Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare

Please join us as we continue our online book club discussion of Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare, by Edward Fishman. Published in February 25, 2025, Chokepoints has garnered significant acclaim. It is a New York Times Bestseller and was selected as Best Book of the Year by The Economist, Financial Times, Bloomberg, and NPR. Further, Chokepoints was named Finalist for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year Award and was chosen as Book of the Month by the Wall Street Journal.

Assigned reading for this week: Chapters 8 - 18. Please Note: Completion of the assigned reading is a prerequisite for attending. If you did not have the chance to do the reading, please join us another time.

What's this book about?
It used to take blockades and sieges to ravage a rival’s economy. Now a single statement posted online by the US government can bring a nation to its knees.

In Chokepoints, Edward Fishman, a former top American sanctions official, takes us deep into the back rooms of power to reveal the untold history of the past two decades of U.S. foreign policy. As Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Ayatollah Khamenei wreaked havoc on the world stage, mavericks within the U.S. government built a fearsome new arsenal of economic weapons. Successive U.S. presidents have relied on these weapons to address the most pressing national security threats—for good and for ill.

Chokepoints provides a gripping account of one of the most transformative developments of our time, demystifying how the U.S. government harnesses the power of Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Big Oil against America’s enemies. At the center of the narrative are the trailblazing diplomats, lawyers, and financial whizzes who have masterminded America’s escalating economic wars against Russia, China, and Iran.

Control over economic chokepoints—such as the U.S. dollar, advanced microchip technology, and critical minerals—has become the key to geopolitical power in the 21st Century. The result is a new world order: an economic arms race among great powers and a fracturing global economy. Chokepoints details how America turned economics into a weapon – and how China, Europe and Britain are now doing the same. Urgent and brimming with rare insight, Chokepoints is the definitive guide to the Age of Economic Warfare.

About the author
Edward Fishman is senior fellow and director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. He is an adjunct professor of international and public affairs at Columbia University and a senior research scholar at the Center on Global Energy Policy. Fishman also advises companies on geopolitical strategy and invests in early-stage technology startups. He has served in a number of foreign policy roles across the U.S. government. At the State Department, he was a member of the Secretary of State’s Policy Planning Staff, where he advised Secretary John Kerry on Europe and Eurasia and led the staff’s work on economic sanctions, long-range strategic planning, and international order and norms. Fishman was also the Russia and Europe lead in the State Department’s Office of Economic Sanctions Policy and Implementation, where he played a central role in designing and negotiating international sanctions in response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Earlier, he served on the Iran sanctions team, where he developed policies to strengthen sanctions against Iran and maintain pressure during the international nuclear negotiations. Additionally, Fishman served at the Pentagon as special assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and at the Treasury Department as special assistant to the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence. He has received the State Department’s Superior Honor Award (twice) and its Meritorious Honor Award, having been recognized for his contributions to U.S. policy toward Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Iran.

How this book club works.
Our book discussion will be spread out over several consecutive weeks, with two-hour meetings every Tuesday evening. This gives us time to explore the readings with the depth and care they deserve. Please bring your own thought-provoking questions and insights from the reading to share with the group. We like lively discussions that challenge our own ideas and those of the author and allow us to learn from each other -- while enjoying camaraderie! All we ask is that everyone be treated as co-equals, both in respect and approximate speaking time. Feel free to post (in the Comments below) any additional resources you find -- including ones that challenge the author. We hope to see you at our Tuesday meetings!