We’ve talked about Moldova before. And while the country may be of limited strategic importance to the United States, it’s value as a testing ground for offensive economic security measures may be unparalleled. Recent droughts have exacerbated Moldova’s susceptibility to foreign influence, given Moldova’s reliance on agriculture. This is especially in the semi-autonomous region of Gagauzia, where grievance paired with economic and societal instability form a potentially dangerous set of circumstances requiring careful attention and subtle engagement.
Building on my previous article addressing the use of parametric insurance to counter information operations, this article takes a closer look at the problem in Gagauzia – from the size of its agriculture economy to the impacts of the 2022 drought and how parametric insurance could have reduced the economic strain on the Gagauz. Ultimately, of course, this is to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of a new form of economic warfare involving the weaponization of insurance (“insurfare”), particularly within the context of engaging populations and regions where military (irregular and otherwise) and diplomatic alternatives are limited.
Finding a solution for Moldova’s natural disaster-related economic security problems has worldwide implications. Pivoting to a commercial market solution executed within the irregular warfare context could change how economic, information, and societal threats are engaged, and getting it right in a smaller environment could support the development of a new category of irregular warfare capabilities.
Why Gagauzia?
If the strategic value of Moldova is questionable, then that of Gagauzia is downright perplexing. With a population of just over 150,000, the semi-autonomous region is culturally and linguistically different from the rest of the country. And the tension it has historically experienced with the country’s Chisinau-based leadership has left the region exposed to significant foreign influence, particularly from Russia. In fact, there is an openness to that outside influence – in part because it is seen as stabilizing (particularly with regard to energy security) and in part because of historical pride and nostalgia.
The foreign influence wielded in Gagauzia is seen as a force to be countered, both in Chisinau and in western European capitals – not to mention the United States. However, trying to do so with facts is ineffective, as I’ve discussed here. Instead, it would be far more effective to address the root causes – food and economic security. Without the drought and attendant food and economic security problems as a lever, Russian influence actors would lose important access to disrupting Moldovan society.
The key to Gagauzia’s susceptibility to foreign influence is its economic condition. Gagauzia is one of Moldova’s poorest regions, and Moldova is one of Europe’s poorest countries. With an estimated gross domestic product (GDP) of only $336 million in 2022 – which is $2,686 per capita – Gagauzia accounts for only 2.3% of Moldova’s GDP, despite representing 5% of the country’s population. Meanwhile, Gagauzia’s dependence on agriculture is clear, comprising 27% of the semi-autonomous region’s GDP. In U.S. dollar values, agriculture in Gagauzia adds up to approximately $90 million.
In 2022, Moldova experienced a brutal drought, which itself is not unusual. In fact, the country’s drought risk is expected to intensify, bringing further urgency to the economic and food security challenges the country faces. For Gagauzia, the drought was devastating. The region reportedly lost 50% of its staple crop (sunflowers) and saw 35,000 hectares of destroyed crops, at a value of approximately US$27.5 million. That’s roughly a third of Gagauzia’s GDP from agriculture.
It is difficult to take the sources of the drought impact statistics at face value. They come from an article by the European Centre for Minority Issues which draws on an article in Sputnik Moldova for the destroyed crops and economic value – a source with obvious credibility problems. And the source linked for the sunflower crop damage is no longer available. However, the numbers may be useful at least as an indicator of maximum severity. And a US$27.5 million economic effect from a severe drought in an agriculture-dependent region is certainly realistic.
What the numbers above do offer is a sense of magnitude, and it is clear that that magnitude is manageable. After all, the $90 million in total agricultural Gagauzia’s GDP is less than what the NotPetya cyber attack cost just one of its corporate victims. In fact, the addressability of the problem is what makes it interesting, particularly if a solution can be developed and validated in the region before being applied and scaled in other parts of the world. The problem of foreign influence in Gagauzia has one major component part that can be valued fully at US$90 million with a realistic tangible outcome that is roughly a third of that. And the cost to execute a solution would be even less.
How to Weaponize Insurance in the Economic Security Domain
Droughts and other natural events, crop yields, and relief capital come together within the field of “disaster diplomacy,” which involves “how and why disaster related activities – before, during, and after disasters – do and do not affect different forms of peace and conflict.” Typically, disaster diplomacy involves a discussion of foreign aid rather than commercial efforts. However, recipients of aid are forced to negotiate from a position of weakness even in the most favorable of conditions, and as is evident today, the risk of changes in policy among donor states can impede the flow of post-disaster support.
As donor state aid becomes increasingly difficult to secure, insurance may offer an alternative. After all, it’s a lot cheaper to pay for the premium on US$90 million in protection than it is simply to pay an affected state US$90 million. The challenge, presumably, is to find insurers who would take on the risk. In informal conversations with several insurers who cover agriculture risks in developing markets, I found significant appetite for this sort of risk – both in general and for Moldova specifically. (Now is a good time to disclose that I am a reinsurance broker in Bermuda, in addition to being a PhD candidate at the University of Kent, Canterbury, and am heavily involved in transactions of the sort described above, although not in Moldova.)
