Economic Statecraft and Contemporary Warfare: Understanding the Challenge

Throughout US history, American policymakers have acknowledged that economic security is national security. Today the two are enmeshed more than ever before. Critically interdependent global markets, supply chains, and information flows are wound tightly by technology-enabled networks at a scale never experienced across human history. Great opportunities, but also vulnerabilities, avail. As such, economic statecraft has become a central tool for leveraging national power on the global stage, to include adversarial activities above and below the threshold of war. US prosperity and security is on the line. What are we doing about it? Who are the key players? Why should warfighters and policymakers care?

Concerned about the existential stakes of this issue, the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks, a platform for analysis and debate on strategy, defense and foreign affairs, have partnered to elevate this discussion among defense practitioners and national policy circles. Our series, "War by Other Ledgers," will seek to answer these questions, and many more.