Reference
What we mean by these terms
Words such as sovereignty, capability, and resilience are often used loosely. These are the meanings we use when they appear in our work.
Institutional strategyStrategic technologyTechnology sovereigntyEffective controlStrategic dependencyIndustrial capabilityState capacityEvidence thresholdStrategic option valueGeoeconomics
- Institutional strategy
- Institutional strategy connects an objective to the authority, incentives, information, capital, capabilities, and operating arrangements required to pursue it. It treats the institution that must act as part of the strategy, not as an implementation detail.
- Strategic technology
- A technology is strategic when access to it, control over it, or dependence on it materially changes an organisation or state's resilience, bargaining power, economic position, or freedom of action.
- Technology sovereignty
- Technology sovereignty is the practical ability to make consequential choices about a technology and sustain critical functions under changing conditions. It does not require complete self-sufficiency; it requires explicit control points and informed interdependence.
- Effective control
- Effective control is the demonstrated ability to operate, inspect, modify, substitute, and recover a capability. Legal ownership or domestic location alone does not establish it.
- Strategic dependency
- A strategic dependency is reliance on an external actor, input, standard, infrastructure, skill, or source of capital whose interruption or leverage could remove a meaningful option or impair a critical function.
- Industrial capability
- Industrial capability is the connected ability to design, finance, produce, qualify, sell, operate, maintain, and improve a product or system at the required quality and scale.
- State capacity
- State capacity is the ability of public institutions to gather information, make legitimate decisions, coordinate resources, implement policy, and learn from results. Formal authority without execution does not amount to capacity.
- Evidence threshold
- An evidence threshold is the predefined level and quality of support required before a conclusion can justify action. Below the threshold, the appropriate response may be corroboration, qualification, or abstention.
- Strategic option value
- Strategic option value is the future freedom of action created by a present choice, including skills, knowledge, assets, supplier alternatives, standards influence, and reversibility that may matter under changed conditions.
- Geoeconomics
- Geoeconomics is the use and strategic effect of economic relationships, finance, trade, technology, industrial policy, infrastructure, and sanctions in the pursuit of power and security objectives.
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