# Threat-Model Capture **Domain:** Information Warfare / Strategic Cognition / Institutional Power **Doc Type:** Concept Node **Maturity:** Developed **Concept Hub:** [[wiki/War With Empire|War With Empire]] ## Definition **Threat-model capture is influence over the categories, rankings, sources, and salience through which a polity identifies danger.** It operates upstream of policy by shaping what appears threatening, which evidence appears authoritative, and which relationships remain exempt from scrutiny. Capture does not require fabricated facts or centralized direction. A threat picture can contain accurate evidence while remaining structurally captured if the institutions producing it are also protected from appearing within it. ## War With Empire Context [[articles/war with empire/The Original Enemy|The Original Enemy]] develops the term through predator-prey perception and American strategic memory. [[articles/war with empire/The True Enemy of Both China and the United States|The True Enemy of Both China and the United States]] applies it to an inherited interpretive environment in which rivalry is visible while dependency can become atmospheric and ordinary. ## Diagnostic Capture is indicated by an unexplained exemption, not by a particular conclusion: the same actor helps define the threat picture while remaining outside the set of actors the picture is allowed to assess. ## Key Insight **The most valuable control over a decision may be control over the danger categories from which the decision begins.** ## See Also [[wiki/Threat-Provenance Audit|Threat-Provenance Audit]], [[wiki/Perceptual Sovereignty|Perceptual Sovereignty]], [[wiki/Environmentalized Power|Environmentalized Power]], [[wiki/Prestige Networks|Prestige Networks]]