The limits of weaponised interdependence after the Russian war against Ukraine

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe idea of weaponised interdependence has led many to believe that Russia would not invade Ukraine due to the high costs of sanctions, including through the Western-backed SWIFT system of financial payments. Although Russia’s economy has been facing shortcomings, the Russian leadership thrived in part due to connections beyond the West. This article argues that scholars have missed the fact that, more than being interdependent with the West, rising states have been decoupling from the United States and the European Union. Emerging powers, particularly China and Russia, have expanded their trade network and built their own financial infrastructure. Those transformations call for a less Western-centric International Relations (IR) scholarship. Scholars should furthermore not only focus on theories of Neoliberal Institutionalism, but also consider contributions from Realism and Marxism to International Political Economy (IPE).KEYWORDS: Sanctionsdecouplingde-dollarizationSWIFTCIPSBRICS AcknowledgementsI would like to thank the CSP editorial team for their guidance in preparing the final version of this manuscript. I am also grateful for the comments two anonymous reviewers provided. Any remaining mistakes are my own responsibility.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 In revising the second edition of this work, published in 1990, Pape (Citation1997, Citation1998, p. 66) claimed that only five cases out of 114 can actually be considered successful.