Seeing the cyber in economic statecraft

Americans lost nearly $21 billion to cybercrime in 2025, a new record for cyber-enabled economic losses. Private sector losses to malicious cyber activity regularly exceed $200 billion in a given year. Alongside criminal groups, state-sponsored hackers are increasingly targeting America’s pocketbook. Neither the economic sphere nor cyberspace are classic terrestrial warfighting domains. Yet war is being actively waged through both realms and national cyber security is vital to the prosperity and protection of today’s hyperconnected economy.

China is both the greatest economic threat and the most active and persistent cyber threat to the United States. Both its economic and cyber statecraft campaigns reach deep into America’s government, private sector, and critical infrastructure. These two efforts overlap: Cyber espionage, digital theft, and supply chain compromises are key pillars of China’s strategy to undermine the U.S. economy. Addressing this challenge requires marshaling economic and cyber power into cohesive, coordinated campaigns.

Given the inseparable nature of modern economics and cyberspace, the future of American economic statecraft lies in lessons from the nation’s cyber past. America’s evolving approach to contemporary economic statecraft still suffers from strategic immaturity, information sharing barriers, and institutional fragmentation. U.S. cyber statecraft has grappled with identical issues for over a decade, moving from firewalled initiatives to more coherent national collaboration. Lessons from cyber statecraft show that U.S. economic statecraft should develop new strategic paradigms, recraft information sharing incentives, and centralize disparate bureaucratic efforts.

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