Executive Summary

States increasingly exploit their position within the networks that carry money, data, goods, and critical services to advance strategic objectives. Where states can exercise authority over central network nodes, they may gain informational advantages or restrict others’ access to indispensable flows. Farrell and Newman (2019) describe these mechanisms as weaponized interdependence. The vulnerability arises not from connectivity alone, but from asymmetric reliance, network concentration, and the capacity to exercise control over critical nodes.

Global networks generate efficiency and mutual benefits, yet their architecture can also concentrate strategic advantages. This paper examines a central paradox: the use of network-based leverage can prompt targeted actors to reduce the very dependencies on which that leverage rests. It distinguishes the immediate capacity to impose costs from the ability to achieve political objectives and sustain influence over time. The policy implication is the need for systematic, continuously updated dependency mapping, focused on criticality, concentration, substitutability, exposure, and adaptation time.

The Shifting Conditions of Competition

Over the past decade, major geopolitical crises have drawn attention to the strategic significance of systems traditionally associated with commerce and civilian exchange. Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 challenged assumptions about European security and stability; US financial sanctions against Iran demonstrated the coercive potential of access to financial networks. These cases differ in their mechanisms, but together illustrate that economic and infrastructural connectivity cannot be separated from strategic competition.

Competition increasingly extends into financial systems, technological infrastructure, supply chains, data networks, and legal and regulatory environments. Sanctions, export controls, and restrictions on access to digital or physical networks can serve strategic purposes even while the underlying systems continue to perform ordinary civilian functions. The key analytical question is which actors control indispensable nodes and which forms of dependency translate that control into leverage.

Reports of attempted sabotage against European transport and logistics infrastructure demonstrate another way in which connectivity creates exposure. Such activity can exploit the strategic importance of civilian networks, but direct physical sabotage should be distinguished from weaponized interdependence in the narrower sense of leveraging privileged control over network nodes. The mechanisms may intersect, yet their means, attribution challenges, and policy responses differ.

Coercive measures can have effects well beyond the immediate parties because modern networks connect multiple states, firms, and markets. Measures introduced following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 disrupted financial, trade, and energy relationships on a large scale. However, states’ reasons for adopting restrictions differ. Singapore, for example, justified its sanctions in terms of international law and the sovereignty of small states, rather than simply as a response to threats of secondary sanctions (Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore 2022). These cases show that restrictions can generate costs across interconnected economies, while states may still adopt them for legal, political, or strategic reasons. 

Strategic competition therefore increasingly encompasses systems originally established for civilian exchange. Yet not every disruption to such systems constitutes weaponized interdependence. The following cases illustrate two distinct sources of strategic vulnerability: concentrated control over economic networks and the exposure of interconnected infrastructure to physical disruption. Their comparison clarifies both the broader strategic significance of connectivity and the limits of weaponized interdependence as an analytical concept.

Example 1: China’s Export Controls and Critical-Mineral Leverage

China holds dominant positions in the processing and refining of several critical minerals and rare earth elements, creating concentrations of supply that other economies cannot rapidly replace. Following successive controls imposed by the United States and partners on advanced semiconductor technologies, China introduced export licensing and restrictions affecting gallium and germanium (2023), certain graphite products (2023), antimony (2024), and selected rare earth elements and related products (2025) (MOFCOM 2023a, 2023b, 2024; MOFCOM and General Administration of Customs 2025).

The measures vary in scope and do not amount to blanket prohibitions on exports to all partners. Nevertheless, they demonstrate how concentrated processing capacity can create potential leverage when importing economies cannot readily secure alternative supplies. The 2025 rare-earth restrictions illustrated the practical significance of this dependence, as licensing requirements disrupted supply chains serving defence and industrial sectors (Baskaran and Schwartz 2025). However, a dominant market position does not automatically translate into effective state coercion: the impact of restrictions depends on enforcement, firms’ responses, and the availability of alternative supplies (Miailhes 2026).

Restrictions can disrupt supply in the short term while encouraging affected economies to invest in alternative suppliers and processing capacity, potentially weakening China’s position over time (Baskaran and Schwartz 2025, 2026; Miailhes 2026).

