It’s the economy, stupid.” So said James Carville, an advisor to Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign in 1992, and many peacetime politicians since. But it is also an idea that has kept military planners and wartime leaders awake at night. War has always been big business. But the business of war is changing. Western militaries need an urgent mindset shift, akin to the integration of cyber or space into their plans, concepts, and doctrine, in how they conceptualise the role of the commercial sector and the mobilisation of private firms in support of operations, especially in times of interstate conflict.

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