Chokepoints |
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28 April 2026 - Erlenbach
Edward Fishman's latest book chronicles the Chokepoints that the United States has created and exploited to increase it's jurisdiction to much of the world. Fishman, a veteran of the State Department, the Pentagon, and the Treasury Department, tells this story as if it is an entirely positive development. It is modern warfare of a hegemon against both its allies and enemies to maintain that hegemony. The really strange thing is that Fishman can write about the US's development of this mode of warfare as a positive development while decriying China's development of the same.
Fishman starts the book by discussing how the US established and discovered the chokepoints during the 2nd half of the twentieth century. He then goes on to describe the development in detail the US's economic warfare playbook against Iran, Russia, and China.
The really wild thing is that Fishman ends his book advocating for the US to create a department of economic warfare!?! He entirely believes that pandora's box has been opened and the only thing to do is to escalate and win. And at no point is there discussion of how the reules-based international order could be re-established. Although published last year Fishman makes no mention of the all-out economic warfare that has characterized Trump's second term. I don't think Fishman realized when he wrote the book that this was the outcome he was advocating, as he is mainly critical of Trump in the book. As a history, Chokepoints is excellent, but as a policy recommendation Fishman advocates a dark road.
