Economic Warfare: Implications for Sanctions Today

Welcome back to the second part of my conversation with Nick Mulder and Lars Schönander.

Picking the narrative up in 1935, get real in this episode:

• Why the Great Depression, counterintuitively, made importing commodities cheaper, and how that affected Germany’s and Japan’s protectionism;
• The difference between autarky and autarchy;
• Whether Kim Jong-un’s North Korea could survive a full-on fuel embargo today by using Nazi-era technology;
• Nick’s definition of “temporal claustrophobia,” and what it has to do with Japan ultimately siding with the Axis;
• Parallels between the “ABCD circle” (America, Britain, China, Dutch East Indies) and the semiconductor export controls today;
• Why having an empire was a liability for Britain;
• What sanctions had to do with the Czechoslovaks — even with a larger army — falling to the Nazis;
• How the blockades of WWI differed from WWII;
• And what lessons pro-decouplers should learn from this history of sanctions.

Nick’s book recommendations:

• https://www.amazon.com/Athene-Palace-Rosie-G-Waldeck/dp/1592110088
• https://www.amazon.com/World-Late-Antiquity-150-750-Civilization/dp/0393958035
• https://www.amazon.com/Thirty-Years-Review-Books-Classics/dp/1590171462
• https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Maisky-Diaries-Volumes-Communism/dp/0300117825

Nick’s excellent book: https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Weapon-Rise-Sanctions-Modern/dp/0300259360

Outro music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5mdvyIqrs4

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