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Globally Critical Infrastructure: Sovereignty, Security, and Emerging Fault Lines
Critical infrastructure is often defined within national borders—but in an interconnected world, certain systems have become so vital that their disruption could destabilize societies far beyond any single state. These “globally critical infrastructures”—from undersea cables and semiconductor supply chains to rare earth processing and energy chokepoints—create a distinct and underexamined risk landscape. Their failure could ripple across economies, governments, and defense systems, exposing both the nations that host them and those that depend on them.
This talk introduces the concept of globally critical infrastructure as a framework for understanding how sovereignty, security, and interdependence collide. It explores the unique governance and risk management challenges posed by assets that lie outside traditional jurisdictional control—and the geopolitical leverage or vulnerability they create. Addressing these shared dependencies demands new approaches that transcend homeland security and extend into foreign policy, defense strategy, and international cooperation. The session calls for reimagining resilience as a collective endeavor, forging new pathways for diplomacy, funding, and monitoring to safeguard the arteries of the global system.
Zachary Kallenborn is an MPhil / PhD student in War Studies at King’s College London researching risk and uncertainty with topical focuses on global catastrophes, drone warfare, critical infrastructure, WMD, and apocalyptic terrorism. He is also affiliated with the University of Oxford, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, George Mason University, and the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. His extensive research, writing, and analysis occasionally receives global news coverage, and influences a broad range of state, federal, and global security policies and strategies. Zachary appeared in Netflix’s “UNKNOWN: Killer Robots,” is an officially proclaimed U.S. Army “Mad Scientist,” and is on the board of advisors of Synthetic Decision Group, Inc. and the Michael J. Morell Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at the University of Akron.
Date:
17 November 2025, 17:30
Venue:
Venue to be announced
Speaker:
Zachary Kallenborn (KCL)
Organiser:
Zachary Turinsky (University of Oxford)
Part of:
Oxford Emerging Threats & Technology Working Group
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://emergingthreats.co.uk/event/week-6-globally-critical-infrastructure-sovereignty-security-and-emerging-fault-lines/
Audience:
Oxford University Members and Wider Academic/Policy Community
Editor:
Zachary Turinsky
