The CESCI research team (Cynthia Buckley, Ralph Clem, and I) contributed a section to the Strategic Multilayer Assessment White Paper: "
Present and Future Challenges to Maintaining Balance between Global Cooperation and Competition." Our chapter, "Peer/Near-Peer Challenges to Strategic Stability: The Need to Securitize State Capacity," emphasizes the need to consider the delivery of essential civilian services as part of a wider security strategy. The paper notes that hostile actors can - and have - created and exploited vulnerabilities in state capacity in targeted countries to advance their objectives. It advocates for strategies to address "white zone" competition occurring in seemingly uncontested sectors.
