Economic warfare

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Economic warfare is the term for economic policies followed as a part of military operations during wartime. The purpose of economic warfare is to capture critical economic resources so that the military can operate at full efficiency and/or deprive the enemy forces of those resources so that they cannot fight the war properly. The Russians demonstrated the use of economical warfare in the Battle of Stalingrad by cutting off the Germans' supply lines and starving them to death.

There are generally five types or policies followed in economic warfare:

1. Blockade
2. Blacklisting
3. Preclusive purchasing
4. Rewards
5. Capturing of enemy assets

Economic warfare could mostly be seen during World War II when the Allied forces followed these policies to deprive Axis war machines of critical resources.

Economic warfare was a part of the policies of the Apartheid regime in South Africa, depriving black communities of an independent economic base in competititon with the whites.

More recently the Iraq sanctions in 1990 imposed by United Nations Security Council resolutions 661 and 687 provide examples of on-going economic warfare. Economic warfare has also been practiced by Israel against both the West Bank and Gaza strip communities, through blockades, checkpoints, restrictions on imports and exports and curfews.

[edit] Economic warfare as a tool of foreign policy

Economic warfare was especially evident^{[citation needed]} in the early 1970s when US President Richard Nixon moved the world's currencies off the version of the gold standard agreed at Bretton Woods. Essentially this was because the system was too strict for the US, who had printed vastly more dollars than were supported by its holdings of gold. The change opened the door to economic warfare around the world, e.g. numerous attacks by banks on national treasuries.

[edit] See also

• Economic terrorism