What does «guerra económica» mean in Spanish?
- One component of grand strategy is economic warfare. Recalling that grand strategy includes, but is not limited to, military means of enforcing national policy on other states and quasi-states, economic warfare is a broad set of measures that exert pressure on different aspects of a foreign economy. These may include preventing the opponent from obtaining raw materials or various manufactured goods, manipulation of the global financial system to deny cash or credit to the enemy, actual attacks on the national currency, and a host of other measures. Economic warfare, as in the Embargo of 1807, can pressure the opponent without resorting to force. It can be considered a form of asymmetric warfare. It contrasts the devastation caused to Japan in World War II in the Pacific with the modern economic dominance of the same country. Japanese trade policies have been called economic warfare. However, Japanese history regards the U.S. embargoes in 1941 as economic warfare against them, leading to the Japanese decision to go to war in 1941. Military attacks can, of course, destroy components of the national economy. The focus here, however, is on warfare that uses financial manipulation rather than explosive force. Within an overall grand strategy, of course, the two can work together, destroying domestic facilities while denying imports.