Editor’s note: This article is the sixth in an 11-part series examining how the United States should organize, lead, and integrate economic statecraft into strategy, defense practice, and the broader national security ecosystem. This special series is brought to you by the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and War on the Rocks. Prior installments can be found at the War by Other Ledgers page.The next major war the United States fights could be decided by supply chains long before the first shot is fired. That reality is already taking shape, as adversaries use export controls, sanctions, and supply chain leverage to shape outcomes on the battlefield.The Russo-Ukrainian War typifies this development: China has enacted strict export restrictions on drones and drone parts bound for Ukraine, directly degrading its military capability. In response, Ukraine has developed a China-free drone, though cost pressures continue to drive reliance on Chinese components.This is not an isolated case. Sanctions that specifically target military technology have grown more prominent in recent years. The United States and its allies have imposed export controls on China for advanced semiconductor chips and the tools made to produce them. China, in turn, has restricted rare earth sales to firms working with the Pentagon — putting nearly a third of defense procurement programs at risk of shortages. These examples show that economics has become an “operational domain of warfare.”U.S. military doctrine has yet to catch up. Incorporating economic tools of statecraft into operational planning will require greater technological sophistication to assess mission risk, novel mitigation strategies, and deeper cooperation between the private sector and the defense enterprise. These efforts should be housed in a dedicated entity within the Pentagon — such as the proposed Economic Warfare Operations Capability — tasked with identifying, orchestrating, and addressing fundamental risks to the industrial base and supply chains, while coordinating the interagency cooperation those missions demand. There is a need to build greater trust between the private sector and the Pentagon and to teach defense leaders economic statecraft skills.Economic statecraft lives primarily in the private sector. While the U.S. government sets the rules governing economic coercion, corporations execute the actions — and they answer to shareholders, not combatant commanders. Operationalizing economic statecraft, therefore, requires the Pentagon to cultivate closer private sector relationships and structure incentives that allow companies to profit while advancing national security objectives.The Pentagon has already launched initiatives toward this end — the Economic Defense Unit, the Office of Strategic Capital, and the Defense Innovation Unit, among them. What is missing is an integrating body that aligns these efforts toward common objectives. That is precisely the role the Economic Warfare Operations