Five years ago, I came up with the idea of “the new national security economy.” That phrase is shorthand for a security environment fundamentally different from that to which we are accustomed and which has, until now, framed security policy and strategy.

Adopting my approach demands a transformation in our thinking about security — not only in how we define threats but where we look for them. It focuses greater attention on economics, technology and the ways that tech’s ever-deepening integration into daily life poses challenges that we don’t fully comprehend. Recent developments have driven home not only the need for this reassessment but, sadly, confirmed its most tentative and troubling element: We must be alert to dangers that emanate not only from adversaries but our supposed “allies” as well.

Traditionally, national security focused on the application of “hard power," or the ability of governments to force or coerce compliance with its wishes. Some smart folks argue that persuasion and attraction create more durable, enduring and productive relationships; we call this “soft power.” Soft power is poorly understood and it is no substitute for situations when brute force is required, but it has genuine influence in subtle ways that increasingly matter in a world in which resorting to kinetic means — shooting, bombing, invasion — is ever more problematic.