War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft by Robert D. Blackwill

CHAPTER ONE
What Is Geoeconomics?
War and commerce are but two dif fer ent means of arriving at the 
same aim, which is to possess what is desired.
— Benjamin Constant, Franco- Swiss politician
The term geoeconomics is in much use today, but almost always 
without a specifi c working defi nition. Some authors tend to focus on 
the use of geopo liti cal or military power for economic ends. Others tend 
to defi ne geoeconomics more broadly, as “the entanglement of international 
economics, geopolitics, and strategy,” a kind of catch- all defi nition that 
obscures more than it clarifi es. Still others primarily stress trade and the 
protection of industries.
In the par tic u lar context of U.S. foreign policy, those who use the con-

cept have likewise primarily confi ned themselves to traditional examina-

tions of international trade and sanctions. Typically, these inquiries depart 
from a narrow understanding of  U.S. trade policy— trade, done well, 
strengthens Amer i ca’s economic standing, and thus, at least in theory, en-

hances its power projection accordingly— but have no specifi c geopo liti cal 
dimension, apart, perhaps, from a widely held belief, rooted in the early 
twentieth- century liberalism of Norman Angell and others, that expanded 
trade promotes peace. It is essentially trade for trade’s sake. Others apply 
the term to almost all American economic activity, domestic and foreign.
These analysts sometimes begin by connecting U.S. power projection in a 
general way to the strength or weakness of the U.S. economy or even Amer-

ican society.
Indeed, these calls are fi nding purchase, as the two most recent U.S. na-

tional security strategies attest. A strong domestic economy over the long

term will of course remain a general requirement for any country’s power 
projection, the United States included. History has not looked kindly on 
any country that has allowed its geopo liti cal responsibilities to outstrip its 
economic wherewithal for long. It is as good a universal law as one could 
hope to fi nd in politics. And just as with physical laws of nature, there are 
no exceptions for size: great powers have found their economic constraints 
no more pliant in the face of geopo liti cal burdens than any other country.
These and other earlier interpretations of geoeconomics are useful, but 
they are also incomplete. Strikingly, none of the existing written under-

standings of geoeconomics succeeds in comprehensively capturing the 
phenomenon that, as a plain empirical matter, seems most responsible for 
the term’s recent resurrection: the use of economic instruments to produce 
benefi cial geopo liti cal results. Despite the considerable attention paid to 
the global fi nancial crisis and its geopo liti cal aftereffects, as well as to the 
growing need to place U.S. foreign policy more fi rmly in the ser vice of the 
country’s domestic economic interests, matters of where, how, and how 
well states today wield economic instruments as tools of statecraft remain 
sorely underexplored analytic and policy territory.
With this in mind, we urge the following defi nition of geoeconomics:
GEOECONOMICS: The use of economic instruments to pro-

mote and defend national interests, and to produce benefi cial 
geopo liti cal results; and the eff ects of other nations’ economic 
actions on a country’s geopo liti cal goals.
On this understanding, geoeconomics stands as both a method of analy sis 
and a form of statecraft. The fi rst dimension of this three- part defi nition 
(“the use of economic instruments to promote and defend national inter-

ests”) applies in a general way to traditional understandings of how do-

mestic economic strength promotes U.S. power projection, at least in theory. 
This dimension is impor tant and well understood.
Similarly, the fi nal ele ment of this defi nition of geoeconomics (“the ef-

fects of other nations’ economic actions on a country’s geopo liti cal goals”), 
while historically underattended compared to other aspects of international 
relations, has attracted growing interest in recent years. The revival of in-

ternational po liti cal economy certainly deserves some of the credit for this 
renewed interest. But across much of that lit er a ture, the predominant 
focus remains at the level of the system, rather than the nation- state, in at-

tempts to explain how broad economic phenomena— globalization, for 

War by Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft by Robert D. Blackwill