If the DoD got scared and threw a few billion at a competition to build this tech locally, I’m betting it could be done relatively quickly, but then what is and is not “quick”

Just call the three or four companies you think would be the closest and tell them they’ll be competing to build the capacity paid for by the defense department.

If you don't have the right people and the right environment, throwing more money at a problem can be enormously inefficient, it doesn't solve every problem.

There are many example of big government funded projects that crumble under their own weight, despite being inundated with cash. Look at NASA's SLS, the DoD's trillion dollar plane projects, big government software projects in general.

For truly large, complex systems, it's not enough to throw more money at the problem. You need an organization that can manage the complexity in the first place, otherwise you can spend as many years and trillions as you want with little to show for it.

You know, expertise does not grow on trees. It was not an accident the manhattan project and moon landings were led by specialists from Germany.

You can't suddenly create experts by throwing money at random business people.

What if everyone who knows how already works for ASML? Then starting up a competing corporation and sniping talent would actually slow down recovery. I'm sure the cost-benefit-analysis has already been done.

to be honest, high level semiconductor lithography would be similar to manhattan project complexity. It could be done, but there's a reason nobody but ASML makes these.

I don’t think you understand, ASML does not have any competitors at its level. They are alone on the bleeding edge of semiconductor tooling.

If all it took was a few billion dollars, don’t you think someone would have already funded it and started a profitable company?

Perhaps you should read the mythical man-month. Throwing resources at the problem doesn't suddenly make it go away in knowledge cases.