Dr. Holly Bell
Dr. Holly Bell is an economist and author whose work sits at the intersection of economics, international security, and geopolitical risk. A former professor and academic administrator at the University of Alaska Anchorage, she studies the economic vulnerabilities of resource-rich states and the risks posed by foreign investment in critical infrastructure.
She is the author of Occupied Alaska, a geopolitical novel imagining an economically weakened Alaska turning to China to finance its infrastructure, inspired by her own firsthand opposition to a real 2017 deal: a proposed $43 billion Chinese-backed LNG pipeline that, by every economic analysis, was never expected to turn a profit. She was also directly involved in scrutinizing a related 2017 proposal for a Chinese-linked acquisition of the Chicago Stock Exchange, which cleared CFIUS review before being blocked by the SEC.
Bell’s work traces how debt dependence and control of critical infrastructure have reshaped sovereignty in places like Sri Lanka and Djibouti, and why similar dynamics could plausibly unfold within a US state, along with the structural tension between democratic election cycles and the long-term planning of authoritarian competitors.
