Research Domain

Statecraft and Policy Analysis

Research on how enforcement, trade, and financial instruments combine into strategy, and the authority limits that constrain them.

IEEPA · CAATSA · Trade authorities · UN measures
Domain Statement

What this domain covers

Instruments of economic statecraft are rarely used in isolation and rarely evaluated together. Research in this domain examines how sanctions, tariffs, export controls, and financial measures compose into coherent strategy — and where authority limits, litigation risk, and coalition dynamics constrain what is actually available.

Analytic questions

  • How do enforcement, trade, and financial instruments compose into coherent strategy?
  • What authority rails and standards of proof constrain a given measure?
  • Where does litigation risk bind policy options?
  • What outcomes follow from which pathway, and under what conditions?

Methods Applied

  • Authority and precedent analysis
  • Scenario-conditioned assessment
  • Escalation and sequencing design
  • Coalition and second-order effect analysis

Related Advisory

Standards

Publications

Published work in this domain

Iran’s Declining Bargaining Range

Why Iran cannot outlast the blockade, the sanctions and the recurring strikes, why a settlement now is worth more to Tehran than a later one, and the legal authority available for each round of the campaign.
WP-2026 · 5 Oct 2026

Drone Threats to Political Leadership

Three working papers on the small-drone threat to political leadership: what the weapon is, whether any state can stop it, and where U.S. authority in the National Capital Region leaves the gap after the SAFER SKIES Act. With a series cover note and priority recommendations.
WP-2026-D · 5 Oct 2026

Hostile State Asset Denial and Settlement Act

A legislative series on congressional control of the confiscation and use of a hostile state’s assets: the discussion draft, an adversarial review of the challenges it would face, and the drafting memorandum behind its structure. Published in the Government & Legislation domain.
LD-2026-02 · 5 Oct 2026

Taliban Financial Accountability and Aid Integrity Act

A legislative discussion draft that controls every U.S. dollar bound for Afghanistan, closes the OFAC General License 20 exception, and keeps the Afghan central bank reserves out of Taliban hands by statute. Published in the Government & Legislation domain.
LD-2026-01 · 5 Oct 2026

Asymmetric Denial

The cost-exchange structure of the blockade phase of the 2026 Iran war: favorable against Iran on endurance, not yet favorable beyond it, and the six measures that decide whether it becomes so.
WP-2026 · 21 Sep 2026

Denying Chinese Victory

Cost, resource, and military advantages available to the United States, 2026–2035: the measures with the most favorable cost-exchange ratios against an invasion of Taiwan are also the fastest to field.
WP-2026 · 19 Sep 2026

Credit and Power

The decoupling of dollar and Treasury specialness: the funding instruments of American power are under measured pressure, and the deciding constraint has become internal.
WP-2026 · Aug 2026

Insulate, Then Press

A sequencing framework for U.S. policy toward a structurally declining China: reduce exposure to Chinese critical-minerals processing before applying most forms of pressure.
WP-2026 · 26 Aug 2026

Back to the research library