On April 29th, WorldBoston welcomed Edward Fishman to discuss his new book Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare for their monthly Chat & Chowder series. As guests entered, many grabbed refreshments and soup while chatting with other attendees, while others came in hand with their own copy of the book, everyone ready for the engaging discussion to begin. Mary Yntema, President and CEO of WorldBoston, moderated the conversation and began by providing a brief overview of the book. She then posed a series of insightful questions that guided Fishman’s remarks.
Fishman first identified how economic warfare itself is not a new phenomenon, but what is relatively new is “chokepoints,” something that emerged in the 1990s. Chokepoints can be defined as critical pressure points in the global economy that the U.S. can strategically leverage to influence the behavior of other nations, particularly access to the U.S. dollar.
Tracing the evolution of American economic power, he explained how the U.S. dollar became central to the international financial system after President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. With the rise of the petrodollar and America’s massive market for treasuries during the 1970s, Fishman highlighted how the U.S. shifted from dominating global trade to the dawn of U.S. influence within the international finance system.
The next section of Fishman’s remarks followed the structure of his book, which is divided into six parts. The first case study he delved into was “Iran and the Bomb” where Treasury official Stuart Levey sought a solution to isolate Iran from the international finance system in order to push Iran to the negotiating table regarding their nuclear program. By showing declassified intelligence of Iran’s misuse of the system to fund its nuclear program, global banks were convinced to cut ties with Iran, although the process itself took some time. This strategy of utilizing the chokepoint of access to the U.S. dollar first began in 2006, but Fishman noted that the eventual signing of the Joint Plan of Action in 2013 followed by the extension that took place on November 24th, 2014 was vindication that sanctions had the potential to successfully alter the behavior of U.S. adversaries.
The discussion then turned to the section entitled “Russia’s Imperial Land Grab” focusing on Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, a moment that Fishman remarked took many by surprise. At the time, Russia was the 8th largest economy in the world and drawing on the recent lessons from Iran being “solved with sanctions,” U.S. officials decided to employ a similar strategy. They decided on a more narrow chokepoint of cutting Russia off from capital markets rather than entirely cutting them off from the U.S. dollar. The sanctions however, as Fishman explained, coincided with plummeting oil prices during the second half of 2014. This sent the Russian economy into a tailspin as there was a greater impact than anticipated.
As the conversation pivoted towards China, the last case study used in his book, Fishman pointed out that during the time he served in the Obama administration “economic warfare was viewed as a means to an end.” The natural state of affairs was free trade and finance and the unnatural state was sanctions, but we see this turn during President Trump’s first term. In the section named “China’s Bid for Technological Mastery,” Fishman addressed the growing U.S.-China economic rivalry and how the chokepoint in this case is now advanced technology supply chains, specifically with semiconductor chips. He explained how both the Trump and Biden administrations have worked to weaken China’s technology sector by not only restraining their development but also strengthening the U.S. as much as possible.
This concluded Fishman’s discussion of the major case studies outlined in his book and during the Q&A session of the program, members of the audience asked a wide range of questions. One question focused on Canada’s recent election and the growing political rhetoric from the Trump administration toward allies. Fishman explained how sanctions could empower political opposition in other countries as public opinion is influenced and gave the example of the results from the Iranian presidential election after the country fell into a recession in 2013.
You can watch the full Chat and Chowder program on Youtube to listen to Fishman’s full comments, but as the formal program gave way to a more casual atmosphere in person, audience members had the opportunity to purchase the book, have their copies signed by Fishman, and continue conversations sparked by the talk. One guest mentioned how she “didn’t have a full understanding of economic sanctions before…so understanding the strategy was very interesting.” Another revealed he had heard Fishman speak in a more financial setting, but found “this forum was much more engaging and lively.”
A returning attendee reflected more broadly on WorldBoston Global Engagement events, “[There are] very good speakers, and they really know what they’re talking about and I just feel whenever I come here I leave with more knowledge.” Be sure to keep an eye out for future events because as one attendee stated, “what keeps [me] coming back is the diversity of speakers and…the different topics [WorldBoston] covers. It’s great to be able to come back and learn something new every time and talk about a different important issue every single time.”
Quote from audience members
“I just feel whenever I come here I leave with more knowledge, which isn’t always the case you know? Often you go to places and there are some talks where you feel, well I don’t know more than I knew before and with these events it’s really different. Whenever I can come back there are a lot of things I can tend to think about still and that has given me a lot of information to take back and that’s the reason why I come back” - Event Attendee
“This is my first WorldBoston event in general…I thought it was really fun, I really enjoyed this...What he’s talking about is very specific to what’s going on right now. It’s arguably the most important thing for America’s foreign policy for the public to be looking at right now…So it’s very interesting to hear, what we’ve done previously and the different ways we’ve done it, different ways we’ve dealt with different countries. So that was very fun” - Kyle, Tufts University student
“I think for me, what keeps me coming back is the diversity of speakers and all the different topics [WorldBoston] covers. It’s great to be able to come back and learn something new every time and talk about a different important issue every single time.” - John, Tufts University student
“I worked in the State Department side of things with other World Affairs Councils in the U.S. so I’m just a big fan of citizen diplomacy” - Caroline, Tufts University student
“It was very interesting for me because it’s something I didn’t know about before, it’s just not my area of expertise...I didn’t have a full understanding of economic sanctions before and ways that you could implement them and how it was used strategically, and for me understanding the strategy was very interesting” - Event Attendee
“I enjoyed it, I actually had heard Eddie speak at an investor call a few weeks ago and it was more of a financial discussion than tonight’s. This forum was much more engaging and lively. He’s very highly accomplished….[Mary Yntema, WorldBoston President] had read the book and her intro really showed she had a keen awareness of what he had to say. She made good use of our time because sometimes you go to events that are not well organized, and you waste the speaker’s time and you waste the audience’s time.” Event Attendee
