The Iraq war is a good example. Every country with a bone to pick with us used trade in military equipment and parts as a weapon against us. China refused to sell us armor plating, switzerland suddenly stopped selling missile guidance parts we needed. We managed but had to scramble to do it.
Then there are little issues like this.
Chinese Spying a Threat, Panel Says (2007)
The panel, which was created by Congress in 2001 and has six members appointed by Democrats and six by Republicans, has been criticized for taking a hawkish stance on China in its annual reports. In the one released yesterday, it made 42 recommendations to Congress, and several of them raised questions about whether the Defense Department has been lax in overseeing the production of sensitive military technologies and gathering intelligence on the Chinese military.
The Pentagon is increasingly buying planes, weapons and military vehicles from private contractors that outsource the manufacturing to plants in China and elsewhere in Asia, the report said. But when questioned by the commission, defense officials admitted that they do not have the ability to track where the components of military equipment are made.
"As weaponry gets more and more sophisticated . . . I think well find ourselves more vulnerable for parts that are being manufactured by an adversary. It's really something the Pentagon needs to look at seriously," said commission member William A. Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council, which promotes free trade on behalf of businesses. Members said that the commission had never before delved so deeply into national security issues.
Pure genius. [/sarc]
Yes military equipment, and everything else for that matter, is complex. Do you know where every screw, circuit and wire in your computer comes from? Of course not.
By the same token it’s an issue that can be handled. Iraq had a huge lead up, we could have bought extras or in sourced. The problems we ran into were a matter of not thinking through the logistics, that kind of failure doesn’t really get any better without free trade.