The United States has put into motion bold plans in critical and emerging technologies to bolster its national and economic security. For example, the federal government created a national bitcoin strategic reserve and a stockpile of other cryptocurrency; while several states have committed to or are considering similar goals. However, the security of these reserves is dependent on two types of supply chains within the Bitcoin mining industry: analogue supply chains, relating to the physical components needed for Bitcoin mining, and data supply chains, relating to the complex and layered logistical network of actors that create input into the software components of a technical system.
More broadly, because critical and emerging technologies are central to preserving U.S. economic and national security advantages, the resilience of their supply chains is itself a matter of national security. Yet ensuring this resilience often falls to private market actors. Analyzing these supply chains therefore requires a bi-directional perspective: On one side, the technologies’ national security significance shapes how firms approach risk management. On the other, the degree to which firms succeed in managing their supply chain risks will in turn determine the security of the nation.
This Article makes two contributions: First, securing the supply chain resilience key to U.S. national and economic security in critical and emerging technologies requires a bi-directional perspective that considers the private law impact on an area normally dominated by public law considerations. Second, the Article then provides a framework that equips private actors to meet this challenge by distinguishing among supply chain types; identifying risks within each; describing the reciprocal relationship between national security and corporate supply chain management; and accounting for the unique features of these supply chains—particularly that they extend beyond physical components to include layered data networks.
Read the full article here.