Many countries have made moves in recent years to ensure their economic policy reflects national security as well as economic interests. China, the US, the EU, the UK, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and others have rapidly expanded and reorganised the legal and regulatory national regimes that govern international trade and the cross-border flow of technology and people. 

Governments are seeking to balance national security, economic openness, and international stability – but the trade-offs between them, and how the design and implementation of different national policies affect global stability as a whole, have not been adequately explored.
The Research on Economic Security and Peace (RESP) project, a collaboration between Oxford and Harvard Universities, aims to fill this gap. 

The proliferation of nations’ export controls, tariffs, and investment screening tools is intended to bolster security, but can have the reverse effect, since actions taken by one government to bolster its economic security often increase vulnerabilities for others, prompting countermeasures. The spiral of tariffs and export controls on technology and critical minerals between the United States and China, for example, has not only raised strategic risks for both countries, but also elevated uncertainties for the rest of the world. At worst, tit-for-tat economic measures may escalate into unintended military conflict. 
Our research goal is to identify policy designs that reduce vulnerability without increasing the risk of escalation, and to translate these findings into actionable guidance for governments.

Our approach

The empirical foundation for this research rests on new data capturing (i) the transformation of exports control regimes; (ii) the structure of newly formed economic security bureaucracies; and (iii) the rise of private firms as providers of vital economic information, covering China and other major powers. 

By highlighting when the security logic underpinning economic policy leads to escalation or stabilisation, where regulations conflict, how the role of firms is changing, and how to design incentives for cooperation, we aim to support evidence‐based policies, reduce the risk of strategic miscalculation, and strengthen global stability.

We bring in a comparative lens to look across the major jurisdictions of the US, China, Japan, South Korea, the EU, the UK, and small open economies such as Singapore, to assess how national-level efforts at strengthening economic security affect prospects for international peace and stability.

Ongoing analyses will emphasize tradeoffs: commercial gains at home that strengthen rival governments abroad, dual-use technologies that boost both civilian and military advancement, and supply chains that create hidden dependencies. We focus on a neglected but crucial dimension: the varied national policy processes used to manage these tradeoffs, where even small institutional choices can have disproportionate impact on the security and reliability of economic exchange and the threat perceptions of major powers.