US Economic Statecraft for Survival, 1933-1991

How have US economic defence policies promoted its security since 1933? US Policies of Economic Warfare, 1933-1991 concentrates on an important and neglected facet of America's fight for survival in the latter half of the twentieth century. It explains how US policy-makers crafted and used instruments of economic statecraft against states that posed vital threats to the survival of the USA. This study situates economic defence policy within the broad context of US foreign policy and explores its response to the totalitarianism of the 1930s, the Second World War and the complex strategic and political developments of the Cold War. Dobson charts an extraordinary change in US policy, from its defence of neutral rights to trade in wartime to its denial of trade to prospective enemies in peacetime. From this explanation of how it developed and evolved over the years there emerges a new perspective. This study emphasises the importance that economic instruments of statecraft have for symbolic, communication, and political bargaining objectives. Economic instruments of statecraft are more important for what they say than what they do in an instrumental sense. Without being aware of these factors it is not possible to give a credible account of much of US economic statecraft in the post-war period. This book reassesses the nature and character of economic instruments of statecraft in the light of the detailed narrative of, and findings about, US policy from 1933-1991. Among other things it raises difficulties about how to assess the effectiveness of such instruments of statecraft once it is appreciated that assessment by purely objective economic criteria is inappropriate. It includes details of US economic actions against Japan, Nazi Germany, and the Soviet Union.