Report Warns of Military Relying on Offshore Suppliers
WASHINGTON -- A newly released report outlining vulnerabilities in U.S. security and the national defense supply network due to overreliance on foreign suppliers for critical defense materials will have a “huge impact” on shifting the conversation, U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan says.
Ryan, D-13 Ohio, joined retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John Adams, president of Guardian Six Consulting; U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks, R-5 Ala., and Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, yesterday to discuss the new report, Remaking American Security.
“In almost every congressional district you can have a story -- or 10 or 20 -- of manufacturers who have been hurt by the Department of Defense’s lack of initiative in promoting American-made products,” the Niles Democrat remarked.
“We incur unacceptable national security risks as we outsource key sectors of our defense industrial base and offshore production of our most advanced technologies,” Ryan warned.
The report, prepared by Guardian Six, a defense and national security consulting firm, outlines several areas of vulnerability due to reliance on nondomestic suppliers, Adams said. These include a shift from parts made to military specifications to faulty or counterfeit off-the-shelf parts made offshore in sectors such as semiconductors, telecommunications equipment and fasteners that began two decades ago. The parts “often lack the quality control necessary to meet the rigorous standards we expect of our military equipment,” he said.
Additionally, telecommunications networks increasingly use operating equipment manufactured in China, providing manufacturers there the opportunity to embed malicious code and install electronic backdoors in U.S. military communications networks, Adams added. China is the “sole source” for a critical element of the Hellfire missile and “has already shown its willingness to restrict exports of critical resources to achieve political or economic goals,” he said.
Such production shifts also risk the United States losing the capacity to design and field emerging battlefield technologies, Adams said.
Among the report’s recommendations are increasing long-term investment in high-technology industries, particularly those involving advanced research and manufacturing; properly applying and enforcing existing laws and regulations to support the U.S. Defense industrial base, and developing domestic sources of key natural resources.
Ryan pointed to the impact in the Mahoning Valley and nearby western Pennsylvania. Because of currency manipulation, China is able to provide finished tube product at a price equivalent to the materials cost for Wheatland Tube. He noted that the sponge used for titanium comes from Russia and that where at one time there were nine or 10 titanium companies in the United States, there are now only two or three. “You can see in every congressional district examples like this that are decimating the manufacturing base,” he remarked.
Murphy said he has seen firsthand in Connecticut the impact of current policy. A specialty metals company there that supplies copper-nickel tubing for submarines has seen business dwindle as the manufacturer started sourcing much of that from a European supplier. A specialty metal that goes into night-vision goggles is solely sourced from China. Buy America law was permitted to atrophy and so many loopholes permitted “to render it almost useless,” he complained.
Published by The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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