End-use monitoring

End-use monitoring is the set of US government programs that check, after a weapons shipment leaves the country, that the foreign recipient still has the items, stores them securely, and has not transferred them to anyone else. It is the enforcement arm of the paper promises made in an end-user certificate.

Who runs Blue Lantern, Golden Sentry, and EEUM?

Three names cover the system. Blue Lantern, run by the State Department, verifies commercial arms exports licensed under ITAR. Golden Sentry, run by the Defense Department, monitors government-to-government Foreign Military Sales. Within Golden Sentry, enhanced end-use monitoring (EEUM) is the strictest tier, reserved for the most sensitive transferred items, such as advanced munitions and night-vision devices: the recipient commits to specified physical-security measures, and US personnel conduct serialized, item-by-item inventories.

How many shipments actually get checked?

A small fraction. In fiscal year 2022 the State Department approved 18,143 export authorizations and initiated 305 Blue Lantern checks, verification on under 2 percent of licenses. Of the 226 checks closed that year, roughly 30 percent came back unfavorable. Government Accountability Office reviews have repeatedly found implementation gaps in US end-use monitoring.

Does the US track the weapons it sends to Israel?

Not reliably, by its own audit. In December 2025 the Defense Department's Office of Inspector General published DODIG-2026-033, an audit of enhanced end-use monitoring in Israel, against the backdrop of the 13.4 billion dollars in US military aid sent to Israel after October 7, 2023. It found that DoD maintained records for only 44 percent of the defense articles subject to enhanced monitoring, down from 69 percent before the war, and that officials could not track 42 deliveries comprising more than four million munitions between October 2023 and April 2024. The auditors cited staffing shortfalls and the operational environment in Israel.

What happened to the assurances Israel gave?

Under National Security Memorandum 20 (February 2024), recipients of US defense articles in active conflicts had to provide written assurances that the weapons would be used in accordance with international humanitarian law. Israel provided assurances in March 2024. In May 2024 the State Department reported to Congress that it was "reasonable to assess" that US defense articles had been used by Israeli forces "in instances inconsistent with its IHL obligations," while simultaneously judging the assurances "credible and reliable," so transfers continued. One shipment of 2,000-pound and 500-pound bombs was paused in May 2024 and released in January 2025.

What does end-use monitoring not check?

How the weapons are used. The programs verify custody, inventory, and physical security, whether the recipient still holds the items, not whether the items are being used against civilians or in violation of the laws of war. Arms-transfer researchers have long identified this as the system's structural gap; as one Forum on the Arms Trade analysis put it, effective end-use monitoring "should entail knowing how the arms are being used, not just where they end up." The NSM-20 record above shows the same gap at the policy level: the use question was answered separately from the monitoring system, because the monitoring system cannot see it.

What does monitoring have to do with New York?

Monitoring picks up after delivery; it cannot see the supply chain that moves the cargo. The deliveries the Pentagon lost track of were still manufactured somewhere, consolidated somewhere, and loaded somewhere, at freight terminals like JFK Airport's cargo buildings and the region's ports. That is the part of the chain Break the Chain documents: the defense contractors in NYC and the metro area, and the sourced tracker of companies with a documented role moving military cargo through the region.

Also known as: EUM, enhanced end-use monitoring (EEUM), Blue Lantern, Golden Sentry

Last reviewed August 13, 2026.

Cite this page: Break the Chain (NYC-DSA Anti-War Working Group), "End-use monitoring," Arms-Trade and Logistics Glossary. https://wecanbreakthechain.com/glossary/end-use-monitoring/