>be Netherlands
>year is 1602
>release alpha build of multinational capitalism
>create VOC
>company has ships, soldiers, forts, colonies, treaties, and permission to start wars
>Europe looks on nervously as Dutch merchants somehow acquire a foreign policy
>fast forward 400 years
>everyone agrees this was probably a little excessive
>Dutch have become harmless bicycle people
>legal weed
>stroopwafels
>tall blond men calmly explaining flood-control infrastructure
>surely the age of Dutch corporations possessing terrifying geopolitical leverage is over
>enter ASML
>company headquartered in some town called Veldhoven
>sounds like somewhere you'd stop for cheese on the way to Belgium
>actually manufactures the machines required to manufacture the machines required to manufacture modern civilization
>tfw the entire semiconductor industry has a Dutch dependency
>ASML: "we make lithography equipment"
>sounds boring
>look into it
>their EUV machines cost hundreds of millions of dollars each
>contain roughly the technological complexity of an alien artifact recovered at Roswell
>need mirrors polished so precisely that normal concepts of surface roughness start breaking down
>entire global supply chains exist just to build one
>China: "we would like some advanced chipmaking equipment"
>America: "no"
>China: "we weren't asking you"
>America slowly turns toward Netherlands
>Netherlands slowly looks at ASML
>ASML employee quietly closes export-order spreadsheet
>Chinese semiconductor roadmap instantly gains three additional five-year plans
>realize Dutch foreign policy once again consists partly of deciding which Asian powers are allowed access to critical industrial technology
>VOC 1600s:
>"We control the spice routes."
>ASML 2020s:
>"Cute. We control numerical aperture."
>VOC had armed merchantmen
>ASML has a service agreement
>somehow the second one is more frightening
>imagine being a national security advisor
>satellites
>ICBMs
>aircraft carriers
>cyberwarfare
>nuclear deterrence
>and then some Dutch engineer named Jeroen can ruin your strategic semiconductor ambitions because replacement part 8XQ-441B cannot legally be shipped to you
>Jeroen doesn't even know he's participating in great-power competition
>he's eating a ham sandwich at his desk
>Washington delegation arrives in The Hague
>"We need tighter export restrictions."
>Beijing delegation arrives
>"We urge the Netherlands to respect free trade."
>Dutch government realizing the world's two largest powers are lobbying them because of a company founded in 1984 as a Philips spin-off
>VOC shareholders looking up from hell
>"THAT'S MY FUCKING BOY"
>best part is ASML doesn't even make chips
>they make the incomprehensibly complicated photolithography machines that TSMC, Samsung, Intel etc. use to make chips
>it's like discovering that every major navy on Earth buys its shipyards from one company in Eindhoven
>Taiwan Strait crisis analysis:
>50 pages about carrier groups
>30 pages about missile inventories
>20 pages about economic sanctions
>one terrified paragraph beginning with
>"Furthermore, access to ASML lithography systems..."
>modern geopolitical hierarchy
>S-tier: United States, China
>A-tier: EU, India, Japan
>???-tier: one Dutch corporation that can apparently brick your technological development tree
>ASML CEO gets asked about international relations
>probably wants to talk about quarterly bookings
>instead has to carefully explain semiconductor export policy like Metternich with a physics degree
>Netherlands spent centuries gradually dismantling its colonial empire
>then accidentally discovered the true endgame was not controlling territory
>it was controlling the machine that draws 8-billion-transistor anime GPUs onto silicon
>VOC needed thousands of sailors and soldiers to dominate strategic trade
>ASML needs approximately twelve extremely autistic physicists, Zeiss mirrors, and a customer support login
>history doesn't repeat
>but it does apparently rhyme in Dutch
>1602:
>Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie
>2026:
>Advanced Semiconductor Materials Lithography
>same basic national strategy
>find one absurdly important bottleneck in the global economy
>become mysteriously indispensable
>make every major power negotiate with the Netherlands
>the spice must flow
>except now the spice is 2nm logic