Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare

The secret history of how America turned the world economy into a weapon

It used to be that roiling another country’s economy required blockading its ports and laying siege to its cities. Now all it takes is a statement posted online by the U.S. government.

In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top-ranking State Department sanctions official and current senior research scholar at Columbia University, takes us deep into the back rooms of power to reveal the secret history of the last two decades of U.S. foreign policy, in which Washington turned the gospel of globalization on its head and transformed the world economy into a battlefield. Fishman tells the epic story of how renegades within the U.S. government built a powerful new arsenal of economic sanctions--and how an unbroken string of American presidents has relied on these mysterious weapons to confront the country’s greatest national-security threats, for good and for ill.

Taking inspiration from books such as Fareed Zakaria’s The Post-American World and Robert Kagan’s Of Paradise and Power, Fishmanoffers a thrilling account of one of the most crucial geopolitical subjects of our time, demystifying the intricate strategies the U.S. government uses to manipulate Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Big Oil to advance American interests. Fishman tells the story through the eyes of an eclectic group of bureaucratic heroes: the diplomats, lawyers, and financial whizzes who’ve masterminded America’s escalating economic wars against Iran, Russia, and China.

Economic warfare has become the primary way the United States seeks to solve global problems and deter its enemies. Sometimes it has achieved spectacular success, other times bitter failure, but the result we’re living with today is a new world order: an economic arms race among great powers and a fracturing global economy. Chokepoints is the definitive account of how America has pioneered this new, hard-hitting style of economic warfare, and what it means for the world.

Edward Fishman is one of the world’s leading authorities on economic statecraft and sanctions. He teaches at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and is a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy. He also advises companies on geopolitical issues and invests in mission-driven technology startups. Previously, he served in the U.S. State Department as a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, at the Pentagon as an advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and at the U.S. Treasury Department as special assistant to the Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. His analysis is regularly featured by outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and NPR, and he frequently writes for publications such as Foreign Affairs and Politico. He holds a B.A. in History from Yale, an M.Phil. in International Relations from Cambridge, and an M.B.A. from Stanford.