Ezra's Bookshelf

Underground Empire

by Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman · 166 pages · ~3 hrs

Foreign PolicyEconomicsScience & Technology

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Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman reveal how the United States has weaponized global economic infrastructure for strategic purposes. The networks that enable international commerce—fiber optic cables, the SWIFT payment system, semiconductor supply chains—pass through American territory or American-controlled institutions. The authors show how the U.S. government has exploited this position to conduct surveillance, impose sanctions, and coerce both rivals and allies. They trace specific cases: how the NSA tapped undersea cables, how Treasury weaponized financial networks against Iran, how technology export controls target China. The book examines the consequences of this strategy, including incentives for other countries to develop alternative systems and the blurring of lines between economic and security competition. Farrell and Newman write accessibly about technical subjects, making infrastructure visible to general readers. The book is essential for understanding how contemporary geopolitics plays out through economic networks that most people never consider.

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