Infrastructure Outlasts Regime Capture

Investments in large‑scale tech and energy infrastructure (5G, cloud, generation, EV supply chains, ports) create durable leverage for an external power that survives the removal or arrest of a friendly or proxy leader. Physical and digital systems anchor influence in ways that single leadership decapitations cannot swiftly undo. — This reframes geopolitical strategy: short‑term kinetic operations (arresting a head of state) rarely remove strategic influence once an adversary has embedded critical infrastructure in a region, so policymakers must weigh infrastructural countermeasures, not only regime actions.