Description: The World at Economic War is a timely and thought-provoking reminder of the role that economics plays in modern warfare. It argues that economics itself is at war - the institutions of the post-war economic order are riven with challenges to their legitimacy, rendering the old certainties of market-based economics at best contested and at worst irrelevant. It shows how, through the interdependencies of globalization, the market system itself has become a means of 'great power conflict', accelerated by the rapid pace of financial services digitalization. This economic conflict seeps into the way international trade operates, into the way cross-border payments are made, into supply chains, and even into how financial markets control the capacity of governments to manage macroeconomic policy.
The institutions that were constructed to deal with a peacetime economy are no longer adequate against a backdrop of military conflict in Europe and the Middle East and heightened tensions in the Asia Pacific region. Spending on defence and security seemed unimportant against a backdrop of globalization, but because the world is now at economic war, there is limited capacity either to build capacity or to fund our defence and security. Military and economic security are two sides of the same coin: both are a means of power projection; both are deeply political; and both are our means of deterrence, defence, coercion and resilience.Review Quotes: 'We have a strong tendency to separate elements of national security into manageable bits in order to fit our existing structures or our preconceived view of the world. In this important book, Rebecca Harding demonstrates that everything is linked to geopolitics, supply chain disruption and frictions caused by crumbling or failing infrastructure. Rebecca Harding has placed economic security at the heart of defence and security thinking, where it needs to be. She calls out the failings in defence finance, provides a comprehensive analysis of how supply chains are being disrupted, and argues that we need to move from economic statecraft to a focus on economic security if we are to resolve all of these existential issues. Passive to active, this is not a call for more discussion, it is a call to action. I commend it.' -- Air Chief Marshal The Lord Peach KG GBE KCB DL