WAR BY OTHER MEANS 1 WAR BY OTHER MEANS Student’s Name Class Information Date WAR BY OTHER MEANS 2 Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris denote that the leaders of the United States are falling behind China and Russia when it comes to the use of diplomacy and statecraft to solve issues that are threatening their national interests1. Rising powers are using economic measures as foreign policy tools to convince other states to collaborate with them to gain strategic advantages. The intention of using these strategies is to undermine the influence of the United States and to enhance their power status in the world. “War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft” is a book that provides an overview of how the United States should incorporate more economic measures to advance foreign policy goals rather than focus (almost) exclusively on military means. This book analysis will discuss how rising powers, specifically China are using geoeconomic tools in pursuit of national interests and explain how the United States should think about using similar geo-economics as a pursuit of geopolitical ends. Blackwill and Harris define geoecomics as…” uses economic tools to advance a government, a nations’s geopolitical interest Challenging powers such as China signify a serious threat to American national interests and they are skilled at projecting power by means other than military, primarily through geo-economics. As China became more powerful, they have been quite systemically to use incentives interest free loans and deterrent coercive measures to affect the geopolitical positions of other nations. For instance, Lew Kuan Yew ..if a state does something China does not like, China will remind them to know their place. If the Philippines don't act in ways in the South China Sea, that Beijing doesn't like, Philippine fruits and vegetables rot on the on the dock and Chinese ports. To the other side, the 1 Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris, War by Other Means (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016),33. WAR BY OTHER MEANS 3 incentive side, China has built something like 35, large soccer stadiums in Africa most near the tribal homeland of the presidential leader. Ultimately, the authors allude to China at the top of the but by no means all there is, there's ample examples from Russia, India, Brazil as through as well. The United States may have forgotten a lost art and American statecraft. Blackwill, n.d. emphasized that within the first 200 years of American history, US leaders quite comfortable expanded US economic muscle in pursuit of explosively geopolitical aims. Things like the Louisiana Purchase, as much as President Jefferson liked the deal, his main motivation was keeping the French from gaining a foothold in on the American continent. The United States resorts to financial sanctions, trade sanctions, quite regularly. Bringing the Iranians to the negotiating table and applying sanctions against Russia in the wake of Russian seizure of Crimea are some examples. However, sanctions may be an exception to this rule as the in the sanctions realm, you don't see it in case within a broader diplomatic strategy. In conclusion, the United States, for most of its history, understood the utility of these economic instruments for geopolitical purposes since the Louisiana Purchase which, was dominated by geopolitical considerations. But in more recent decades, have forgotten historical legacy. This book is less to argue a case for what the US should think about these tools but to add a framework for how to think about them. The United States can initiate just a sheer presence of economic motivation that includes the presence of geopolitical rationale. WAR BY OTHER MEANS 4 common conceptual framework, with a clear definition that allows us to be clear with ourselves for your product, and clear with our allies, in order to call out to economic origin. This book analysis will discuss how rising powers, specifically China are using geo-economic tools in pursuit of national interests and explain how the United States should think about using similar geo-economics as a pursuit of geopolitical ends. The consequences of the United States not restoring economic tools today as a means of foreign policies and strategies challenges long-term competitiveness of itself and its allies in Europe and different parts of the world The US has done this before and used to know how to use geo-economics tools to the negational table. the book provides important insight on the other strategies that the United States can use to advocate for its interests. These include the reliance on geo-economics as a tool of international relations and diplomacy. Putting boots on the ground is not the only strategy, and this makes the United States lose control and influence of the global affairs to China and Russia. These countries are effective in using geo-economics to advance their interest. However,. Furthermore, extensive use of the military, and discounting geoeconomics has an effect of improving the capability of Russia to exert influence in its former Soviet states.2 It is a fact that the Russian government has the desire to unite its former Soviet Union, and ineffective American foreign policies can make this a reality. 2 Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means, 43. WAR BY OTHER MEANS 5 which supports this is that we do not negotiate trade agreements with geopolitical objectives in mind. We simply don't. These are trade agreements, negotiated by our experts on trade, which of course are seeking to reinforce US national interests and make America wealthier and open up the global economy and so forth. But they are negotiated solely on trade criteria. Also, the inability to effectively use geopolitics as a tool in international relations may make the United States be at a position of structural disadvantage. It will be at a structural disadvantage because China and Russia are already fulfilling the global economic vacuum that the United States is leaving.3 As a result, it would become difficult and challenging for the United States to reverse the consequences of not using geopolitics to influence its national interests from a global perspective. Blackwill and Harris end the book with numerous recommendations for ways for the United States to implement the use of geoeconomics, although some of these recommendations are, by their own measure, very hard to implement given the differing incentives of Congress and the White House in economic decisionmaking. Regardless, this book provides plenty of food for thought to anyone involved in geopolitics. An excellent overview of the use of economic means in the pursuit of geopolitical ends. The authors mesh geopolitics and economics in a useful, practical way that is never too heady. Their concept of geoeconomics seems to be a much more timely framework for understanding state aggression than more traditional models of geopolitics might be, although their geoeconomics is itself not a top-down framework like, say, defensive or offensive realism. Blackwill outlines a pressing case for re-evaluating and updating the American foreign relations toolkit. American statesmen were once adepts at using both military and geoeconomic tools to project, reinforce, and promote the American interest. Unfortunately, a philosophical 3 Blackwill and Harris, War by Other Means, 43. WAR BY OTHER MEANS 6 shift and American domestic politics have both cause US policy makers to sour on the potential of geoeconomics. Meanwhile, through state capitalist and neo-mercantilist policies, the challengers to a liberal, democratic, capitalists order have developed geoeconomic tools that do not play by rule-based paradigms. If the US is to continue lead the international order, it must re-adopt geoeconomic strategies, re-assess the prevalence of military based strategies, and reaffirm and more aggressively pursue the national interest. (less) If the US is to continue lead the international order, it must re-adopt geoeconomic strategies, re-assess the prevalence of military based strategies, and reaffirm and more aggressively pursue the national interest. Economic development | OromianEconomist. https://oromianeconomist.com/tag/economicdevelopment/ Trump’s Trade War: US Geoeconomics from Multi- to .... https://www.e-ir.info/pdf/75494 “Indo Pacific Strategy in an Era of Geoeconomics”1. https://cfrd8-files.cfr.org/sites/default/files/pdf/820%20Tokyo%20Presentation.pdf WAR BY OTHER MEANS 7 Bibliography Blackwill, Robert D., and Jennifer M. Harris. War by other means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft. Harvard University Press, 2016.
