Welcome to Current Affairs. My name is Nathan Robinson. I'm the editor-in-chief of Current Affairs

Magazine. I am joined today by the journalist Saleh Moeson. She is the senior Washington correspondent

for Bloomberg News and the author of the new book, Paper Soldiers,

how the weaponization of the dollar changed the world order.

Salamosa, welcome to current affairs.

Thank you for having me.

Okay, so, where to begin? Let's see. I want to quote you here, you say that me. Okay, so where to begin?

Let's see.

I want to quote you here.

You say that the dollar, the United States dollar, it may look humble.

It may look innocent.

But it is, you say, the most consequential weapon that the United States has. What do you mean by that? Well, it's a weapon that we don't

actually always realize exists. It's a weapon that the U.S. didn't know it had almost, kind of,

didn't really know that, oh, this thing could become really powerful.

And it's a weapon that reaches in the blink of an eye without, you know, you won't hear

a military tank rolling down the street toward you. You won't hear a trigger being prepared

to go off. And it reaches almost every single person on this

earth. And all of those elements make it a little bit terrifying that power exists. And there are

great benefits to it for Americans, for the rest of the world, but there are also some downsides.

Okay. Well, let's unpack it all. So tell us a little bit more. What does that mean?

How could the dollar possibly be used as a weapon?

So the weaponization of the dollar, the seeds were planted. Oh, 1994, the Bretton Woods Conference. Every economic wonk in the world knows this date,

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