War by Other Means GEOECONOMICS AND STATECRAFT

Robert D. Blackwill and Jennifer M. Harris

To compound matters, as economic techniques of statecraft have become a lost art in the United States, the rest of the world has moved in the opposite direction. Rus sia, China, and others now routinely look to geoeconomic means, often as a fi rst resort, and often to undermine American power and infl uence. In ignoring the ever- greater role of geoeconomics in the international system, the United States squanders opportunities and dilutes its own foreign policy outcomes. It weakens the confi dence of Ameri ca’s Asian and European allies. It encourages China to coerce its neighbors and lessens their ability to resist. It gives China free rein in vulnerable African and Latin American nations. It allows Rus sia to bend much of the former Soviet space to its will without serious answer from the United States