The Cornered Dragon

About the book

Your risk model is built for price shocks. The disruption that breaks a supply chain doesn't move the price. It stops the shipment.

In the book's worked example, a wire that cleared in under three seconds for nine years takes fourteen. A supplier reports full output while its electricity draw stays flat. Most risk tools file both under Noise. In May 2025, a Ford plant in Chicago idled for a week while the magnets it needed sat in a Chinese export-licensing queue. That isn't price risk. It's access risk, and it's where U.S.-China bifurcation lands on an operating business.

So what do you do about it? Wait for a clearer forecast, and you'll still be waiting when the freeze arrives. Hedge the price, and you've insured the wrong risk. Stockpile everything, and your CFO will ask what you're paying for. The Cornered Dragon, Book 1 gives you another way: measure the strain and stage your response while preparing is still cheap.

Inside this Practitioner Toolkit:

• The Noise, Latency, Silence diagnostic sorts every disruption by whether it moves the price, taxes the trade, or stops it.
• Phase Zero triage is three steps you can run this weekend: a critical-input census, an origin phone call, and a thirty-day buffer test.
• The Counterparty Chain Audit maps your physical, financial, data, and technology dependencies.
• The Friction Index gives you six monthly warning signals, with escalation rules that tell you when to act.
• The Freeze-Resistance Framework sets out five stages, from Recognize to Preserve.
• A one-page CFO translation prices preparation as a share of the covenant default it insures against.

The instruments are calibrated to the pessimistic end of the structural range, so the spend reads as insurance whether or not the worst case comes. Four red team scenarios, from Managed Competition to Hot Conflict, serve as stress tests, not predictions. A composite treasurer and procurement analyst carry the method through real decisions.

It's written for corporate treasurers, procurement and supply chain leaders, compliance leads, and capital allocators with China exposure. If you've read the big books on chips, sanctions, and deglobalization and wished they ended in a template, this one does.

Book 1 is complete on its own, and a first-pass audit fits in an afternoon. Book 2, the Structural Companion, supplies the evidence behind the calibration.

Run the first pass before the next wire stalls.