Finding Adversaries Hiding in the Defense Department’s Supply Chains
Christine Michienzi
March 12, 2025
Could the Chinese Communist Party “page” U.S. servicemembers, the way the Mossad did to Hizballah on Sept. 17, 2024, in one of the most daring deception operations in living memory? It is possible.
The Department of Defense does not fully understand the breadth and depth of its supply chain. Former Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment William LaPlante revealed how difficult this problem had become for the U.S. military services and the defense industry that supports it. An industry executive first “thought he had 300 suppliers,” LaPlante reported in a September 2022 press briefing, “then he discovered no, when he counted all of his suppliers, he probably had 3,000.”
Today’s supply chains are increasingly sprawling and complex, with critical materials and components often sourced from adversarial or single-source entities. While there are some restrictions on sourcing from China, the limitations do not apply to all Defense Department systems, so pervasive risk remains: An adversarial source could tamper with a small, unassuming part to a weapon system or platform, as Israeli intelligence did by booby trapping Hizballah pagers.
https://warontherocks.com/2025/03/finding-adversaries-hiding-in-the-defense-departments-supply-chains/
