 "Lebanon blast")
A walkie-talkie that exploded in a house in Lebanon (Photo: AP)
The lethal detonation of hand-held pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants this week in Lebanon demonstrated powerful spycraft, but it also raised questions about a gaping vulnerability in the global supply chain.
That chain is astonishingly complex. So complex that it is probably beyond the powers of governments, corporations and other interested institutions to police. Even the most sophisticated participants are often unclear on who they are relying on for critical parts and raw materials, or where the risks lie.
The clear lesson of the supply chain upheavals that accompanied the pandemic was that the longer the journey entailed in making any product, the greater the chance that something might go awry, inflicting delay and higher costs.
Now there’s a potent yet related concern: The more complicated the journey, the greater the exposure to mischief.
Every movement along the way, and every additional company brought into the manufacturing process represents an opportunity for those pursuing violent agendas to insinuate themselves into the works and weaponise the product.
“Companies must decide which level of security must be implemented in their supply chains,” Hannah Kain, the chief executive of ALOM, a global supply chain company, told DealBook. “We just moved several notches out on the paranoia scale.”
The Lebanon attacks will most likely accelerate supply chain changes. In recent years, a growing group of labor activists, politicians and critics of liberalized trade has urged American companies to move production back home, or at least closer to the domestic market. So-called reshoring and nearshoring have been advanced as a means of limiting reliance on faraway factories — especially those in China — while insuring against the perils of international shipping.
The reality that international supply chains are susceptible to being penetrated by those waging war is bound to boost it further.
Concerns over national security risks have in recent years been focused on specific high-risk situations:
Much of the world is dependent on factories in China for critical items like face masks, ingredients for critical medicines and parts for ventilators and other medical devices.
China might attack Taiwan, menacing the stocks of advanced computer chips concentrated on the self-governing island.
Faced with international sanctions following its attacks on Ukraine, Russia has cut shipments of energy to Europe. In the United States, those who view China as a threat to national security have warned that Chinese-made telecommunications and electrical gear could be a Trojan Horse for crippling attacks on basic American infrastructure.
But the recent attacks reveal how even less strategic and lower-profile areas of commercial life entail grave security risks. At ports around the globe, the volume of goods being moved in shipping containers is so vast that no authority can possibly inspect more than a fraction. In the wake of the Lebanon attacks, politicians are likely to face pressure to extend the push for reshoring and nearshoring beyond the most strategically vital goods like computer chips and electric vehicles.
New policies may broaden the drive to concentrate industry in the United States and in friendly countries that can offer assurances of armouring supply chains against outside intervention.
(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
First Published: Sep 23 2024 | 12:05 AM IST
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