Modern Economic Warfare

The first international history of the emergence of economic sanctions during the interwar period and the legacy of this development Economic sanctions dominate the landscape of world politics today. First developed in the early twentieth century as a way of exploiting the flows of globalization to defend liberal internationalism, their appeal is that they function as an alternative to war. This view, however, ignores the dark paradox at their core: designed to prevent war, economic sanctions are modeled on devastating techniques of warfare. Tracing the use of economic sanctions from the blockades of World War I to the policing of colonial empires and the interwar confrontation with fascism, Nicholas Mulder uses extensive archival research in a political, economic, legal, and military history that reveals how a coercive wartime tool was adopted as an instrument of peacekeeping by the League of Nations. This timely study casts an overdue light on why sanctions are widely considered a form of war, and why their unintended consequences are so tremendous.

Since the prohibition of the threat or use of force and the resurgence of (economic) nationalism, economic warfare has become an increasingly important substitute for actual hostilities between states. Its manifestations range from medieval sieges to modern day trade wars. Despite its long history, economic warfare remains an elusive term, foreign to international law. This book seeks to identify those portions of international law that are applicable to economic warfare. What is the status quo of regulation? Is there a jus ad bellum oeconomicum? A jus in bello oeconomico? After putting forward its own definition of economic warfare, the book reviews historical case studies – reflecting the three main branches of international economic law: trade, investment and currency – to identify pertinent legal boundaries. While the case studies reveal that numerous rules of international (economic) law regulate (specific measures of) economic warfare, it remains to be seen whether – analogously to the prohibition of the threat or use of force – these selective limitations have the potential to coalesce into a general prohibition of economic warfare in the future.

This book demonstrates how economic tools have been used throughout history to accomplish goals of military conflict, how they can be used more effectively than traditional means of warfare in the modern era, and how we can derive a better understanding of economic strategy applicable not just to the military but also to market competition. This new edition includes a thorough updating of chapters on advances in our understanding of economic warfare and more recent examples, such as ISIS’s reliance on obtaining control over oil production facilities, North Korea’s nuclear program, and China’s emphasis on scientific research and technological innovation. This edition also features an entirely new chapter on the commercialization of the conflict over the region of Kashmir.

New insights for investors and business people looking to create wealth in the turbulent post-crisis world In a no holds barred expose of the 2008 financial meltdown from the inside, Ziad K. Abdelnour argues that the political and financial elites have done nothing to fix the structural problems and instead have worsened the situation. By creating more market bubbles, they are actually waging a war on the most productive members of society. For investors, business people, and entrepreneurs that need to navigate the troubled geopolitical waters of the post-crisis world, Abdelnour offers several solutions, including looking at the world anew and understanding that the federal government's primary objective is to promote the creation of an environment conducive to the creation of wealth not job creation, not bailouts, not subsidies, not expansion of the federal bureaucracy, and not providing lifetime support to those who choose not to take advantage of the innumerable opportunities that exist in this nation for them to create a better, more productive life for themselves. Written for investors that need to navigate the troubled geopolitical waters of the post-crisis world · Offers "out of the box" investment tactics and strategies to outsmart the system · Describes political and business solutions that anyone can engage in to restore freedom and prosperity The author is President and CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc., a private family office that has two major lines of business, private equity investments and advisory services, and physical commodities trading Compelling and persuasive, Economic Warfare reveals that wealth can be created in the new, post-crisis world, but investors need to understand that the rules of the game have changed.

This book, first published in 1942, examines the economic necessities, defensive and offensive, basic and strategic, involved in waging war. Written with total global war raging, it analyses the unprecedented demands placed on the economic system of a nation, and looks at the great shifts of productive effort and limits on consumption that were needed.

Before the First World War, the British Admiralty conceived a plan to win rapid victory in the event of war with Germany-economic warfare on an unprecedented scale.This secret strategy called for the state to exploit Britain's effective monopolies in banking, communications, and shipping-the essential infrastructure underpinning global trade-to create a controlled implosion of the world economic system. In this revisionist account, Nicholas Lambert shows in lively detail how naval planners persuaded the British political leadership that systematic disruption of the global economy could bring about German military paralysis. After the outbreak of hostilities, the government shied away from full implementation upon realizing the extent of likely collateral damage-political, social, economic, and diplomatic-to both Britain and neutral countries. Woodrow Wilson in particular bristled at British restrictions on trade. A new, less disruptive approach to economic coercion was hastily improvised. The result was the blockade, ostensibly intended to starve Germany. It proved largely ineffective because of the massive political influence of economic interests on national ambitions and the continued interdependencies of all countries upon the smooth functioning of the global trading system. Lambert's interpretation entirely overturns the conventional understanding of British strategy in the early part of the First World War and underscores the importance in any analysis of strategic policy of understanding Clausewitz's "political conditions of war."

In this volume, Koistinen examines war planning and mobilizing in an era of rapid industrialization and reveals how economic mobilization for defense and war is shaped at the national level by the interaction of political, economic, and military institutions and by increasingly powerful and expensive weaponry.