Choke point

I mean, I just genuinely like Brad.

But he's got this book, Choke Point, and it...

Brad is such a strategic forward thinker on this sort of stuff, and his book kind of focuses on there are these choke points in the world where you gotta be able to get shipping through for the world, and if you control the choke points, you can choke off trade around the world, including the shipping of oil.

And, uh, so he's got this book, Choke Point.

You should read it, but it, it's a very like, I mean, perceptive thinking.

Oil prices hitting nearly $110 a barrel today because the Strait of Hormuz is closed and because a Saudi Arabian pipeline has been damaged by Houthi attacks.

And that brings us quite nicely to today's book, Choke Points, How Economic Warfare is Changing the World.

It's by Edward Fishman.

Bronwyn Williams is a trend translator and future finance specialist at Flux Trends.

But we'll get Bronwyn Williams back for you just to continue that conversation.

It's an incredibly interesting book, though, and about what this means for the future of the world.

When you have choke points, as we've seen, you know the impact that they can actually have.

Bronwyn Williams is back.

If you go back to the original point of the Internet, the original point of DARPAnet was resilience, right? We're going to have this network that could survive a nuclear attack.

That was the original goal, right? Because it doesn't depend on anyone, Chokepoint or anyone.

And this feels like we're going in the opposite direction, right? That we're introducing this incredible fragility, specificity, and inflexibility into this system for, as you say, what's in theory are the very highest value keys, right? And so for what are the very highest value keys, we are putting them in this incredibly inflexible situation.

Tim, let's go back to what we said originally, identity.

So we are diving into a really fascinating article today.

It's titled Mind the Gap, Asymmetric Maritime Warfare in Southeast Asian Choke Points.

It's a brilliant piece.

It really is.

You need the physical environment to work in your favor, which is why Southeast Asia is arguably the most vulnerable region for China's supply chains.

Right.

Because of the choke points.

Exactly.

And once you see them, you cannot unsee them.

Every generation gets one choke point moment.

A single narrow strip of water where the entire architecture of the global economy quietly rests.

The Strait of Hormuz is that strip.

21 miles of water.

That is smaller than most people's daily commute.

And yet, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, It is the single most important energy choke point on the planet.

So when I'm on Truth Social and a regional, this is.

And the messiness, well, we've all learned about the messiness and sort of tariff schedules and all those kind of things.

But the history is interesting and I think instructive here because I feel like we talk a lot about some of these concepts, particularly in the context of trade wars or, you know, choke points or, you know, weaponized interdependence and all these things.

In fact, I mean, the authors who popularized those terms have recently appeared on this podcast.

Yeah, Able Memory,

Yeah.

They've happened for centuries.

And actually, you know, in Eddie's book, in Choke Points, you know, he talks about the kind of, you know, ancient Greece and certain kind of moments back then.

But throughout history, you have so many examples of economics being weaponized, sometimes successfully, most of the time kind of unsuccessfully because there are so many unintended consequences.

In any sort of economic war, what matters isn't just which side can inflict the biggest harm on the other's GDP, it's which side has more will to withstand whatever the hit is.

That's Edward Fishman, the author of Chokepoint, American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare.

How sharks became the inspiration for an Australian tech company trying to help aircraft carve through the skies.

And the comedian and writer Jennifer Wong will tell us about her last things.

Fighting talk.

But Scott Besson in that announcement did not mention Iran's biggest trading partner, which is China.

I've been talking to Edward Fishman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of Chokepoint, American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare.

Edward Fishman, thanks so much for joining us on Saturday Extra.

The shape is the same.

We've already established that, right? Chokepoint, escort, workaround, no resolution.

The difference is the scale of the money moving through it and who actually ends up holding the bag when it does.

In nineteen eighty-seven, the bag was mostly held by a naval budget and some insurance underwriters in London.

Joining me now, Edward Fishman, former diplomat and international relations scholar.

He's the author of the book Chokepoint, American Power in the Age of Economic Warfare.

It's nice to have you with us this morning.

So, you know, I should point out there are some signs here that this economic approach is having some impact.