The Russia-Ukraine conflict demonstrates that the first move in modern warfare is often a cyberattack to disable critical systems like logistics and communication. This is a low-cost, high-impact method to immobilize an adversary before physical engagement.

Major container lines will divert entire fleets on longer, more expensive routes around continents based solely on the threat of attack, as seen with the Houthis in the Red Sea. The perception of risk, not just the occurrence of incidents, is a primary driver of costly, system-wide disruptions in logistics.

The successful drone attack on Amazon data centers highlights a critical vulnerability where cheap physical weapons can disable core digital infrastructure. This scenario, blurring the line between physical and cyber warfare, is not in most corporate threat models.

Adversaries increasingly use cyberspace to attack the foundations of society, government, and the economy. This creates a state of perpetual, low-level conflict—a 'gray zone' between war and peace. These actions test confidence in core systems and undermine international order without triggering a traditional military response.

Conventional wisdom sees the U.S. as insulated from global shocks due to low trade shares. However, research reveals that when viewing the economy through a comprehensive network of trade, finance, and production, its exposure to international risks is significantly higher.

Adversaries now understand that Western financial markets are a key vulnerability. Iran is incentivized to attack energy infrastructure not just for physical disruption, but to directly target market sentiment and trigger financial instability, making economic warfare a primary strategy.

Following attacks on Amazon's Gulf infrastructure, war risk insurance costs have surged 1900%, with coverage limits plummeting. Since financing for projects like data centers requires insurance, this market freeze acts as a financial choke point, halting new construction in high-risk regions regardless of a company's capital.

An outage at a single dominant cloud provider like AWS can cripple a third of the internet, including competitors' services. This highlights how infrastructure centralization creates systemic vulnerabilities that ripple across the entire digital economy, demanding a new approach to redundancy and regulation.

Iran effectively weaponized the Strait of Hormuz not with mines, but by creating enough uncertainty to make UK-based insurance companies pull out. This demonstrates how financial systems can be leveraged as powerful geopolitical choke points.