Is it war when speculators from western nations damage a foreign nation for their personal profit? It's not conventional war, as we know it in the post-Westphalian order. Perhaps more like Drake and Hawkins raiding Spanish treasure ships, licensed pirates who dutifully split their take with the Crown/IRS.

For another perspective, we should ask the people of SE Asia who were reduced to poverty -- by their standards, far far below the US poverty line. I wonder what they would have deemed an appropriate response, had their nations had sufficient strength.

Have SE Asians forgotten 1997-98? If not, they might prove less-than-helpful when America hits hard times.

I strongly recommend anyone interested in modern warfare read Unrestricted Warfare. {The link I gave below no longer works}. Note these quotes:

During the 1990's, and concurrent with the series of military actions launched by nonprofessional warriors and non-state organizations, we began to get an inkling of a non-military type of war which is prosecuted by yet another type of non-professional warrior. ... Judging by this kind of standard, who can say that George Soros is not a financial terrorist? ...

We believe that before long, "financial warfare" will undoubtedly be an entry in the various types of dictionaries of official military jargon. Moreover, when people revise the history books on twentieth-century warfare in the early 21st century, the section on financial warfare will command the reader's utmost attention. The main protagonist in this section of the history book will not be a statesman or a military strategist; rather, it will be George Soros. …In addition, we have yet to mention the crowd of large and small speculators who have come en masse to this huge dinner party for money gluttons, ...