1. @ANewman_forward and I have a new piece at @nytopinion on the new age of economic power and the US. nytimes.com/2022/03/16/opi… We've taken a step away from public debate, while we write our forthcoming book, Underground Empire, but the last three weeks have been earthshaking.
2. Our first key point is that this is as much a culmination as a transformation. The speed with which this happened - the US and Europe piling measure upon measure - is unprecedented. But the weapons themselves mostly draw from an arsenal that has been developed over 2 decades.
3. What _is_ new is that a major power has been targeted. As we noted at the beginning of 2020, the US should not target "China [or] Russia" except under ... " extraordinary circumstances," since those countries might respond "with military force." foreignaffairs.com/articles/unite…
3. The attack on Ukraine is arguably such just circumstances - but acting against a nuclear power involves new dangers and policy problems. The second - and biggest point we make (as others have made) is that the initial successes don't mean these problems have gone away.
4. The big threat is overreach - not doing enough to anticipate how a nuclear power led by someone who doesn't seem entirely in touch with reality might react if really pushed against the wall. The harder Putin is pushed, the more likely he will lash out.
5. Hence the need for very careful calibration, as the US pushes hard enough to get results while not pushing Putin (and the world) over a cliff. We argue that clarity of goals is crucially important here - the idea is to protect Ukraine, not bring through regime change in Russia
6. Furthermore, the U.S. has gotten too readily used to the apparent ease of coercion. It needs also to think about deploying what @njtmulder calls the "positive economic weapon" to deal with the side effects of the Russia sanctions - e.g. for world hunger
7. It needs to recognize that the legal limits on sanctions are a feature not a bug - they are one of the key foundations of the continued US centrality in the world economy. Whittling them away will have serious long temr consequences.
8. Finally, and over the longer term, the US needs to develop a strategic framework for when to deploy sanctions and even more importantly, when they will be withdrawn. The lack of such a framework undermines US credibility vis-a-vis Russia, making climb down less likely.
9. This is another way in which the US withdrawal from the JCPOA has done serious damage to long term US power - who will believe that sanctions will go away if they stop behaving in ways the US doesn't want?
10. Of course, there are many other questions. What is the role of the allies, and how do the changes in Germany e.g. reshape economic coercion? How will China respond? What kind of globalization can we expect in a world where coercion becomes normalized.
11. If you want our answers on these questions and others, you will have to wait for the book - we will be disengaging from debate again until it is written. These are extraordinary times - but we want to provide a coherent overall account rather than blow by blow commentary.
12. And if you want to read where these arguments began, our article on #WeaponizedInterdependence, mentioned at the beginning of the NYT piece - is ungated right now - direct.mit.edu/isec/article/4…
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