Henry Farrell

Senseless Spying: The National Security Agency’s Self-Defeating Espionage Against the EU – with Abraham Newman

Political leaders in Europe have not been shy in expressing their anger about recent revelations about the United States spying on the EU. Germany’s justice minister has said that the United States’ expansive spying programs — the United States is alleged to have spied not only on the electronic communications of European citizens, but on the EU embassy in Washington, D.C., and the Brussels headquarters of the European Council, where European states make the key decisions that guide European politics — remind of “the methods of our foes during the Cold War.” France’s justice minister has described

Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, “Senseless Spying: The National Security Agency’s Self-Defeating Espionage Against the EU,” Foreign Affairs (2013, website only).

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Other Writing:

Interview

The Most Important Foreign Policy Speech in Years

February 6, 2026 pin Weaponized Interdependence
A Conversation with Ezra Klein. “Beneath Carney’s analysis of what is happening is an idea I’ve been following for some time: weaponized interdependence. This idea comes from the international-relations theorists and professors Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman in their book “Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy.” The basic concept is that over time, ...
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Essay

The New Economic Security State: How De-Risking Will Remake Geopolitics – with Abraham Newman

October 19, 2023 Foreign Affairs with Abraham Newman
In April 2023, U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan begged his listeners’ indulgence for straying out of his lane by delivering a major address about economics. But his actual argument—that decades of free-market zealotry had weakened the country’s national security—was anything but apologetic. “Ignoring economic dependencies that had built up over the decades of liberalization ...
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