I'm going to put my account's "logistics wizard" hat back on for a moment and teach you exactly how something like this could (realistically) happen, even if it's ultimately not the specific case here. Buckle up... 🤫 Fun fact: there's a consortium of large U.S.-based manufacturers that does aggregated group buys for global maritime and air freight shipments. This massive volume drives rates down across all of the consortium member through cooperative scale. There's a catch, however - no freight forwarder may bid on any of the lanes if they do not have wholly owned offices in EACH country where ANY member of the consortium could book a shipment (either to or from). So, if a forwarder wants to be in the pool of service providers, it agrees that it must be able to theoretically service EVERY LANE for EVERY MEMBER completely in-house, without using an agent network. That means that only massive, multinational forwarders (mostly based in Europe, excepting perhaps CH Robinson and Expeditors) fit the criteria. 🤔 What does this mean to U.S. national security? Given that some of the manufacturers source parts from and/or sell to China, it means that any logistics provider who wants the business of any of the consortium members must have offices in China. Thus, every freight forwarder involved has their own offices and their own internal systems inside of China, staffed by Chinese nationals. This presents an obvious insider risk wherein a Chinese national employee of a contracted freight forwarder could theoretically poke around company systems and see the commercial shipping documents and other confidential information, even on shipments the employee isn't managing... ...Or, in this case, simply REBOOK and REDIRECT a specific shipment of goods desired by the Chinese government. One relatively small change, unnoticed until much too late by the consortium member. Moreover, utilizing Chinese internet to carry data in/out of company systems is a whole different domain of issues for reasons obvious. 🤯 Here's why all of that matters: Lockheed Martin controls almost all of its own global supply chain movements, including routing of subcontracted parts and components, for everything it buys, makes, and sells. And it has long been one of the core members of that logistics consortium.