In October 2024, Treasury secretary Janet Yellen addressed the Council on Foreign Relations to tout the Biden administration’s “modern supply-side economics.” She argued that more government spending ...

Discover what autarky means, its economic implications, and real-world examples like North Korea and Nazi Germany's self-sufficient policies.

Explore how the guns-and-butter curve illustrates opportunity cost and economic trade-offs between military and domestic spending, with key historical examples.

This article was originally published by the Council on Foreign Relations on Aug. 1, 2025. One of the hardest jobs of a policymaker is to weigh trade-offs. Few policies are clean, absolute, and ...