Economics Weaponized: 21st Century Statecraft & Warfare
Abstract: Economics has been weaponized on a global scale, driving it to be an active domain of statecraft with strategic, operational, and tactical dimensions. Throughout US history, American policymakers have acknowledged that economic security is national security and today the two are enmeshed more than ever. Critically interdependent global markets, supply chains, and information flows are wound tightly by technology-enabled networks at a scale never experienced across human history. This brings new risks and vulnerabilities. Economics is therefore no longer solely a lever of national power — it is an active domain of warfare, notably operationalized by rivals like China to pursue strategic objectives with coercion and obfuscation. Policymakers and private sector leaders are working to grapple with that reality while national security professionals and military commanders seek to understand the dynamics of economics to gain advantage, deter, and win, if necessary, on the modern battlefield. The deliberate exercise of economic statecraft offers a way forward. Yet wielding tools beyond tariffs and export bans demands sound strategy, coherent doctrine, clear authorities, and robust public-private partnerships. How does the United States invigorate durable partnerships across government and industry, at home and abroad, to secure technologies and supply chains critical to national security and prosperity while preserving the values we aim to defend?
Dr. Timothy Welter is a Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies where he founded and leads the Global Competition Project. The Project is focused on elevating and addressing the most pressing challenges of societal level competition, especially as they relate to science and technology, including aspects of economic statecraft and national security. Tim’s contributions to the Institute’s work are informed by his experience in the private sector as a business founder and owner, military officer, Capitol Hill staffer, and in academia and the think tank policy community.
Technical Contact: Brad Roberts
Event Manager: Katie Thomas, thomas94 [at] llnl.gov (thomas94[at]llnl[dot]gov)
