Economic warfare

Economic warfare or economic war is an economic strategy used by belligerent states with the goal of weakening the economy of other states. This is primarily achieved by the use of economic blockades. Ravaging the crops of the enemy is a classic method, used for thousands of years.

In military operations, economic warfare may reflect economic policy followed as a part of open or covert operations, cyber operations, information operations during or preceding a war. Economic warfare aims to capture or otherwise to control the supply of critical economic resources so friendly military and intelligence agencies can use them and enemy forces cannot.^{[citation needed]}

The concept of economic warfare is most applicable to total war, which involves not only the armed forces of enemy countries but also mobilized war-economies. In such a situation, damage to an enemy's economy is damage to that enemy's ability to fight a war. Scorched-earth policies may deny resources to an invading enemy.

Policies and measures in economic warfare may include blockade, blacklisting, preclusive purchasing, rewards and the capturing or the control of enemy assets or supply lines. Other policies may include tariff discrimination, sanctions, the suspension of aid, the freezing of capital assets, the prohibition of investment and other capital flows, expropriation, and debasing the target's currency by counterfeiting.

Agriculture in ancient Greece was subject to ravaging of the crops by enemy armies. This was done to loot a valuable item, to starve the victims, and to intimidate and deter them.[1]

In his Book on the Recovery of the Holy Land, Fidentius of Padua provides prescriptions for economic warfare to be waged against the Mamluk sultanate of Egypt in furtherance of the Crusades. He envisions a fleet of 40–50 galleys to enforce a blockade on trade between Europe and Egypt. He sees the trade as helping Egypt in two ways: it obtains war materiel (iron, tin, timber, oil) from Europe and dues on goods brought in via the Red Sea from Asia for trade to Europe. If the spice trade were deflected from the Red Sea to Mongol Persia, Egypt would be deprived of customs duties and lose export markets because of the reduction in shipping. That may also make it unable to afford more slave soldiers imported via the Black Sea slave trade.

During the Seven Years' War of 1756 to 1763, the Kingdom of Prussia occupied Saxony and used its mint to debase both the Saxon and Polish-Lithuanian currencies.

Union forces in the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865 had the challenge of occupying and controlling the 11 states of the Confederacy, a vast area larger than Western Europe. The Confederate economy proved surprisingly vulnerable.