Strategic Competition
The Defining Challenge of Our Time
“Strategic competition today is not just about projecting force—it’s about projecting influence. Those who lead in technology, talent, and trust will shape the future.”
Strategic Framework
- Strategic competition defines the challenge.
Understanding the Strategic Landscape
- Across my career in public service, business, and higher education, I have focused on how institutions—whether companies, universities, or nations—compete and align with the world around them. Today, that competition is no longer determined solely by military posture. It is driven by:
- Technological leadership
- Economic resilience
- Institutional influence
- This shift demands a new strategic framework — one that integrates action across the full range of tools and domains that define modern global competition.
- It is what led me to found the Wahba Institute for Strategic Competition (WISC): a platform dedicated to advancing U.S. leadership across technology, trade, infrastructure, and energy—sectors that now define the frontier of global influence.
- Related Deep Dives:
- The five dimensions of authoritarian challenge and the case for a U.S. response.
- How the U.S. can align technology, economic statecraft, and alliances to shape the global future.
From Shapeholders to Geoeconomic Statecraft
Just as Shapeholders explains the competition to influence markets, geoeconomic statecraft explains the competition to shape global systems.
- Today, this insight carries forward into international affairs: Nations must engage not only in direct competition, but in the broader contest to shape norms, networks, and institutions that define the future.
Geoeconomic statecraft is the deliberate use of economic, technological, and institutional tools to align others with a national vision — shaping the systems, markets, and rules of global power.
Applying the STEAD Framework: Integration, Not Silos
- To avoid stovepiped, fragmented actions across economic, technological, security, and diplomatic fronts, WISC applies the STEAD Framework:
STEAD Framework: Integrating Security, Technology, Economics, Alliances, and Diplomacy efforts to align non-military tools toward strategic goals and lasting advantage.
- STEAD Pillar > Strategic Actions
- Security > Ensure resilient critical domains (semiconductors, telecom, AI, defense base, energy, maritime, space).
- Technology > Shape global standards and ecosystems for emerging technologies.
- Economics > Build trusted supply chains, strategic infrastructure, and aligned trade frameworks.
- Alliances > Modernize traditional partnerships and forge new tech-economic coalitions.
- Diplomacy > Expand global engagement to sustain an open, resilient international order.
- By integrating these tools across all dimensions of competition, STEAD prevents fragmentation and drives cohesive strategic action.
Strategic Breadth, Long-Term Focus, and Direct Engagement
- Broad View. WISC deliberately integrates efforts across sectors, regions, and domains — avoiding narrow stovepiped approaches.
- Long View. We evaluate not only immediate effects but second- and third-order consequences to ensure enduring strategic advantage.
- Roundtables Add to Breadth. This breadth and foresight are strengthened by regular private and public roundtables incorporating perspectives from members of Congress, U.S. government agencies, academia, civil society, and private industry — as well as collaborations with international think tanks.
- Strategic Evaluation. Every action WISC proposes is assessed against three primary criteria:
- Will it deter great power aggression?
- Will it advance the peace and prosperity of Americans?
- Will it advance the peace and prosperity of the world?
Domains of Competition
- Strategic competition today is fought across a series of interconnected domains where advantage must be built and defended.
- Victory in the 21st century will depend on shaping these critical arenas:
- AI governance and leadership
- Winning across these fronts requires not only technological and economic leadership, but also the ability to align alliances and global engagement to shape the systems, standards, and norms of the future.
- At WISC, we apply geoeconomic statecraft through the STEAD Framework to secure prosperity, deter authoritarian coercion, and uphold a free and open global order.
Closing Principle
Influence shapes power. Those who shape systems, standards, and networks will shape the future.