The Economic War: how the destinies of the world change

Once upon a time the war... for once we detach ourselves from the usual vision to wear an elegant grisaille and examine an evolved form of conflict, the economic one. A war apparently "cleaner", but no less a harbinger of destabilizing effects and consequences. The economy deals with war in many ways, on one hand as support for national politics, and on the other as effective lesson learned.

The publicist of the war economics it has generated both different doctrinal instruments, such as those developed by Keynes for what concerned war finance, and a direct commitment by economists, some of whom were then awarded the Nobel Prize, who contributed to the Allied military planning during World War II , a commitment recognized as determinant by the Naval Institute of Annapolis itself; strategic bombardments, the identification of the optimal routes and the composition of the maritime convoys, have been passed to the scrutiny of economists who, at that time, have developed techniques of analysis still more than valid today, such as the Game Theory (v.articolo) and that of Operations Research. The Economic War is not a novelty since already before the 1914, in international law and in the British naval political-military praxis was very present, so much so that it continues to be valued by the London School of Economics in collaboration with the special Unit of the 'Economist; identifying the strategic objectives, in conjunction with the modernization of armaments, allowed to provoke the effects that, in terms of cost - effectiveness, led to broader and more productive results of the traditional war on trade by the Navy.

A first evolution of the practices of Economic War took place with their limitation following the recognition of the changes of the 1977 to the Geneva Protocols, and to an increased importance of the institutional aspect of the International Organizations and of the bilateral treaties between States; if it seemed that legal forms could take over, shops and transactions used not to have an economic advantage but to damage the enemy continued to have "citizenship", and above all they could continue to be used even in peacetime to obtain the same effects of traditional war techniques. They thus became a structural component of the financial system, as demonstrated by the US in their attack on the Soviet economic system, where the price of oil was lowered first and then the star wars in an unsustainable competition. What has been confirmed, is that the concept of détente has returned to the attic, and that instead economic policy has had to be subordinated to strategic and geopolitical ends: if the effects of the liberal peace that prevailed from the 1870 to the outbreak of the Great War they mean something, it would probably be appropriate to carefully evaluate the current evolution of liberalism and globalization, the true one Great Illusion¹; if there is one thing that Economic Warfare has taught, it is that the concepts of state and sovereignty are neither aged nor diminished, indeed.

The Economic Warfare has the task of disorganizing the enemy economy to prevent any activities for war purposes, and its effectiveness varies according to enemy self-sufficiency, infrastructure and import / export subject however to the control of the Naval Forces; practically a siege conducted with long-term weapons that aim to create pressure in order to penetrate the enemy's economic fabric and create dependence.

The Economic Warfare, different from the Defense Economy, aims to deny resources by limiting supplies derived from trade with a wise use of debt to control the domestic policy of counterparties, and pursues a maximization of offensive capabilities, where economic weapons do not require the support of military forces: the triumph of the principle of cost - effectiveness. Economic Warfare is the sublimation of the asymmetric principle of war and its potential hybrid nature, where conceptual support is provided by the definition of an international law of economic war from the Anglo-Saxon appearance, and where neutrality is not admitted; economic sanctions are clear evidence of this, given that the selective block of trade in a target state, from the 1945, has seen the US will prevail constantly, the only ones able to give credibility to the threat of sanctions.

Economic Warfare is not just economic competition, it is a zero-sum game where the "draw" is not contemplated and where the ends are exclusively political. Classic economic weapons have an explicit purpose; this is not the case for the Economic Warfare which mimics the same weapons of the market, highlighting the objective cause of the transactions and not the subjective intentionality of the parties.

The privileged tool of the Economic Warfare is the Financial War, pure exercise of State sovereignty, the weapon that undermines the power of a country by affecting its currency, and which presupposes a financial capacity superior to that of the enemy together with the availability of a strong currency, with easy access to credit and the ability to deny it by imposing its own rules. A good view of these are both the prerequisites in American possession, and the reasons why it is difficult to imagine a sell-off of Chinese reserves in dollars: simply China does not hold (yet) the US economic prerequisites, in a precarious climate balance of financial "terror".

The Financial War supports the achievement of the objectives of the hegemonic country attacking the opposing elites, slashing trade, affecting foreign currency reserves and economic production, raising inflation, driving unemployment with an increase in social unrest, fomenting migration of the population. After all, a picture not so far from what we saw in Ukraine and on the Mediterranean shores animated by the Arab spring. The information barrier is the opposition that remains in terms of intelligence denial ed intelligence penetration, and that constitutes the real challenge to American power, because acquired - not by chance - from China and Russia. We throw the stone into the pond.

In 1999, a study on the evolutionary nature of war was published in China by two air force colonels, Wang Xiangsui and Qiao Liang who, with their book "Unrestricted Warfare" theorized the realization of an alternative method of warfare that was able to support the most militarily backward countries in the face of the American giant, a model of hybrid warfare that involved the use of computer (see hackers and trolls) and economic factors capable of producing vulnerability and destabilization with a mixture of conventional and non-conventional activities, just below the threshold of the declared state of war.

In the meantime, in the 2013, in Russia, the figure of the head of Army SM, Valery Gerasimov, a brilliant officer who still enjoys the esteem of President Putin, and who has expressed his point of view on the conduct of the asymmetric war, taking up the theme developed by the two Chinese officers. For Gerasimov the value of science is in perspective, and calls for a revision of forms and methods of combat. Despite the denials about the authenticity of the elaboration of the Russian general, the Doctrine Gerasimov is revealed in Ukraine and in the former Soviet Republics where the Russian Federation can not lose more land; for Gerasimov the new asymmetric war is fought and won through the understanding and exploitation of scientific and economic factors and with the participation in the conflict of non-military parties, such as private companies; all to transform, as he asserts himself, a perfectly prosperous state in a permanent and chaotic operative front. In the same way as the Chinese military, Gerasimov turns to a wide choice of niche soldiers, scholars and war science theorists who are proposed to evaluate a whole panoply of conventional and non-conventional weapons, to be used in the very near future .

Economic Warfare, as correctly understood by Gerasimov, is effective but complex and requires an interdisciplinary approach, in which the juridical - economic theory is linked to other social subjects that have at their base mathematical analysis techniques; it has therefore become a structural and functional component of economic interdependencies no longer restricted to the areas of hot wars.

The competition for global hegemony, afterwards the short century e the end of history, is officially resumed.