Review Article: Monetary Power and National Security. A 10th Anniversary Review of Paul R. Viotti’s The Dollar and National Security: The Monetary Component of Hard Power (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014)

Authors

Ricardo Crespo, Grossmont CollegeFollow

Abstract

In this ten-year retrospective, Ricardo A. Crespo reassesses Paul R. Viotti’s The Dollar and National Security (2014) as a foundational text bridging the fields of monetary policy and national security. Viotti’s central thesis—that military power ultimately depends on a stable and privileged monetary foundation—has only grown more relevant amid today’s weaponization of finance and the geopolitics of sanctions. Crespo highlights Viotti’s argument that sustaining the U.S. dollar’s global dominance requires cooperative security and international consensus, noting how historical parallels—from the sterling gold standard to Bretton Woods—illustrate the fragility of monetary hegemony under fiscal mismanagement or political fragmentation. The review situates Viotti’s work within the post-Ukraine invasion context, emphasizing the rise of financial coercion, cyber threats to monetary systems, and hybrid warfare targeting fiscal stability. While Crespo critiques the book’s limited treatment of money as a coercive instrument, he concludes that Viotti’s analysis remains prescient and vital for understanding the entanglement of currency, power, and strategy in 21st-century conflict.

DOI

10.32873/uno.dc.sd.16.02.1325

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Recommended Citation

Crespo, Ricardo (2025) "Review Article: Monetary Power and National Security. A 10th Anniversary Review of Paul R. Viotti’s The Dollar and National Security: The Monetary Component of Hard Power (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2014)," Space and Defense: Vol. 16: No. 2, Article 13.
DOI: 10.32873/uno.dc.sd.16.02.1325
Available at: https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/spaceanddefense/vol16/iss2/13