By Blythe Crawford CBE

In recent weeks, the world has been reminded how fragile the foundations of the global economy have become.

Russia’s shadow fleet has been deliberately targeted at sea. Trade routes and chokepoints are being tested. Access to critical materials is tightening, not through market forces but political intent. These are not background geopolitical tensions. They are direct interventions in the economic system.

Yet as leaders arrive in Davos, the conversation will largely return to familiar ground: inflation, growth, productivity and capital allocation. What is missing is the recognition that security has become the primary infrastructure on which all of these depend. When security fails, markets do not simply reprice — they stall.

For decades, globalisation relied on an assumption of neutrality: that supply chains, logistics and access would remain broadly apolitical. That assumption no longer holds. Interdependence has been weaponised. States now compete by controlling flows — of energy, materials, data and manufacturing capacity — rather than merely territory.

This shift has exposed a dangerous mismatch. While geopolitical pressure moves at speed, the defence industrial systems meant to absorb and respond to it remain slow, concentrated and brittle. We built them for efficiency in an era of relative stability. Today, that efficiency has become a liability.

The traditional defence model is increasingly misaligned with........

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