The suffix “-shoring" is used to identify to a family of strategies through which organisations and states relocate production, sourcing, or services in response to changing economic, political, or security conditions.
The prefix attached to the term (e.g. friend, near, or ally) indicates where the operations in question have been relocated to. Collectively, the strategies mark a departure from the hyper-globalised supply chains of the 1900s and early 2000s towards arrangements more explicitly influenced by geopolitics.
The rise of shoring accelerated following a series of shocks that exposed how delicate existing supply chains were. The 2008 financial crisis highlighted how production and financing was concentrated in a limited number of locations, the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted logistics and revealed a risky level of dependence on single suppliers, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine brought the strategic risk of economic and energy interdependence with nations with significantly opposing values and interests out into the open.
Trade disputes, sanctions, industrial policy, and concerns over national resilience have subsequently continued to force governments and corporations to take where and with whom they operate and conduct business more seriously.
