Markets as the new frontline

Markets as the new frontline is Tennant's proposition that trade, finance, technology and investment networks have become contested terrain in strategic competition. Markets transmit state measures rapidly because firms reprice risk, redirect supply and alter compliance before a dispute reaches formal adjudication. The proposition does not mean that every price movement or commercial decision is an act of warfare.

Exposure and leverage

Market leverage begins with exposure. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade reports that Australia exported AUD 196 billion in goods and services to China in 2025, equal to 29 per cent of Australia's global goods and services exports. The period, currency and denominator matter. Earlier ranges of 27 to 36 per cent combined different years or measures and should not be treated as one current exposure figure.

High exposure can create coercive vulnerability, but concentration is not sufficient to prove coercion. A campaign claim also needs an identified measure, sender, demand and causal route. DFAT's Annual Report 2024-25 states that all trade impediments affecting Australian exports to China imposed from 2020 to 2022 had been removed by December 2024. This establishes the department's current case endpoint, not why the restrictions ended.

Modelled resource risk

Critical-mineral scenarios show how a concentrated market can affect downstream production. A United States Geological Survey model estimated a central USD 3.4 billion gross-domestic-product effect from specified Chinese gallium and germanium restrictions, with a range of USD 1.7 billion to USD 9.0 billion. It is a modelled scenario, not an observed loss. Its assumptions, product scope and uncertainty range must travel with the number.

This distinction is central to frontline analysis. A model identifies potential exposure under assumptions. Market data record observed price and volume. Neither, without evidence of state purpose and transmission, proves a hostile operation.

Infrastructure and law

Australia's Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 supplies a current legal framework for managing risks to specified critical infrastructure assets. The operative reference is the compilation current on 4 June 2026, not the statute's original 2018 form. Regulatory coverage, ownership notifications and risk-management duties should be taken from the current text.

Law can reduce vulnerability by improving visibility, resilience and intervention capacity. It can also raise compliance cost. The strategic result depends on whether the measure reduces single points of failure without creating new ones.

Transmission map

A market event becomes strategically relevant through a defined transmission chain. The chain may run from a state decision to a commodity price, then to inventories, production schedules, employment and political choices. Private firms can dampen or amplify each step through hedging, stockpiles, substitution and contract design.

The map should identify where observation ends and inference begins. Price movement is observable; the political meaning assigned to it is not. This distinction allows markets to be analysed as channels of power without assuming that every commercial decision is centrally directed.

Assessment

The frontline metaphor is useful when it directs attention to dependencies, transmission speed and private intermediaries. It becomes misleading when ordinary volatility is recast as combat. Analysis should separate state action, market reaction, modelled risk and observed economic effect, then identify confidence and rival explanations.

See also

Weaponised interdependence | Market-based warfare | Security of Critical Infrastructure Act (Australia, 2018) | Critical minerals weaponisation

Sources

• Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, China country brief, accessed 29 July 2026.
• United States Geological Survey, model of the potential effects of Chinese gallium and germanium restrictions, 15 October 2024.
• Australian Government, *Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018*, compilation C2026C00213, 4 June 2026.
• Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, *Annual Report 2024-25*, 2025.