In the wake of this year's Munich Security Conference, members of the European Union are pushing back against warnings by the United States about networking gear sold by Chinese telecom giant Huawei. American officials have alleged that Huawei can covertly access its equipment through backdoors designed for law enforcement, and voiced concerns about the risk associated with installing hardware that could give the Chinese government the ability to remotely monitor or even disable other nation's networks. 

The insistence of countries like Britain and Germany on integrating technology from a police state directly into their digital infrastructure is definitely curious. But it's not like supply chain subversion hasn't already transpired on an industrial scale. For example, we know now, thanks to a recent Washington Post report, that during the early days of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency succeeded in secretly compromising encryption technology used by over 120 different countries. For years, American spies were tapping lines and pilfering secrets from all over the globe.