Technology and Economic Statecraft: Weaponizing Technology Export Controls in an Era of Globalized Production

The basic model of weaponization of interdependence (WI) has a hub (high network centrality point), latent or realized control of the hub by the weaponizer, and the institutions to enact the weaponization of the hub. This theoretical framework works well with information networks, such as the internet or SWIFT, but less well for the world of physical goods on several grounds. First, in the world of physical goods, the chokepoint is best conceived as a point at which the weaponizer has leverage over an input without which this task cannot continue. Second, the WI literature posits that network robustness relies on self-reinforcing mechanisms and relative imperviousness to strategies to undermine them, but the theory thus far is underdeveloped. Global value chain (GVC) analysis helps address these points. On self-reinforcing mechanisms, chokepoints relying on platform network effects or nodes with relational GVC characteristics will be self-reinforcing. Furthermore, platforms are hard to displace/replace so will be quite impervious to efforts to undermine them. Similarly, relational nodes make would-be rivals without such relational access very unlikely to displace them. However, using GVC linkage characteristics to predict network robustness, while an improvement over network topography, only works well in certain industry cases.