The Rise of the Economic Security State: A Conversation With Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman

The Foreign Affairs Interview · Aug 28, 2025 · 54m

For decades, the United States has used its position at the center of global financial, commercial, and technological networks to punish adversaries and pressure allies, exploiting what the political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman call “weaponized interdependence.” Lacking any alternatives, the rest of the world has had no choice but to rely on American payment systems, American technology, and American corporate might, even as Washington turned that reliance to its own strategic advantage.

Now, however, the tables have turned. Other states—starting with China—have begun to…