The Oxford English Dictionary defines economic warfare or economic war
as involving "an economic strategy based on the use of measures (e.g.
blockade) of which the primary effect is to weaken the economy of
another state".
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 wartime. Economic warfare aims to capture or otherwise control the supply of critical economic resources so that the military and intelligence agencies can operate at full efficiency or deprive enemy forces of those resources so that they cannot function properly.
The concept of economic warfare is most applicable to conflict between nation states, especially in times of total war - which involves not only the armed forces of an enemy nation, but mobilization of that nation's entire economy towards the war effort. In such a situation, causing damage to the enemy's economy directly damages the enemy's ability to fight the war.
Policies and measures in economic warfare may include blockade, blacklisting, preclusive purchasing, rewards and the capturing or control of enemy assets or supply lines, tariff discrimination, sanctions, the suspension of aid, the freezing of capital assets, the prohibition of investment and other capital flows, and expropriation. Scorched earth policies have often been applied to prevent an advancing enemy from gaining resources.
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 wartime. Economic warfare aims to capture or otherwise control the supply of critical economic resources so that the military and intelligence agencies can operate at full efficiency or deprive enemy forces of those resources so that they cannot function properly.
The concept of economic warfare is most applicable to conflict between nation states, especially in times of total war - which involves not only the armed forces of an enemy nation, but mobilization of that nation's entire economy towards the war effort. In such a situation, causing damage to the enemy's economy directly damages the enemy's ability to fight the war.
Policies and measures in economic warfare may include blockade, blacklisting, preclusive purchasing, rewards and the capturing or control of enemy assets or supply lines, tariff discrimination, sanctions, the suspension of aid, the freezing of capital assets, the prohibition of investment and other capital flows, and expropriation. Scorched earth policies have often been applied to prevent an advancing enemy from gaining resources.
History
American Civil War
Attacks on infrastructure
Union forces in the American Civil War had the challenge of occupying and controlling the 11 states of the Confederacy. It was a vast area – larger than Western Europe. The economy of the Confederate States of America proved surprisingly vulnerable.
Union forces were faced with guerrilla warfare supported by a large
fraction of the Confederate population, providing food, horses, and
hiding places for official and unofficial Confederate units.
Before the war, most passenger and freight traffic moved by water,
through the river system or coastal ports. Travel became much more
difficult during the war. The Union Navy took control of much of the
seacoast, and the main rivers such as the Mississippi River and the
Tennessee River, using the Mississippi River Squadron
of powerful small gunboats. Land transportation was contested, as
Confederate supporters tried to block shipments of munitions,
reinforcements and supplies through West Virginia, Kentucky, and
Tennessee, to Union forces to the south. Bridges were burned, railroad
tracks torn up, telegraph lines were cut. Both sides did this,
effectively ruining the infrastructure of the Confederacy.
The Confederacy in 1861 had 297 towns and cities with a total
population of 835,000 people; of these 162 with 681,000 people were at
one point occupied by Union forces. In practically every case,
infrastructure was damaged, and trade and economic activity was
disrupted for a while. Eleven cities were severely damaged by war
action, including Atlanta, Charleston, Columbia, and Richmond. The rate
of damage in smaller towns was much lower, with severe damage to 45 out
of a total of 830.
Farms were in disrepair, and the prewar stock of horses, mules
and cattle was much depleted; 40% of the South's livestock had been
killed.
The South's farms were not highly mechanized, but the value of farm
implements and machinery in the 1860 Census was $81 million and was
reduced by 40% by 1870. The transportation infrastructure lay in ruins, with little railroad or riverboat service available to move crops and animals to market.
Railroad mileage was located mostly in rural areas and over two-thirds
of the South's rails, bridges, rail yards, repair shops and rolling
stock were in areas reached by Union armies, which systematically
destroyed what they could. Even in untouched areas, the lack of
maintenance and repair, the absence of new equipment, the heavy
over-use, and the relocation of equipment by the Confederates from
remote areas to the war zone ensured the system would be ruined at war's
end.
The enormous cost of the Confederate war effort took a high toll
on the South's economic infrastructure. The direct costs to the
Confederacy in human capital, government expenditures, and physical destruction totaled perhaps $3.3 billion. By 1865, the Confederate dollar
was worthless due to high inflation, and people in the South had to
resort to bartering services for goods, or else use scarce Union
dollars. With the emancipation of the southern slaves, the entire
economy of the South had to be rebuilt. Having lost their enormous
investment in slaves, white planters had minimal capital to pay freedmen workers to bring in crops. As a result, a system of sharecropping was developed where landowners broke up large plantations
and rented small lots to the freedmen and their families. The main
feature of the Southern economy changed from an elite minority of landed
gentry slaveholders into a tenant farming
agriculture system. Disruption of finance, trade and services, as well
as transportation nodes, severely disrupted the prewar agricultural
system, forcing Southerners to turn to barter, ersatz, and even spinning
wheels. The entire region was impoverished for generations.
World War I
The British used the greatly superior Royal Navy to tightly blockade
Germany and closely monitor shipments to neutrals so they could not be
transshipped into Germany. Germany could not find enough food—its
younger farmers were all in the Army—and the desperate Germans were
eating turnips by the winter of 1916–17.
US shipping was sometimes seized; Washington protested. The British
paid monetary compensation so that the American protests would not
escalate into serious trouble.
World War II
Clear examples of economic warfare occurred during World War II when the Allied powers followed these policies to deprive the Axis economies of critical resources. The British Royal Navy again blockaded Germany, although it was much harder to do than in 1914. The United States Navy, especially with submarines, cut off shipments of oil and food to Japan.
In turn, Germany attempted to damage the Allied war effort via submarine warfare—the sinking of transports ships carrying supplies, raw materials, and essential war-related items such as food and oil.
Neutral countries continue to trade with both sides. The allies
made a special effort to cut off sales to Germany of critical minerals
such as wolfram (a tungsten ore; used to make steel armor) and mercury
from Spain and Portugal.
Germany wanted Spain to enter the war but rejected its terms, which
included control of French colonies in Africa. It was essential to keep
Germany and Spain apart, so Britain used a carrot and stick approach.
Britain provided oil and closely monitored Spain's export trade. It
outbid Germany for the wolfram—the price soared and by 1943 wolfram was
Spain's biggest export earner. Britain's cautious treatment of Spain
brought it into conflict with more aggressive American policy.
Washington cut off oil supplies in 1944, but then agreed with London's
requests to resume oil shipments. Portugal feared a German invasion, but when that became unlikely in 1944 it virtually joined the Allies.
The economic war in the interpretation of the French School of Economic War
Christian
Harbulot, director of the Economic Warfare School in Paris, provides an
historical reconstruction of the economic balance of power between
states. In this study, he demonstrates that the strategies that states
put in place in order to increase their economic power – and their impact on the international balance of power – can only be interpreted through the concept of economic warfare.
1973–74 oil embargo
In 1973–1974, the Arab nations imposed an oil embargo against the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Japan and other industrialized nations which supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War of October 1973. The results included a sharp rise in oil prices.
U.S. embargo against Cuba
The United States currently imposes a commercial, economic, and financial embargo against Cuba.
U.S. sanctions against Iran
The United States applies economic, trade, scientific and military sanctions against Iran.
In 2019, BBC reported that U.S. sanctions against Iran "have led to a
sharp downturn in Iran's economy, pushing the value of its currency to
record lows, quadrupling its annual inflation rate, driving away foreign
investors, and triggering protests."