Parametric insurance is suited to the insurfare application in Gagauzia, as it is designed for transparency, ease of use, and reliability of payout. Parametric insurance uses to an independent source of data to determine whether a claim payment is necessary, with measures such as temperature and rainfall common in parametric agricultural insurance transactions. If the relevant measure is breached – such as insufficient rainfall for a key period in growing season – the parametric policy pays and provides financial relief to the farmers whose yield is impaired. It’s a straightforward process with decades of use worldwide, particularly in developing economies.
What makes insurfare potentially effective for improving economic security and denying adversaries access to the information domain in Gaguzia is the cost. As mentioned above. Gagauzia’s GDP from agriculture is only US$90 million, and the amount needed to be insured should be lower than that. Given that nearly a third of that value was impacted in 2022, a conservative but realistic approach would be to plan for a US$45 million event. That’s half the exposure and an increase of 64% above the 2022 experience.
Donor states take neither risk nor the obligation to pay an amount such as the US$45 million above. Instead, that’s risk to be borne by the commercial insurance market. Donor states would merely take on the obligation to pay the premium, and since this could become annual support, that spend could be integrated into donor state budgets early and predictably, obviating the need for emergency allocations and ex-budget spending.
To determine the cost of protection is largely a mechanical exercise. The premium that would be charged is only a percentage of the total protection offered and could be expected to range from 5-25% – although there are cases where larger and smaller amounts may make sense. Smaller premium amounts generally reflect coverage for events less likely to occur, while higher rates tend to reflect an increased likelihood of payment.
While it may be an exaggeration to refer to the above as the “weaponization” of insurance – or even insurfare – the use of parametric agriculture insurance to increase societal resilience and food and economic security as an alternative to an increasingly volatile foreign aid environment has clear utility for impeding the progress of adversary states in contested third-party countries with significant economic vulnerability.
Implications for the Irregular Warfare Community
Insurfare naturally raises the question of who pulls the trigger. While one could be forgiven a chuckle for imagining airborne actuaries being inserted into Comrat to calculate actuarially sound insurance rates, the reality of insurance use in irregular warfare more likely spans a range of functions and government agencies. The process of identifying roles through the process of implementing such an insurance capability is largely straightforward, given how much of the weaponization of insurance would rely on existing institutions and practices.
Engagement with prospective insureds – be they states, local commercial institutions (like banks or insurance companies), or even individuals – represents the front-facing part of the process, in which the imminent weather and economic threats are identified and understood. For example, someone needs to figure out how little rainfall has implications for crop yield, and at what point it becomes catastrophic. While it may be tempting to think that there is a model to be followed in the World Bank deals that have been completed (and there are many), the use of insurance capabilities in conjunction with donor state objectives should be treated as a local and sensitive manner. Regional experts, ideally with established networks, should be engaged to initiate such efforts. However, that’s likely to be the hardest part.
The rest, frankly, is just insurance.
Once the recipient state’s needs are identified, execution simply comes down to engaging providers of parametric agriculture insurance (the same is true of natural catastrophe risks, as parametrics are available for hurricane, earthquake, and other major forms of risk). And if the conditions of the program are met, the insurer – not the donor state – pays a claim, which obviates the need for relief aid. The use of parametric insurance makes it unnecessary to inspect farmland, understand specific damage or economic consequences, or otherwise engage with the affected Gagauzians. All the insurer needs to do is write a check, and while the donor state has no specific obligations, there is a soft power opportunity associated with such “relief” being delivered.
What Comes Next?
The applicability of insurfare is not limited to Moldova. There’s a global opportunity for implementation, especially in areas of the Global South where U.S. influence is in decline. Given that Moldova is small and fraught with internal challenges in places like Gagauzia, it offers a useful, manageable test environment for this new irregular warfare capability before it is taken to larger and more challenging environments.
There are several ways that insurance as a tool of economic engagement, security, and influence could be expanded and scaled. Within Moldova, for example, agriculture should be the first step rather than the only use case. The country experiences many other economic security threats, including energy production/availability, power outage/blackout, sanctions, and potentially irregular import/export activity due to the war in Ukraine and the effect that that has had on trading through Romania. With a broader view of economic risk, parametric insurance could start to form a blockade against foreign influence with regard to Moldova’s key economic security exposures.
Perhaps more important is that the use of insurance in this manner can scale geographically. Early lessons from the piloting of a parametric agriculture program in Moldova could be applied with scale to similar programs across Ukraine (and other regions). In fact, Moldova could serve as a test bed for parametric programs to be implemented in adjacent Ukraine, to include power production (especially in the solar and wind areas in the Donbas region).
Insurfare may be niche, novel, and untested, but it represents a unique opportunity to change the nature of economic engagement in areas where traditional forms of irregular warfare and diplomacy simply aren’t possible. Insurance has long been seen as a tool of economic security, and insurfare expands that role to offensive capability.
Tom Johansmeyer is a Political and International Relations Ph.D. candidate at the University of Kent, researching insurance and economic security with a focus on cyber. Based in Bermuda and also working in the reinsurance industry, he previously led Property Claim Services at Verisk, estimating the cost of disasters worldwide. A frequent writer and speaker on disaster risk, Tom is also a U.S. Army veteran who served in the late 1990s.
The views expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official position of the Irregular Warfare Initiative, Princeton University’s Empirical Studies of Conflict Project, the Modern War Institute at West Point, or the United States Government.
Main Image generated by ChatGPT using DALL·E, OpenAI (December, 2025).
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