The global economic is more complex and interdependent than ever before and statecraft is increasingly involving economic tools to affect global affairs. In an era of growing strategic competition between two great powers – and a growing rift in support for the international trading system – economics the predominant battleground for nations wanting to further their own interests. Australia’s national interest in the long run will be made or broken by how well we navigate the policy shocks that follow.

To discuss these dynamics, and the central role the United States has played in driving the pre-eminence of the weaponisation of economic interdependence, the Canberra Security Economics Network will be joined by two influential voices in academic discourse on economic statecraft and geopolitics. Professor Abraham Newman (Georgetown University) and Professor Henry Farrell (John Hopkins University) recently co-authored Underground Empire: How America Weaponized the World Economy.

From the publisher’s website: Deep beneath our feet, vast and sprawling, lies one of the most sophisticated empires the world has ever known. At first glance, it might not look like much - it is made up of fibre optic cables and obscure payment systems. But according to prominent political scientists Henry Farrell and Abraham Newman, the United States has turned the most vital pathways of the world economy into tools of domination over foreign businesses and countries, whether they are rivals or allies, allowing it to maintain global supremacy.

Drawing on original reporting and ground-breaking research, Farrell and Newman explain how this underground empire has allowed the United States to eavesdrop on other countries and isolate its enemies. Now, efforts by countries such as China and Russia to untether themselves from this coercive US-led system are turning the global economy into a battle zone. Today's headlines about trade wars, sanctions, and controls on technology exports are merely tremors hinting at far greater seismic shifts beneath the surface, as we sleepwalk into a dangerous new struggle for empire.

The Canberra Security Economics Network comprises economists and interdisciplinary social scientists from both public policy and academia, who share a passion for the application of economics to national security and international issues, with a view to build strong discourse around these important policy issues.