Last week, the U.S. government released the results of a Senate investigation into counterfeit military parts used by U.S. Armed Forces. The probe, conducted by the Senate Armed Services Committee over more than a year, found that counterfeit electronics had found their way into many areas of the Department of Defense’s equipment supply chain.
The report found 1,800 cases of suspected bogus military parts making their way into U.S. military vehicles and assets, totaling an estimated one million individual parts. Examples of the counterfeit parts include components of a night vision system used by the Navy’s SH-60B anti-submarine helicopter, aircraft performance monitoring systems used in C-130 and C-27 cargo planes, and reworked parts in the Navy’s new P8-A multi-mission aircraft.
In each of the examples listed above, the suspected counterfeit came from Chinese companies. In fact, Senate investigators put the vast majority of blame on China, in no small part due to the fact that Chinese official reportedly denied the visas applications of senate staffers attempting to visit China as part of the investigation.
Speaking on the denied visas, Senator John McCain of Arizona said "It should be in Chinese interest not to have counterfeiting of these electronic parts going on because it would harm legitimate Chinese companies as well." However, the Department of Defense was not immune to criticism. The report found that in at least three of the cases, the military was unaware of the counterfeit equipment until informed about them by the senate investigation.
The good news is the Senate Armed Services Committee and the White House have already taken steps to address the problem. Earlier this year, an amendment was added to the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act to push for the adoption of anti-counterfeit practices within the defense industry supply chain.
Mike Jones is a researcher, writer, and analyst on national and international security. He lives in the DC area.
