Nuclear weapons are orders of magnitude more powerful than conventional alternatives, which helps explain why many countries developed and continued to stockpile them despite international efforts to limit nuclear proliferation.
History is replete with similar examples. In the 15th and 16th centuries, Catholic monarchies attempted to limit the printing press through licensing and censorship, but ultimately failed to curtail the growth of Protestantism. In the early 19th century, Britain made it illegal to export industrial machinery, but their designs were still smuggled abroad, enabling industries to emerge elsewhere in Europe and the United States.
My favourite example of technological controls (export controls, really) working quite successfully is Chinese control of silk technology. China maintained a near-exclusive monopoly over sericulture for many centuries even after the emergence of the Silk Road, from ~100 BCE to 200-600 CE, depending on how you count, although the Chinese had practiced sericulture at least since at least the 4th millennium BCE. (It seems to some extent the technology diffused eastward to Korea earlier than 200-300 CE, and to Japan shortly after that time too, but in any case China successfully prevented it from diffusing westward for a long time.)
The Chinese monopoly was maintained for a long time despite enormous incentives to acquire silk production technology, which was an tremendous source of wealth for China. The Chinese emperors seem to have imposed the death penalty on anyone who revealed silk production secrets or exported silkworms.
Then, after that, the Byzantine Empire held a European monopoly for centuries, from about the 6th century to 900-1200 CE, fully ending with the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople in 1204. Like China, the Byzantines also strictly guarded sericulture technology jealously, and they limited production to imperial factories.
Granted, controlling technological diffusion back then was quite a different task than doing so in the 21st century.
The authors write
My favourite example of technological controls (export controls, really) working quite successfully is Chinese control of silk technology. China maintained a near-exclusive monopoly over sericulture for many centuries even after the emergence of the Silk Road, from ~100 BCE to 200-600 CE, depending on how you count, although the Chinese had practiced sericulture at least since at least the 4th millennium BCE. (It seems to some extent the technology diffused eastward to Korea earlier than 200-300 CE, and to Japan shortly after that time too, but in any case China successfully prevented it from diffusing westward for a long time.)
The Chinese monopoly was maintained for a long time despite enormous incentives to acquire silk production technology, which was an tremendous source of wealth for China. The Chinese emperors seem to have imposed the death penalty on anyone who revealed silk production secrets or exported silkworms.
Then, after that, the Byzantine Empire held a European monopoly for centuries, from about the 6th century to 900-1200 CE, fully ending with the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople in 1204. Like China, the Byzantines also strictly guarded sericulture technology jealously, and they limited production to imperial factories.
Granted, controlling technological diffusion back then was quite a different task than doing so in the 21st century.
Yeah, things happened pretty slowly in general back then.