Dr. Alicia Ellis and Sarah Shoer published “Agriculture as a Domain of Hybrid Warfare: China’s Strategy and U.S. Security Gaps” in PRISM: The Journal of Complex Operations. They argue that agriculture should be treated as critical infrastructure, given that it has been a deliberate target and instrument of hybrid warfare. They document how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is building upstream leverage through fertilizer dominance, ag‑tech acquisitions, land purchases, and control of key logistics nodes, creating potential chokepoints in U.S. and global food systems. The article introduces an Agriculture Security (“AgSec”) framework that aims to protect “farm-to-fork infrastructure” from disruption, manipulation, or exploitation by adversaries and integrates agriculture into hybrid deterrence planning on par with other forms of critical infrastructure.

Rising tensions in the Persian Gulf are beginning to ripple through global fertilizer markets just as shipments normally move toward farms ahead of the spring planting season. Because fertilizer deliveries are tightly synchronized with agricultural production cycles, disruptions during this window can shape harvest outcomes months before crops are even planted. If current instability continues to tighten fertilizer markets, the effects could reach the upcoming growing season sooner than policymakers or planners anticipate.

The U.S. food system is a marvel of modern logistics, productivity, and innovation. However, its very efficiency, anchored in just-in-time delivery, concentrated infrastructure, and foreign input reliance, has also made it profoundly fragile. Once seen as just an economic domain, agriculture now sits at the intersection of multiple threat vectors: cyber, bio, economic, and geopolitical.

In an era where strategic competition has resurged as a driving force of international politics, no dimension of statecraft is more important than economics.