World at Economic War

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.

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.