Darkside Economics

Darkside Economics is a book about a different use of economics - as a weapon to coerce other economies or to defend them from coercion. There is intense interest in economic warfare which is much in the headlines today, but it has a long history of use and abuse.

The weapons covered include sanctions, embargoes, tariffs, technology restrictions, investment policy, financial tools and some other new instruments based on AI and crypto. We look at the history of these practices, explain how they work and estimate their effects, from the point of view of the aggressor, the target or other small countries. This includes strategic games, weapons retaliation, resilience-building, chokepoint mapping and supply chain management.

These tools often have negative economic effects, but they continue to be a central part of both diplomatic and military strategy, and they are happening in the trade wars all around us. Economists, policy-makers, students, the media and the informed public all need to understand them better. The radical ideas and intriguing stories in this short book will help them.