Let’s set the stage: Imagine Fort Knox, doors flung wide open, while a tour group from the Chinese Communist Party strolls through the vault with full access badges. Ridiculous? Sure. But swap out gold for data, and you're not far off from what just happened with Microsoft, China-based engineers, and -- wait for it -- the U.S. military.

According to reports, we now know that Microsoft, the federal government’s longtime tech golden child, may have handed China a backstage pass to America’s most sensitive defense systems. Not through hacking or espionage -- but through corporate hubris, off-the-books programming, and a terrifying lack of oversight.

A dangerous Microsoft initiative allowed China-based engineers working for Microsoft access to elements of the software powering our military’s digital infrastructure. And just to really spice things up, this may not have been properly disclosed to the Department of Defense.

In response, Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) fired off a letter demanding answers. He wants to know what kind of access those engineers had, what vetting (if any) was done, and how a critical contractor failed to flag a program that sounds like it was cooked up in a spy novel.

This isn’t about paranoia -- it’s about pattern recognition. China has been engaged in digital warfare against the West for years. From the OPM breach to targeting our infrastructure and tech companies with AI-driven cyberattacks, they’ve made it clear: they want our secrets, our systems, and ultimately, control of the digital battlefield.

And what have we done in response? We’ve outsourced vital software development to a tech........

© American Thinker