Economic warfare is the term for economic policies followed as a part of military operations and covert operations during wartime.
The purpose of economic warfare is to capture critical economic resources so that the military and intelligence agencies can operate at full efficiency and/or deprive enemy forces of those resources so that they cannot fight the war 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 a nation, but mobilization of the nation's entire economy towards the war effort. In such a situation, causing damage to the economy of the enemy directly damages the enemy's ability to fight the war.
Some of the types or policies followed in economic warfare include:
- Blockade
- Blacklisting
- Preclusive purchasing
- Rewards
- Capturing of enemy assets
Clear examples of economic warfare could be seen during World War II when the Allied powers followed these policies to deprive the Axis economies of critical resources. In turn, the Axis powers attempted to damage the Allied war effort via submarine warfare, and the sinking of supply ships carrying supplies, raw materials, and war related equipment.
Other articles related to "economic, economic warfare":
... The view in the Spanish government was that the Truce had been ruinous to Spain in an economic sense ... Finally, the economic advantages had given the Republic the financial wherewithal to build a large navy during the Truce, and enlarge its standing army to a size where ... strategic points the republic had recently acquired (like Cleves), combined with measures of economic warfare, or reliance on economic warfare alone ...
1941, and its functions were transferred to the Economic Defense Board, which had been established by Presidential Executive Order 8839, July 30, 1941, to develop policies and programs to ... international economic relations ... The name was changed to Board of Economic Warfare by Presidential Executive Order 8982, December 17, 1941 ...
Famous quotes containing the words warfare and/or economic:
“Dying is a troublesome business: there is pain to be suffered, and it wrings one’s heart; but death is a splendid thing—a warfare accomplished, a beginning all over again, a triumph. You can always see that in their faces.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“It does not follow, because our difficulties are stupendous, because there are some souls timorous enough to doubt the validity and effectiveness of our ideals and our system, that we must turn to a state controlled or state directed social or economic system in order to cure our troubles.”
—Herbert Hoover (1874–1964)