In May 2018, the US Administration announced that it was pulling out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, reimposing sanctions. Most notably, many penalties do not apply to US firms, but to foreign firms that may have no presence in the US; the sanctions are consequential in large part because ofUS importance to the global financial network.This unilateral action by the US led to protest among America’s European allies: France’s Finance Minister, Bruno Le Maire, for example, tartly noted that America was not the “economic policeman of the planet.” In particular, the US and Europe disagreed over whether Iran should be cut out of the SWIFT messaging network, which is a core component of the global financial system.
This is just one recent example of how the US is using global economic networks to achieve its strategic aims. While security scholars have long recognized the crucial importance of energy markets in shaping geo-strategic outcomes, financial and information markets are swiftly coming to play similarly important roles. In Rosa Brooks’ evocative description, globalization has created a world in which ‘everything became war.’ Flows of finance, information and physical goods across borders both create new risks for states, and new tools to alternatively exploit or mitigate those risks. The result, as Thomas Wright, describes it, is a world where unprecedented levels of interdependence are combined with continued jockeying for power, so that states that are unwilling to engage in direct conflict may still employ ‘all measures short of war.’