Future of Security 2026 Sources - The Centre for Economic Security

The Bretton Woods Moment framing

Read these before the event. They set the intellectual ground for both days and provide the analytical spine of the wargame.

Primary thinking piece

A Bretton Woods Moment for Productive Security

Dr Rebecca Harding · Rebeccanomics, 2026

The intellectual frame for the event. Develops the concepts of Productive Security, the Productive Capacity Gap, OSEINT and Critical Social Infrastructure. Eighty pages, with an abstract and headline arguments for those short on time.

Read on Rebeccanomics

Pre-event briefing

OSEINT Briefing for Tables

Dr Rebecca Harding · Centre for Economic Security

Detailed analytical briefing on how the OSEINT function will operate on the day, what signals to watch and how to translate them into table-level decisions. To be published before 26 June.

To follow

Rules + structure

Bush House Agreement — Background and Rules

Centre for Economic Security

Background notes, definitions, the negotiation protocol and Articles 2 and 3 in draft. Printed copies will also be on each table.

To follow

Visual brief

The Economic Security Landscape

Dr Nathalie Wlodarczyk · Gatehouse Advisory Partners

A single-image visualisation of the interconnected vulnerabilities the wargame examines. Drawn for the event.

To follow

Three rounds, three shocks

The wargame turns on three scenario newsflashes, each triggering a round of cross-table negotiation. Indicative source material below — these are deliberately public-domain pieces so the discussion is grounded in shared reality.

Round 1 · 10:10 Day 1

China announces a global trade data system

Beijing embeds its own trade, logistics and customs standards into the architecture of global commerce, gaining real-time visibility over goods, ports and supply chains. The strategic risk: an information advantage that operates through digital infrastructure rather than military force.

JamestownThe Chinese Rules and Future of Global Trade
War on the RocksWhat Beirut's Port Scanners Miss About Militant Supply Chains

Round 2 · 12:55 Day 1

A new inflation security crisis

Algorithmic pricing combined with energy, food and climate shocks creates a new form of inflation that traditional central bank tools cannot grip. Critical Social Infrastructure (food, energy, payments) becomes a national security concern.

Round 3 · 15:15 Day 1

Arctic crisis and a parallel trading order

Accelerating Chinese and Russian Arctic activity integrates trade routes, satellite networks, subsea cables and critical minerals into a single corridor. Financial markets begin pricing the emergence of parallel settlement systems beyond Western financial networks.

MERICSArctic, Outer Space and Influence Building: China and Russia Join Forces
War on the RocksThe Road to Space Runs Through the Poles

Ten tables, ten threat vectors

Curated source material for each roundtable, allocated by chair. More sources will be added across the week as the OSEINT function curates further reading.

Defence Resilience

Chair · Lt Gen (Rtd) Richard Wardlaw CB OBE

How does the West translate financial commitment into actual defence capability, at the speed the threat demands?

RebeccanomicsA Bretton Woods Moment for Productive Security — the framing paper for this table's work

Further sources to be added this week.

Energy, Food, Water and Utilities

Chair · Dr Richard Byrne, Harper Adams

When the resource base is contested and algorithmically priced, where does sovereignty really sit and what does resilience actually cost?

Further sources to be added this week.

Climate Security

Chair · Sunil Rana, Vyzrd

Climate as a national security driver — and the trade-off between green ambition and rearmament.

Sources to be added this week.

Space Security and AI

Chair · Dr Michelle Howard, D-Group

How orbital and computational infrastructure becomes contested terrain, and the dual-use risk in everything from satellite networks to model weights.

War on the RocksThe Road to Space Runs Through the Poles

Further sources to be added this week.

Civil Society and Communications

Chair · Claire Coady, The Attention Practice

Critical Social Infrastructure: how public trust, social cohesion and information integrity behave under economic and security stress.

Sources to be added this week.

Financial Markets, Macro and Regulatory

Chair · Ian Cohen

The role of capital markets, monetary policy and prudential regulation in a fragmenting global order.

Bank UndergroundAgentic commerce and the battleground for new payments infrastructure

Further sources to be added this week.

Cyber Security and Irregular Warfare

Chair · Dr Eric Golson, University of Surrey

Sub-threshold conflict, supply-chain attacks and the contested visibility of who is doing what to whom.

War on the RocksWhat Beirut's Port Scanners Miss About Militant Supply Chains

Further sources to be added this week.

Trade Finance and Supply Chains

Chair · Chris Southworth, ICC UK

The architecture of trade — finance, documentation, customs, standards — when the rules and the data sit increasingly under contested control.

JamestownThe Chinese Rules and Future of Global Trade

Further sources to be added this week.

Defence Mobilisation and Transition

Chair · Mike Borsos, Porsche-MHP · Brig (Rtd) Robbie Boyd OBE, Encompass EV

How industrial bases transition into defence capacity at scale — and what happens to the firms, workers and supply chains caught in the middle.

Sources to be added this week.

Finance and Insurance

Chair · Katya Gorbatiouk, London Stock Exchange Group

Capital allocation, insurance risk transfer and the financial plumbing required to underwrite a more contested strategic environment.

Sources to be added this week.