Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare

Book Introduction | Chokepoints

Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare

Edward Fishman | Portfolio (Penguin Random House) | 2025

In the classical literature of international relations, power has traditionally been defined through armies, naval fleets, military arsenals, and a state’s ability to exert coercive force. However, over the past two decades, another form of power has gradually moved to the center of global politics: a form of power exercised not through tanks and missiles, but through financial networks, advanced technologies, economic infrastructure, and global supply chains.

Edward Fishman’s Chokepoints is an attempt to explain this transformation—a shift that, according to the author, represents one of the most significant developments in twenty-first-century international politics.

Fishman is a scholar at Columbia University and one of the leading experts on sanctions and economic power. Before entering academia, he worked at the U.S. Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, and the Pentagon, where he was directly involved in the development of aspects of U.S. sanctions policy. This practical experience gives the book a dimension rarely found in purely academic works.

The book begins with a simple but important observation: after the end of the Cold War, the United States gradually expanded its reliance on economic instruments to advance strategic objectives rather than depending solely on military power. These instruments included financial sanctions, control over the global payments system, export restrictions, restrictions on advanced technologies, and the exploitation of existing dependencies within the global economy.

Fishman explains these tools through the concept of “chokepoints.” In any network, certain critical nodes exist whose control enables influence over the entire system. The global economy contains similar points of leverage. The dollar-based financial system, international payment networks, semiconductor manufacturing technologies, advanced industrial equipment, and critical raw materials all represent examples of such chokepoints.

One of the most significant sections of the book focuses on Iran. Fishman demonstrates how the United States, during the 2010s, used the dominant position of the dollar and the international financial system to impose unprecedented economic pressure on Iran. From his perspective, this experience represented a turning point in the evolution of economic warfare, demonstrating that a state could impose substantial costs on an adversary without resorting to military force.

The book then turns to Russia. From sanctions following the annexation of Crimea to the extensive restrictions imposed after the war in Ukraine, Fishman illustrates how economic instruments became one of the most important tools available to the West in confronting Moscow. In this account, sanctions are no longer a secondary policy instrument; rather, they have become a central component of broader strategies for great-power competition.

However, perhaps the most important section of the book concerns China. Fishman argues that U.S.-China competition has entered a phase in which advanced technologies occupy a central position. Export restrictions targeting semiconductor industries, limitations on access to certain artificial intelligence technologies, and controls over chip-manufacturing equipment represent examples of using technological chokepoints to preserve strategic advantage.

At this point, the book enters one of the most important debates in contemporary technopolitics: the relationship between technology and power. Fishman explains that in today’s world, control over critical technologies can be as significant as control over maritime routes or energy resources. Consequently, competition over semiconductors, critical minerals, and digital infrastructure has become one of the most important arenas of geopolitical rivalry.

One of the book’s major strengths is that it does not examine sanctions and economic warfare solely through the lens of success or failure. Fishman demonstrates that excessive reliance on these instruments can also generate unintended consequences. The more the United States uses its dominant position within the global economy, the stronger the incentives become for other countries to develop alternative networks. Therefore, economic warfare is not only a tool for preserving power; it is also a force contributing to the restructuring of the global order.

For researchers in technopolitics, geoeconomics, security studies, and international relations, the significance of Chokepoints lies in its clear depiction of one of the most important transformations of the contemporary era. The book demonstrates that power in the twenty-first century is not defined solely by military capabilities or even national economic strength; rather, it is increasingly embedded in the ability to control the critical nodes and chokepoints upon which the global economy depends.

Chokepoints examines the weaponization of the global economy. It explains how the dollar, technology, supply chains, and economic infrastructure have become the primary instruments of competition among the world’s major powers.