DARPA program manager says new 'quantitative geoeconomics' effort aims to build reusable market‑design playbooks

DARPA program manager David Rushing Doohurst described a research effort he calls national security economic theory (NENT), which he said seeks to create a rigorous, quantitative foundation for geoeconomics and reusable playbooks for economic statecraft.

"Nent is trying to build playbooks, generic, and I mean generic in sort of the programming languages sense," David said, describing the program’s aim to produce reusable tools that can be applied across different macroeconomic scenarios.

David framed the project as theoretical work intended to help government decision-making: start with a desired goal state, then work backward to identify policies or market mechanisms that could lead there. He used the dynamic‑programming concept as a modeling analogy, acknowledging the model’s limits while asserting its usefulness as a design tool.

He placed NENT in a long view of how abstract mathematics can mature into strategic capability, citing the historical role of stochastic calculus and Black–Scholes in reshaping finance. David said real policy adoption would require multiple follow‑on programs and buy‑in from executive branch entities and private industry.

David emphasized DARPA’s role is technical research rather than policy: "DARPA doesn't make policy," he said, noting success would look like executive‑branch offices using the produced frameworks to choose actions and create markets. He estimated NENT could take many years to show practical effects, perhaps a decade or more.

The podcast presents NENT as a foundation-level research program oriented toward creating generalizable theoretical tools for economic statecraft. The work is framed as long‑term, dependent on subsequent programs and institutional adoption to translate theory into policy and market outcomes.