What is the new shape of geopolitics—one in which the U.S. mobilizes its economic and financial pre-eminence for geopolitical objectives, especially in its clashes with China, Iran and Russia. It’s the story of a world economy that has moved from confident globalization to increasing fragmentation and in which economic warfare has become “a baseline feature of our world.”
Of course, there’s nothing new about economic warfare. Athens in the fifth century B.C. deployed its mighty navy to impose a trade embargo on the city-state of Megara. The blockade succeeded but also backfired, helping precipitate a war with Sparta that would shatter Athens’s golden age.
Today we see Mr. Trump’s penchant for tariffs, marking a reversion from the long trend toward trade liberalization that began with the revulsion against the trade wars of the 1930s. The second Trump administration is not hesitating to impose and brandish tariffs against both allies and adversaries, whether to offset trade deficits or to achieve other policy goals. At the same time, Moscow is already making clear in negotiations over its war against Ukraine that the removal of all sanctions is a primary objective.
If you are looking for a timely guide to the fragmenting of the global economy and the rising tensions that go with it, this SDG is for you!
Week one: Building the Chokepoints pages 14 - 48
Week two: Iran and the bomb part one pages 49 - 92
Week three: Iran and the Bomb part two- pages 93 - 135
Week four: The Deal, Putin's Land Grab in Crimea page 139 - 182
Week five: How Sanctions Ruined Russia's Economy. pages 183 - 224
Week six: And How Russia Bribed its Way Back; China's Bid for Technological Supremacy with the US hoping China would evolve pages 227 - 265
Week seven: Impact of China's hundreds of policies to US realization that Sanctions against Iran Alone would not Work, pages 267 - 306
Week eight: Backdoors and betrayals to evade sanctions and agreements through the geopolitical swing of Brazil, India and Turkey in 2014 pages 309 -342
Week nine: Every country demands imposition of economic weapons from the US pages 342 - 388
Week ten: Ukraine surrounds Kyiv metro towns to Biden's export controls; Are tariffs the new sanctions? What can be done now with economic chokepoints? pages 391 - 426
Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare by Edward Fishman, Penguin/Random House 2025, 425 pages
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