Competing for Freedom
Uniting Values, Vision, and Capability in a Contested World
“Strategic competition demands more than power — it requires coherence between purpose, policy, and people.”
The Strategic Imperative
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In this divided and interdependent world, strategic competition is not a choice. It is the necessary response to an age where autocracies weaponize interdependence and democracies must re-harness the strength of principled cooperation and collective innovation.
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Strategic competition has shifted — it is no longer a contest of military might alone. It is now a multidimensional race across technology, economics, governance, infrastructure, and trust.
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Freedom does not prevail by default. It wins when it delivers — and when it competes with clarity, purpose, and unity.
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To translate that coherence into capability, democracies need frameworks that capture how free nations can compete — and win — together.
Frameworks for Strategic Coherence
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Traditional models like DIME—Diplomacy, Information, Military, Economic—served an era when American power could be projected from a stable, dominant core.
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But power today is dynamic, distributed, and contested. To succeed, democracies must generate strength, not just apply it; sustain it, not merely display it; and align it, not simply amass it.
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That is why Mark Kennedy developed three integrated frameworks for 360° strategic coherence:
🔹 GRIPS: The Five Faces of Power
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GRIPS identifies five interdependent domains that nations and institutions must develop and align to sustain strategic advantage:
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A strategic blueprint for building and integrating long-term national strength:
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Governance, Resilience, Innovation, Perception, Security
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GRIPS goes beyond DIME, capturing the internal systems and values that determine a nation’s ability to compete and lead.
🔹 PIVOT: Diagnosing Strategic Posture
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If GRIPS reveals what must be built and aligned, PIVOT helps institutions assess how well-positioned they are to compete and adapt.
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PIVOT introduces five dimensions of diagnostic insight:
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🟦 Presence – Where you operate, source, and influence
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🟩 Institutional Navigation – How effectively you shape and respond to regulatory environments
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🟨 Value Structure - The strength and flexibility of your financial model
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🟧 Operational Technology – The sovereignty and scalability of your digital and industrial infrastructure
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🟥 Trust – Your credibility with key stakeholders and shapeholders
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While GRIPS defines capacity, PIVOT reveals whether you need to pivot—and how—with strategic clarity.
🔹 ALIGN: Closing the Strategy–Execution Gap
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Mind the Gap is a call to expose and address the hidden fractures between capabilities—before they erode credibility, cohesion, or control.
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Gaps often emerge:
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Between pillars – Innovation outpaces governance
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Across institutions – Private-sector progress is disconnected from public purpose
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Across alliances – Infrastructure and digital standards are uneven or uncoordinated
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Between ambition and execution – Narrative goals are disconnected from the policies, budgets, and systems needed to achieve them
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Closing these seams requires discipline — a framework that operationalizes coherence. That is the purpose of ALIGN, a strategic discipline for turning ambition into execution.
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The Five Elements of ALIGN:
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🟦 A — Audit for Cross-Domain Consistency
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🟩 L — Link Vision to Execution Systems
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🟨 I — Integrate Across Institutions and Sectors
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🟧 G — Gap-Test with Strategic Stress Scenarios
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🟥 N — Narrow Focus to What Builds Trust and Advantage
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Whether applied to national strategy, corporate transformation, or alliance modernization, ALIGN ensures that priorities set by GRIPS and posture revealed by PIVOT are converted into performance.
The Path Forward
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Strategic coherence is no longer a luxury — it is a necessity.
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In a world where threats are hybrid and power interdependent, leadership must do more than manage silos.
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It must align them.
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That means governing with integrity that earns public trust.
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It means innovating at the speed of change while protecting what matters most.
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It means forging alliances that are not just symbolic — but synchronized.
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The path forward lies not in more programs, but in smarter alignment.
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Not in louder rhetoric, but in stronger trust.
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Not just in leading — but in leading with clarity, connection, and courage.
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Together, GRIPS, PIVOT, and ALIGN offer a 360° approach to strategic coherence — diagnosing capacity, refining posture, and ensuring execution.
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In competing for freedom, coherence is how democracies turn principle into power.
🎤 Related Keynotes
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The following keynotes offer deeper application of these frameworks across global, institutional, and economic dimensions: