Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare

In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top State Department sanctions official, examines how the United States transformed the world economy into a weapon over the past two decades. The book traces America's shift away from globalization toward economic warfare against Russia, China, and Iran. Fishman reveals how U.S. government officials built new economic tools that exploit America's dominance in global finance and technology. Rather than traditional military blockades, modern economic sanctions can now be deployed through a single government statement. Successive U.S. presidents have used these unconventional weapons to address national-security threats, with varying degrees of success and failure. The narrative centers on policy innovators—diplomats, lawyers, and financial experts—who orchestrated America's escalating economic campaigns. Fishman demystifies the strategies used to harness the power of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Big Oil against adversaries. Economic warfare has become the primary U.S. method for confronting international crises and countering rivals. The result is a new global landscape: an economic arms race among great powers and a fracturing world economy. The book provides an account of how America pioneered this style of economic war and its reshaping of international relations.