‘Chokepoints’

Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare by Edward Fishman

Published in February 2025

If I were teaching a course that covered the political economy of U.S. relations with Iran, Russia or China, or was about the future of nation-state conflict, I’d put Chokepoints on the syllabus. Published a year before the U.S.–Iran war, Chokepoints provides the reader with both a broader context and an insider account of government decision-making on recent history and the advantages and the limitations of economic warfare. 

Chokepoints made a number of best nonfiction and current affairs book lists last year, and quite deservedly. This is the rare insider, first-person account that does not center the author in the action but instead utilizes deep experience and relationships to tell the story. 

Also, unusually, Chokepoints reads as largely nonpartisan, as the narrative spans both the Democratic and Republican administrations over the past 25 years. The heroes of the book include senior civil servants and political appointees at Treasury, State and DOD, all departments where Fishman worked during his time in government. 

Currently, Fishman is a senior research scholar at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs. One of the themes of Chokepoints is the interdisciplinary nature of economic warfare design. The economists, lawyers, financial analysts, political scientists and diplomats who worked to craft sanction policies against Iran, Russia and China often worked in uncharted waters. Cutting off access to the U.S. banking system, imposing tariffs or implementing export controls can lead to unforeseen and suboptimal consequences. 

Fishman stresses that tomorrow’s analysts and policymakers need the same rigorous, long-term training that future military commanders receive at the service academies and throughout their careers. Interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary programs across domains of international relations, finance and economics will be greatly needed.

In reading Chokepoints, I kept being surprised at how the book made the crafting of U.S. economic policy intended to influence the behaviors of Iran, Russia and China so fascinating. The book is detailed and at times technical, but it never drags or becomes boring. 

There is something exciting about a bunch of policy nerds, experts in the international rules of monetary exchange and export regulations, influencing—or trying and failing to influence—world events such as invasions (Russia–Ukraine), economic competition (China) and nuclear weapons development (Iran). 

What books do you recommend to gain a better understanding of how the U.S. relates to Iran, Russia and China? 

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