Example 2: Infrastructure Disruption and Dual-Use Logistics: The Leipzig/Halle Airport Incident

According to reporting in August 2026, US intelligence officials linked an explosive-laden drone discovered near a Ukrainian cargo aircraft at Leipzig/Halle Airport to suspected Russian activity (Seligman and Holliday 2026). The airport also supports logistics relevant to Ukraine. If the attribution and reported circumstances are correct, the incident illustrates the security exposure created when civilian logistics nodes support strategically important flows. Unlike export restrictions or financial exclusion, however, a physical attack against infrastructure is not itself an example of control exercised from a privileged position within a network.

Civilian logistics infrastructure can become strategically consequential when it supports both commercial and military-related transport. Disruption may impose wider costs through interrupted flows, additional security requirements, and reduced network reliability. The Leipzig/Halle incident illustrates how the strategic importance of interconnected systems can create vulnerabilities even when perpetrators do not control central network nodes. However, physical sabotage differs from weaponized interdependence, which derives leverage from privileged access to or control over network structures. Although both mechanisms can affect the same systems, they require distinct approaches to prevention, resilience, and response.

The incident also highlights the importance of coordinated responses to hybrid threats. Hybrid threats are harmful activities planned and executed with malicious intent, combining military and non-military to undermine states or institutions. In September 2026, the European Commission proposed a counter-hybrid playbook and emergency security protocol, while Germany announced plans to expand its drone defences (Jack and Roussi 2026). The proposed mechanism should be distinguished from the EU’s existing Hybrid Toolbox, which provides instruments to expose, attribute, and sanction perpetrators of hybrid threats (Council of the European Union 2022). Rather than introducing another set of response instruments, the proposal seeks to address how the EU can make decisions and coordinate responses more effectively when faced with hybrid incidents such as sabotage and attacks on critical infrastructure (von der Leyen 2026).

The Limits of Coercion

Network concentration can create coercive opportunities, but the durability of leverage depends on the target’s capacity to respond. Exposed dependencies may prompt diversification, domestic investment, alternative infrastructure, or new partnerships. Such adaptation is neither automatic nor costless: substitutes may take years to develop, remain technically inferior, or create new concentrations of risk.

Three limits should be assessed separately. The structural limit concerns whether alternative suppliers or networks exist. The temporal limit concerns whether the target can establish alternatives before coercion achieves its purpose. The political limit concerns whether the pressure generates compliance, resistance, or coalition-building. The capacity to impose immediate costs, the ability to obtain a concession, and the maintenance of leverage over time are distinct outcomes.

Weaponized interdependence is therefore a dynamic relationship rather than a permanent asset. Its strategic effectiveness depends not only on the initial asymmetry, but also on the costs, feasibility, and speed of adaptation relative to the coercing state’s objectives and time horizon. Even where exposure diminishes, the target may incur substantial costs; conversely, severe disruption need not yield the political outcome sought by the coercing state.

Implications for Policy

The broader policy implication follows directly from the limits of weaponized interdependence identified above. Because dependencies change once they become politically exposed, resilience cannot rest on either eliminating interdependence or reacting only after vulnerabilities are exploited.

A. Prioritize selective risk reduction over blanket decoupling. Broad disengagement can impose high economic and technological costs without eliminating exposure. Governments should identify strategically consequential dependencies and compare the feasibility, cost, and security benefit of diversification, redundancy, stockpiling, domestic capability, and allied provision. Substitution should be assessed for new concentrations of risk rather than assumed to deliver autonomy.

B. Institutionalize continuous dependency assessment. Crisis response alone is inadequate where alternative capabilities take years to develop. National authorities, infrastructure operators, and relevant European and transatlantic institutions should continuously map critical relationships, exercise disruption scenarios, review concentration across supply-chain tiers, and monitor whether risk-reduction measures merely relocate exposure. Cross-border assessments should draw on existing cooperation and information-sharing arrangements where relevant.

