The World at Economic War

The World at Economic War is a timely and thought-provokingreminder of the role that economics plays in modern warfare. It argues thateconomics itself is at war – the institutions of the post-war economic orderare riven with challenges to their legitimacy, rendering the old certainties ofmarket-based economics at best contested and at worst irrelevant. It shows how,through the interdependencies of globalization, the market system itself hasbecome a means of ‘great power conflict’, accelerated by the rapid pace offinancial services digitalization. This economic conflict seeps into the wayinternational trade operates, into the way cross-border payments are made, intosupply chains, and even into how financial markets control the capacity ofgovernments to manage macroeconomic policy.  The institutions that were constructed to deal with apeacetime economy are no longer adequate against a backdrop of militaryconflict in Europe and the Middle East and heightened tensions in the AsiaPacific region. Spending on defence and security seemed unimportant against abackdrop of globalization, but because the world is now at economic war, thereis limited capacity either to build capacity or to fund our defence andsecurity. Military and economic security are two sides of the same coin: both area means of power projection; both are deeply political; and both are our meansof deterrence, defence, coercion and resilience.

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