Building the Trojan Horse: Leveraging Dual-Use Infrastructure in War and Peace

Renewed in the public imagination by the People's Republic of China's (PRC) Belt and Road Initiative, infrastructure statecraft creates opportunities for states to cultivate spheres of influence abroad. In particular, dual-use infrastructure facilitates a joint commercial and military presence for a donor state in a host state. This paper takes a historical outlook to propose two infrastructure pathways – military-to-commercial and commercial-to-military – to recognize the PRC's use of this strategy beginning in the Vietnam War and continuing in 21st-century Africa. By employing PRC and U.S. state documents, this paper analyzes the PRC's weaponization of transport infrastructure projects with implications for statecraft development and great power competition.