Chokepoints : American power in the age of economic warfare

Introduction Win Without Fighting 1

Part One Building the Chokepoints

1 The Old Way: A Brief History of Economic War from Pericles to Saddam 13

2 Invisible Infrastructure 20

3 Finance Unchained 24

4 The Deal in the Desert 28

5 Our Currency, Your Problem 31

6 "Guerrillas in Gray Suits" 36

7 An Economic Weapons Test 43

Part Two Iran and the Bomb

8 The Technocrat 49

9 Iran Stares Down a "Toothless Tiger" 53

10 Risky Business 58

11 Stuart Levey Goes to War 64

12 Extending a Hand 70

13 With Us or Against Us 77

14 Exodus 82

15 The Last Bastion 88

16 100–0 93

17 Good Cop, Bad Cop 98

18 Landslide 107

19 The Freeze 115

20 "The World Has Avoided Another War" 123

21 Black Magic 130

Part Three Russia's Imperial Land Grab

22 The Diplomat 139

23 The Fallen Bear Licks Its Wounds 144

24 Euromaidan 151

25 "Aim First, Then Shoot" 157

26 The Contact Group 165

27 The Scalpel 171

28 The Opening Salvo 179

29 MH17 183

30 Escalation 188

31 "Economy in Tatters" 193

32 Back from the Edge 202

33 From Russia with Bribes 208

34 "Dark Thought" 213

35 A Way Out via Golden Escalator 216

Part Four China's Bid for Technological Mastery

36 The Interpreter 227

37 Irresponsible Stakeholder 232

38 The Awakening 239

39 Let a Hundred China Policies Bloom 247

40 The Clue: ZTE 254

41 The Validation: Fujian Jinhua 261

42 The First Shot at Huawei 266

43 A False Start 273

44 "Backdoors" and "Betrayal" 279

45 The Second Shot at Huawei 285

46 The Dominoes Fall 292

47 Iron Curtain 298

Part Five Russia's Invasion of Ukraine

48 The Practitioner 309

49 The Best-Laid Plans 313

50 "America Is Back" 317

51 Standing Athwart History, Yelling Stop 320

52 Panic at the Pump 324

53 "An Invasion Is an Invasion" 327

54 The Scholz Jolt 335

55 Banks vs. Tanks 338

56 Pandora's Box 343

57 Monetary Policy at the Point of a Gun 350

58 A Potemkin Currency 354

59 Supply and Demand 359

60 The Rubik's Cube 363

61 "What Other Option Do We Have?" 368

62 The Service Providers' Cartel 373

63 An Economic War of Attrition 378

64 A Partitioned Market 382

Part Six The World Economic Rupture

65 "Small Yard and High Fence" 391

66 The Scramble for Economic Security 398

67 Breaking the Chokepoints 402

68 Strategy and Sacrifice 410

Conclusion Impossible Trinity 417