Reference News Network, August 21 report: The U.S. journal "Foreign Affairs" published in the September-October issue (pre-publication) an article titled "The Weaponized Global Economy, Subtitle: Surviving the New Era of Economic Coercion", authored by Henry Farrell, professor of international affairs at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of the Modern World at Johns Hopkins University, and Abraham Newman, professor of international business diplomacy at the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. The full text is as follows:
This June, Washington announced a "framework agreement" with China, marking that the global political economy has quietly entered a new stage. This is not the beginning of the "liberation era" that President Trump had imagined, nor the return of the "controlled great power competition era" that the Biden administration hoped for, but rather the true beginning of an era of weaponized interdependence.
The U.S. Uses "Critical Nodes" as Weapons
The new era will be shaped by weapons such as economic and technological coercion, including sanctions, supply chain attacks, and export restrictions. These means reutilize many control points within the foundational framework of the globally interdependent economic system. For over two decades, the United States has unilaterally used "critical nodes" in financial, information flow, and technology sectors as weapons to gain strategic advantages.
The U.S. government's urgent attitude toward reaching an agreement highlights the limitations of acting alone. The U.S. is lowering its threat tone, urging opponents not to harm key departments of the U.S. economy. Other major powers are also trying to explore: how to protect their own interests when economic strength and national security are increasingly integrated, and when the integration of economy and technology has transformed from "vision" into "threat"?
The spread of economic weapons is creating new dilemmas for the U.S. and other countries. All nations must undertake new strategic thinking: where do their policies and capabilities intersect and overlap with those of other countries, and how will enterprises with different interests and capabilities respond?
"Weaponization of interdependence" is an unintended product of the golden age of globalization, which is now coming to an end. After the Cold War, companies built a globally interdependent economy on the infrastructure centered around the United States. U.S. technology platforms (the Internet, e-commerce, and later social media) connected the global communication system; the global financial system was also integrated through factors such as dollar settlement and the SWIFT financial information network. Although semiconductor manufacturing centered around the U.S. has been dispersed to specialized segments across Europe and Asia, key intellectual property such as semiconductor software design remains in the hands of a few U.S. companies. These systems can all be seen as independent "technology clusters," interdependent technical and service complexes that support each other. Therefore, if you accept an open Internet, it means you also accept U.S. online platforms and e-commerce systems.
The economically interdependent infrastructure is used not only against America's enemies, but also against allies. When the Trump administration withdrew from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) aimed at limiting Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. threatened to sanction European companies that continued to do business with Iran. European governments found that they were almost powerless to protect their domestic companies from U.S. punishment.
This was the context when we first introduced the concept of "weaponization of interdependence" in 2019. At that time, the key economic networks supporting globalization were highly concentrated, effectively controlled by a small number of core enterprises and economic actors. Governments that could exercise power over these enterprises (especially the U.S. government) could use them to obtain information on their adversaries or prevent competitors from accessing critical nodes of the global economy.
Countries Strive to Escape American Coercion
This world is essentially unstable. American actions will trigger responses from the other side, leading to American countermeasures. Major powers may take the initiative to find vulnerabilities they can exploit; smaller countries may seek more secret trading channels, forming a "shadow area" in the global economy. The more the U.S. uses interdependence to attack its adversaries, the more likely its adversaries and even allies will choose to disengage, hide, or retaliate. When other countries also begin to weaponize interdependence, the structure of the global economy will be reshaped according to new logic, giving rise to a world more focused on offensive and defensive strategies than on shared commercial interests.
The current U.S. government recognizes that the U.S. can exploit the economic weaknesses of other countries, but itself is extremely vulnerable. However, to solve these issues, the government must take actions that contradict Trump's instincts. The core issue lies in the fact that as national security and economic policy merge, the government must deal with complex phenomena beyond its control: global supply chains, international capital flows, emerging technology systems. Today, geopolitics is greatly influenced by the weaponization of interdependence, and the government must deal with more participants.
Washington has always thought too much about "how to use these weapons" and too little about "when not to use these weapons." Other countries previously took risks relying on U.S. technology and financial infrastructure because they believed that the U.S. government's own interests were at least partially constrained by the rule of law and would consider the interests of allies. As countries strive to escape American coercion (and American infrastructure), the global market is experiencing deep fragmentation.
Over the past 25 years, the U.S. has benefited from its ability to weaponize interdependence. It has enjoyed the advantages of the international economic system based on multilateral institutions and the technological system built around its good image, while maintaining its own interests unilaterally, sometimes even in an undemocratic way.
Now this seems like a mirage. The U.S. faces a choice: either sink into a world where "U.S. coercion and hegemony decline form a vicious cycle," or rejoin forces with other countries that uphold liberal values, abandoning the abuse of unilateral power. (Translated by Zhu Li)
Original: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7541022994853659190/
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