Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare

by Edward Fishman

When judging economic warfare on its own merits, moreover, it’s important to consider counterfactuals. What would the world look like had the West refrained from striking Russia with hard-hitting economic weapons in 2022? Europe would still be reliant on Russian energy. The Russian economy and war machine would continue growing on the back of Western financing and technology. The lesson for the rest of the world would be that you can keep on reaping the benefits of the global economy no matter what you do. China would see fewer obstacles to seizing Taiwan by force, as would other would-be aggressors salivating over their neighbors’ territory. Even if one doubts the signaling effect of sanctions, it’s hard to argue the United States and its allies would be better off having maintained economic interdependence with Russia. Those ties outlived their purpose long ago—at least since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, if not since it invaded Georgia in 2008—and it’s a pity it took such a heinous act of Russian aggression for the West to finally cut them. Still, sanctions are now undermining the economic model on which Putin built his imperialist foreign policy, blunting his capacity to do more harm.