Chokepoints by Edward Fishman explores how the US leverages control over financial, technological, and maritime infrastructure through invisible “chokepoints” to increase its global power. Though limited to the US perspective, this is a substantial, policy-driven and accessible analysis of economic statecraft in an era of strategic rivalry, writes Trinh Nguyen.

Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare. Edward Fishman. Elliot & Thompson. 2025.

Edward Fishman’s Chokepoints: American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare provides an insightful and timely exploration into how the United States leverages its control over critical economic infrastructures to exert geopolitical influence. Drawing from his extensive experience as a former US State Department and Treasury official regulating sanctions, Fishman argues compellingly that the US must shift from a reactive approach toward a systematic doctrine for strategically utilising its infrastructural dominance.

Invisible chokepoints in the modern era

Central to Fishman’s analysis is his distinctive conceptualisation of “chokepoints,” defined as non-substitutable domains dominated by a single state or small coalition (15, 16). Unlike traditional geopolitical chokepoints, which historically referred to physical routes or passages, Fishman expands this concept to intangible networks such as financial clearing systems (CHIPS), the SWIFT messaging platform, maritime insurance, and critical technology exports. These chokepoints are not only functionally indispensable but asymmetrically powerful: they can be weaponised without force, compelling compliance far beyond US borders. What makes them particularly striking is their origin. As Fishman explains, they did not emerge from centralised state planning but rather from the unintended consequences of post-Cold War liberalisation, private-sector innovation, and state deregulation – later recognised by governments as levers of strategic control (15).

Fishman structures the book thematically around major chokepoint domains including global finance, maritime trade and high-tech supply chains, making complex geo-economic concepts accessible without sacrificing analytical depth. Each case blends historical development with policy analysis, tracing the evolution of US economic statecraft from its ad hoc beginnings to its more deliberate use in recent decades. Methodologically, Fishman avoids abstract theorising and instead offers grounded institutional case studies and behind-the-scenes accounts that reveal how sanctions are designed, debated, and enforced. His experience at the State Department and Treasury, supplemented by interviews with senior officials, gives rare access to the political calculations, legal engineering, and bureaucratic frictions that shape modern sanctions policy.

Weaponising economic interdependence

Fishman situates his arguments within ongoing scholarly debates about the weaponisation of economic interdependence. He aligns with Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman’s foundational work, which shows how global economic networks can serve as instruments of coercion. Yet Fishman diverges by foregrounding the role of agency and institutional design. For him, the chokepoint strategy must not only be identified, but managed deliberately through doctrine. As he warns, without clear principles guiding its use, the US risks squandering its most powerful tools (18).

[Chokepoints] are often invisible to the public yet indispensable to global flows. […] enable asymmetric action [and] are scalable: sanctions can be tailored to debilitate an entire economy, as with Iran, or target a firm’s viability, as with Huawei.

The book’s case studies anchor this argument. The financial isolation of Iran, for instance, demonstrates how sanctions structured around banking chokepoints, particularly the US dollar clearing and correspondent accounts, were able to pressure the regime without military action. Similarly, the US placed Chinese telecom giant ZTE under a denial order for violating Iran sanctions, nearly forcing the company out of business. Export controls on Huawei followed, aimed not at retribution but at preemptively constraining China’s rise in 5G infrastructure. These examples show how chokepoints have evolved from reactive tools into proactive instruments of strategic denial.

Three properties of chokepoints recur throughout the book. First, they are often invisible to the public yet indispensable to global flows. Second, they enable asymmetric action: the US, by virtue of its centrality in financial and technological networks, can act unilaterally with global impact. Third, they are scalable: sanctions can be tailored to debilitate an entire economy, as with Iran, or target a firm’s viability, as with Huawei. Fishman stresses that these tools are most effective when backed by robust legal frameworks, multilateral coordination, and competent bureaucratic infrastructure (121, 241).

However, this power is not without risk. Fishman highlights the growing pushback from other states. Treasury Secretaries like Robert Rubin and Jack Lew have expressed concerns that overuse of these tools could backfire, eroding the very networks that give the US its leverage. The author also traces the emergence of countermeasures: China’s Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), Russia’s SWIFT alternatives and barter-based trade (SPFS), and Europe’s INSTEX. Though still limited in scope, these alternatives signal growing cracks in the post-Cold War liberal economic order. He captures this tension with the concept of the “geoeconomic trilemma”: no country can simultaneously maintain deep economic interdependence, safeguard national economic security, and engage in geopolitical rivalry.

Combining first-hand insight with thematic coherence, Fishman offers both a sharp analytical framework and a strategic playbook

As more states prioritise security, the foundational logic of interdependence begins to unravel. Chokepoints may lose their potency not because they fail mechanically, but because the global system they rely on begins to fragment: no country can simultaneously maintain deep economic interdependence, safeguard national economic security, and engage in geopolitical rivalry. As more states prioritise security, the foundational logic of interdependence begins to unravel. Chokepoints may lose their potency not because they fail mechanically, but because the global system they rely on begins to fragment.

The future of American power

Fishman’s narrative excels in clarity and accessibility, balancing rigorous analysis with engaging insider accounts and policy insights. His style is direct and urgent, making complex topics approachable to academics, policymakers, and interested public readers. The book doesn’t just map concepts; it shows how policies are operationalised in real time. This practitioner orientation distinguishes Chokepoints from the wider literature: it doesn’t merely explain ideas; it shows them in action.

Still, the book is not without limitations. Its US-centric lens leaves little space for analysing how other powers are building their own tools of coercion or resilience. The humanitarian fallout of sanctions, particularly in places like Venezuela or Syria is acknowledged but not deeply examined. Fishman focuses more on efficacy than on normative concerns, and while that may reflect the author’s policy background, it narrows the ethical scope of the work. The distributive costs of infrastructure-based coercion, often borne by actors with little power to shape global rules, deserve fuller and more sustained treatment. Readers hoping for a more robust theoretical framework may also find the book’s conceptual development relatively thin across its 68 chapters. Several chapters run only three or four pages, offering vivid anecdotes but few fully developed analytical claims or comparative context.

Nevertheless, Chokepoints makes a substantial contribution to contemporary debates on economic statecraft, strategic decoupling and infrastructural power. By combining first-hand insight with thematic coherence, Fishman offers both a sharp analytical framework and a strategic playbook. His work fills a critical gap between high-level theory and policy execution, and will resonate with scholars of international political economy, students of US foreign policy, and practitioners grappling with the challenges of economic warfare.

The book closes with a sober reflection. The US stands at a crossroads: it can develop a coherent doctrine to sustain its coercive advantages, or continue improvising, risking fragmentation and decline. As Fishman notes, “Someday, the Age of Economic Warfare will end, but we might miss it when it’s gone” (361). Far from triumphalist, Chokepoints is a warning. It asks not just what the US can do with its power, but how long it can do so – and at what cost to the global order it helped build.

Note: This review gives the views of the author and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image: Andrii Yalanskyi on Shutterstock.

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