competition).
> In recent years US has been hit so hard
Any evidence of this? Other than the storm in a cup that was the recent news of "dead scientists" that turned out to be a nothingburger.
The idea sounds very plausible and it happens again and again elsewhere (e.g. Israel keeps taking out Iranian scientists). But I haven't heard anything major from the US, and I doubt the US would take it lightly and keep everything quiet, especially with the current admin who would kill for more media distractions for the people.
You normally don't hear about these things if/when they happen, there is no official reaction, and you don't normally hear about the retaliation, either.
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 Messerschmitt from the same fate as Krug and Bull:
China built secret research citys that were essential hermeticly sealed, down to growing there own food, and these days have built such a secureity focused comunication system that any attempts to recruit asassins is going to require money and infuence that doesn't exist, as internaly all of those functions are arms of the state.
Over and over China demonstrates it's dedication to there only rule: dont mess with the brand.
During the first round of the Hormuz crisis, China parked two ships right in the middle of the action, one which is the worlds largest and most powerfull signals intelligence data processing ships, and the other a very large brand new missle cruiser, and then three weeks ago China delivered to Iran a pre agreed upon shipment of brand new MANPADS.
It gets worse as Russia and Iran have demonstrated high acuracy manouverable hypersonic missles, and that there a drones everywhere. The drones are worse in that they are unatributable, perfect false/no flag weapons of terror, murder and mayhem.
So, you know, here we go, into what I call "whatever this is", where our technologys are rapidly approaching the limits imposed by universal laws, but we are still the same
bunch of cheating ,lying, scheeming, steeling, murdering, monkeys.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Project_Flower
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.
I take it you mean this literally (assassinations) rather than figuratively (getting hired by the competition).
> In recent years US has been hit so hard
Any evidence of this? Other than the storm in a cup that was the recent news of "dead scientists" that turned out to be a nothingburger.
The idea sounds very plausible and it happens again and again elsewhere (e.g. Israel keeps taking out Iranian scientists). But I haven't heard anything major from the US, and I doubt the US would take it lightly and keep everything quiet, especially with the current admin who would kill for more media distractions for the people.
That being said: https://edition.cnn.com/2026/04/21/us/deaths-disappearances-...
Me, living in EU, have seen the evils of MENA.
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 Messerschmitt from the same fate as Krug and Bull:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helwan_HA-300
https://youtube.com/watch?v=EA0XfkboFIY