The Irreplaceable Node: Key Person Concentration as a Compound National Security Vulnerability

Abstract

This paper is one pillar of the Mutual Threshold Saturation (MTS) research programme. Companion papers document material supply chain dependencies (Paper 4, SSRN 6454618), cost asymmetry in defence attrition (Paper 6, SSRN 6642278), and compound economic fragility (Paper 7, SSRN 6667841). All papers and the open-source KPVS simulation tool are available at rjgreenresearch.org and github.com/rjgreenresearch.

Keywords: key person vulnerability, human capital concentration, tacit knowledge, adversarial targeting, Thousand Talents, KPCI, Monte Carlo simulation, nuclear workforce, succession risk, economic statecraft, collective security

JEL Classification: H56, J24, O33, F52, M51