Economic warfare

Capital suggestion

In the 18th century, uniformed soldiers fought wars with “massed manpower using line and column tactics” (first-generation warfare). By the mid-19th century, the use of ‘rifled muskets and breach-loaders’ ended line-and-column tactics (second-generation war). Third-generation war is about three things: “speed, stealth and surprise” in order to “bypass the enemy’s lines and collapse their forces from the rear”. The weapons of the third-generation war are: fighter aircrafts, tanks and artillery.

Wars are still being waged and the weapons of war have changed. Welcome to the fourth-generation war. Economic warfare is “the use of...economic means against a country in order to weaken its economy and thereby reduce its…military power”. Economic warfare is “the use of economic means to compel an adversary to change its policies or behaviour...” Economic warfare is about “heavy damage without bloodshed”.

In 1970, President Richard Nixon ordered the CIA to “make the [Chilean] economy scream”. The CIA then undertook a destabilisation campaign to sabotage Chile’s economy. For 50 long years, the US engaged Cuba in an economic war. In the 1990s, the US waged an economic war against Iraq and North Korea (in order to prevent these countries from allocating resources to their militaries).

From 1947 to 1991, the US and its allies waged an economic war on the Soviet Union and its allies. Yes, the Soviet Union was in possession of 7,000 nuclear warheads. But by 1991, the Soviet Union was split into 15 republics: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldavia, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine and Uzbekistan.

Debt as a weapon of war: the principal objective behind waging an economic war against a target country is to weaken the target country’s economy so that the target country is unable to allocate resources to its military.

Look at Pakistan: In 2001, we allocated 4.6 percent of our GDP to Pakistan’s defence and defence allocation has since halved to around 2.3 percent of GDP. Over the same period, our debt has grown from a mere Rs3,684 billion in 2001 to a colossal Rs25,062 billion in 2017. There’s an inverse relationship between national debt and the allocation for defence (as debt increases allocation for defence goes down).

International trade as a weapon of war: Never in Pakistan’s 70-year financial history have we experienced consistently declining exports for five consecutive years. Never in Pakistan’s 70-year financial history have we imported goods and services worth $52 billion in a year. The resulting trade deficit is bound to pull resources away from Pakistan’s defence. Within the same context is the use of a country’s currency as a weapon of war (the impending devaluation of the Pakistani rupee is a case in point).

Fiscal gaps as a weapon of war: Look at the mismatch between Pakistan’s revenue and expenditures – the difference now stands at almost Rs2 trillion. If our budgetary deficit runs into trillions of rupees, we wouldn’t be left with much to defend Pakistan.

To be certain, economic wars are planned by experts. There’s an “assessment of situation, issue of orders, leadership and control”. As “in the warfare with military means, the success of military leaders depend on the use of a balanced combination of talent and the successful use of military knowledge trained at military universities. In economic warfare, success is [also] the result [of the] well-based use of knowledge about the influence of taken measures on the economic process and the talent for analysing economic interrelationships…”

A war is being waged on Pakistan. Yes, there is no visible bloodshed because weapons of war have changed. The new weapons of war are debt, international trade, currency, fiscal gaps, unsound economic projects and investment into unfeasible infrastructure projects (as opposed to investing in health and education).

The writer is a columnist based in Islamabad.

Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com Twitter: @saleemfarrukh