The Washing Machine War

A washing machine and a cruise missile can run on the same chip. This is the story of how - and of the people trying to stop it.

When a Russian missile is pulled from the wreckage of a Ukrainian children's hospital, its guidance computer turns out to be built from the same ordinary microchips found in dishwashers, cars, and washing machines. The Washing Machine War is the untold story of the hidden supply line that runs from the factory floor to the front line - and the smugglers, shell companies, and enforcement agents fighting a shadow war over the parts that arm the world's battlefields.

From a Brooklyn electronics shop to a snowbound Estonian border crossing to the order desk where a single compliance officer decides whether to ask one more question, James R. Ferry II takes you inside the enforcement front - the human, criminal, decision-level story the big-picture books explain from altitude but never enter. It is a field guide to the tells: the red flags, the false end-users, and the circuitous routes that separate an ordinary sale from a war crime.

Equal parts true-crime thriller and practitioner's manual - drawn entirely from the public record of indictments, penalty orders, and the teardown reports of investigators from Kyiv to Washington - it reveals that in the new economic iron curtain descending between great powers, the last line of defense isn't a strike force or a sanction. It's the person holding an order that doesn't quite add up.

For readers of Chip War and Underground Empire.