Employing the Economic Instrument of National Power in Unstable Areas
Abstract. Unstable areas create numerous challenges to effectively using the economic instrument of national power. To overcome these challenges, policy makers and national defense practitioners must know the economic tools and understand the environment with associated challenges. There are numerous tools that form the economic instrument of national power — some are internal to the United States Government and some are external. To better understand the types of unstable environments, areas of instability that the United States will likely face are broken down into three categories — failed states, conflict areas and disaster areas. Using economic power in each of these areas has associated challenges and overcoming them requires proper planning and implementation of force structure considerations.
