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Underground Empire

How America Weaponized the World Economy

ebook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available

Arthur Ross Book Award, Council on Foreign Relations, Bronze Medal
Shortlisted for the Lionel Gelber Prize
Named a best book of the year by Foreign Affairs and Responsible Statecraft

A deeply researched investigation that reveals how the United States is like a spider at the heart of an international web of surveillance and control, which it weaves in the form of globe-spanning networks such as fiber optic cables and obscure payment systems

America's security state first started to weaponize these channels after 9/11, when they seemed like necessities to combat terrorism—but now they're a matter of course. Multinational companies like AT&T and Citicorp build hubs, which they use to make money, but which the government can also deploy as choke points. Today's headlines about trade wars, sanctions, and technology disputes are merely tremors hinting at far greater seismic shifts beneath the surface.
Slowly but surely, Washington has turned the most vital pathways of the world economy into tools of domination over foreign businesses and countries, whether they are rivals or allies, allowing the U.S. to maintain global supremacy. In the process, we have sleepwalked into a new struggle for empire. Using true stories, field-defining findings, and original reporting, Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman show how the most ordinary aspects of the post–Cold War economy have become realms of subterfuge and coercion, and what we must do to ensure that this new arms race doesn't spiral out of control.

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    • Kirkus

      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.

      COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    • Publisher's Weekly

      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.

    • Library Journal

      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

      Copyright 2023 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

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