C. Operationalize dependency mapping. A practical assessment should record (1) criticality to national security and essential services; (2) concentration of supplier or network control; (3) substitutability and available alternative capacity; (4) susceptibility to legal, commercial, technical, or coercive disruption; and (5) the time and cost required to adapt or restore disrupted functions. Mapping should be refreshed as network configurations, regulations, and geopolitical conditions change. The objective is not independence from all foreign systems, but informed choices about acceptable exposure and credible continuity arrangements.

Conclusion

Global connectivity creates both prosperity and strategic exposure. Where control over indispensable network nodes is concentrated, states may gain the ability to observe, restrict, or redirect flows for political purposes. Yet exercising such power can also accelerate the diversification and institutional responses that diminish its future value. For policy-makers, resilience therefore requires more than identifying present dependencies: it requires assessing how those dependencies may change under pressure, which alternatives are credible, and whether the time needed to adapt is shorter than the window in which coercion can succeed.

References

Baskaran, Gracelin, and Meredith Schwartz. 2025. “The Consequences of China’s New Rare Earths Export Restrictions.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 14. https://www.csis.org/analysis/consequences-chinas-new-rare-earths-export-restrictions. 

Baskaran, Gracelin, and Meredith Schwartz. 2026. “Rare Earth Export Restrictions One Year Later.” Center for Strategic and International Studies, April 27. https://www.csis.org/analysis/rare-earth-export-restrictions-one-year-later.

Council of the European Union. 2022. “Council Conclusions on a Framework for a Coordinated EU Response to Hybrid Campaigns.” June 21. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/2022/06/21/council-conclusions-on-a-framework-for-a-coordinated-eu-response-to-hybrid-campaigns/.

Farrell, Henry, and Abraham L. Newman. 2019. “Weaponized Interdependence: How Global Economic Networks Shape State Coercion.” International Security 44 (1): 42–79. https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00351.

Jack, Victor, and Antoaneta Roussi. 2026. “Von der Leyen Pitches European Security Council in Response to Trump and Putin.” Politico Europe, September 16. https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-pitches-european-security-council-in-response-to-trump-and-putin/.

Miailhes, Lucas. 2026. “On the Conceptual Overstretch of Weaponized Interdependence in Lithium and Rare-Earth Element Markets.” Global Policy. Published online September 2. https://doi.org/10.1111/1758-5899.70225.

Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM). 2023a. “Regular Press Conference of the Ministry of Commerce on July 6, 2023.” July 6. https://english.mofcom.gov.cn/News/PressConference/art/2023/art_36fb2d80e4b4453891bb8fc83e2b3c4e.html.

Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM). 2023b. “Regular Press Conference of the Ministry of Commerce on November 30, 2023.” November 30. https://english.mofcom.gov.cn/News/PressConference/art/2023/art_cd46d6e56bb6486a928ea2f16182ae90.html.

Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM). 2024. “Regular Press Conference of the Ministry of Commerce on August 22, 2024.” August 22. https://english.mofcom.gov.cn/News/PressConference/art/2024/art_1f1c8a333816408d944cd9a4d1c4b370.html.

Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China (MOFCOM), and General Administration of Customs of the People’s Republic of China. 2025. “Announcement No. 18 of 2025 on the Implementation of Export Controls on Certain Medium and Heavy Rare Earth-Related Items.” April 4. https://english.mofcom.gov.cn/Policies/AnnouncementsOrders/art/2025/art_0dd87cbee7b045bf93fabe6ab2faceee.html.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs Singapore. 2022. “Sanctions and Restrictions Against Russia in Response to Its Invasion of Ukraine.” March 5. https://www.mfa.gov.sg/newsroom/press-statements-transcripts-and-photos/20220305-sanctions-05-mar-2022/.

Seligman, Lara, and Shelby Holliday. 2026. “U.S. Intel Links Russia to Explosive Drone at German Airport.” Wall Street Journal, August 7. https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/u-s-intel-links-russia-to-explosive-drone-at-german-airport-8a69a823.

von der Leyen, Ursula. 2026. “2026 State of the Union Address by President von der Leyen.” European Commission, September 16. . https://cyprus.representation.ec.europa.eu/news/2026-state-union-address-president-von-der-leyen-2026-09-16_en.