Overview

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.

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9781916749450

Table of Contents

Reviews

 “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 “The World at Economic War is a tour de force of the threats that we face to our civil society through frequent and pervasive attacks on our economic infrastructures. It is a study in the realpolitik of our current era and provides a pragmatic and surprisingly upbeat solution by reorienting our thinking around economic security. This is a must read for economists, business leaders and policy makers alike.” — Paul Mason, author of How To Stop Fascism and columnist at The New World “The World at Economic War is obligatory reading for all those who need to under­stand the role that economics plays in modern warfare. Rebecca Harding does not pull her punches. From a starting point that many political leaders still find painful to acknowledge – that the era of the international rules-based order is over – she takes the reader on a journey through the inadequacies of our current institutional struc­tures, which are legacies of that era, created to deal with the then threats to Nato allies and now in urgent need of transformation. In so doing, she lays bare the most pressing challenge of the new age in its starkest possible terms. Her forensic exam­ination of the problem makes a major contribution not just to the debate about the need for drastic change, but also to identifying potential solutions.” — Chris Donnelly, Principal Counsellor, Earendel Associates Ltd

Author Information

Dr Rebecca Harding is CEO of the Centre for Economic Security and an independent trade economist, author and public speaker. Her strategic advisory business, Rebeccanomics, provides analytical services in international trade, trade finance and sustainability. She has held positions as a senior fellow at the British Foreign Policy Group, as head of corporate research at Deloitte, as a senior fellow at London Business School, and as chief economist at the Work Foundation and at UK Finance. She acted as a specialist adviser to the Treasury Select Committee and has advised the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Entrepreneurship.

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