Underground Empire

May 1, 2023
Two senior academics examine how the U.S. seeks to exert global power in the digital age. Between them, Farrell, a professor at Johns Hopkins and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and Newman, a professor at Georgetown, have a huge amount of expertise in foreign policy and international relations. In this collaboration, they adamantly assert that the U.S. is the supreme power in the world, dominating enemies and allies alike. The key is the effective control of critical elements of the world's technological systems. Far from being a decentralized network, the information web depends on a relatively small number of "choke points," most of them in American territory. Since 9/11, successive presidential administrations have used this situation as a tool for gathering intelligence and as a weapon for potentially cutting an adversary out of global communications. Connected to this is the domination of international capital flows, partly through economic weight and partly via forced compliance from banks and corporations. The authors have amassed a wealth of research material, but their overall argument is not entirely persuasive. After all, the idea of an empire--even an underground one--implies a high level of focused power, and anyone who examines U.S. foreign policy of the past two decades will quickly find failures as well as victories. Having power and using it effectively are very different things. Yes, pressure can be exerted through economic sanctions, but this does not mean guaranteed success. Russia still sits on a chunk of Ukraine; Iran has not collapsed; North Korea continues to make missiles; China continues to develop its surveillance state. As such, the global landscape is chaotic, adversarial, and unpredictable, as it has long been and will continue to be. Though the authors offer a number of intriguing ideas, the book is undermined by a persistent overstatement of its case. Farrell and Newman are experts in their field, but this book will fail to convince many readers.

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Starred review from June 12, 2023
Control over information, money, and technology gives America overweening global influence, according to this penetrating exposé. Political scientists Farrell (The Uses and Abuses of Weaponized Trust) and Newman (Protectors of Privacy) reveal how the U.S. exploits the international infrastructures used to make cellphone calls or wire funds to bully foreign countries and private companies. These infrastructures include fiber-optic cables carrying the world’s internet traffic, most of which physically crosses U.S. territory and is available to the National Security Agency; the international bank payments system SWIFT, which divulges information about global economic transactions to the U.S.; and American sanctions regulations that deprive the nation’s adversaries of markets and technology, as in 2022 when the U.S. forced the Taiwanese semiconductor manufacturer TSMC to deny advanced chips to the Chinese telecom giant Huawei, thus forestalling a Chinese-built global empire of 5G internet networks. Writing in lucid, accessible prose, the authors trace the growth of America’s economic weapons and their modern deployments, which are sometimes subtle and devious and sometimes blunt and piratical. (In 2019, a State Department official threatened a sea captain piloting a tanker full of Iranian oil with personal sanctions if he didn’t change course.) The result is a fascinating and troubling look at the power plays enabled by a networked world.

September 1, 2023

The coauthors of Of Privacy and Power, Farrell (international affairs, Johns Hopkins Univ.) and Newman (foreign service and government, Georgetown Univ.), coined the phrase "weaponized interdependence" before writing this book. Here they show how the United States wields unprecedented geopolitical power by barring its opponents from vital global networks of informational and financial exchange, which form part of the U.S. "underground empire." Nearly unilaterally, the United States can bar places (such as Iran) and businesses (such as Chinese telecom giant Huawei) from trading in U.S. dollars, using most banks or payment systems, buying raw materials, or selling on open markets, with ruinous effects. This book notes that the American empire emerged haphazardly as a result of technological innovations and rapid globalization in the wake of the Cold War. Lacking guardrails, strategic vision, or a multilateral approach, weaponization of global economic interdependence--through the means of escalating sanctions and export controls--risks rupturing the international order and destabilizing U.S. influence. The authors urge the U.S. to wield "the tools of empire" to tackle global problems, such as tax evasion, corruption, and climate change. VERDICT This groundbreaking survey is essential reading for policymakers, students, and practitioners of international politics, business, and economics.--Michael Rodriguez

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