Economic Warfare

[Norfolk]

Quote - Slapout:

I remember Nixon's comment after leaving BW "We are all Keynesian now" (reference to the UK economist John Maynard Keynes). The separation of the dollar from a gold standard to a "production standard" meaning if your country can expand it's productive capabilities it can expand it's money supply.

If your country adopts a policy of exporting it's "productive capacity" to other countries you will be in deep trouble because your currency will end up being worthless!

-Unquote

And add to that how the "production standard" is so often replaced in practice by a "speculation standard", and the divorce between apparent economic performance and real production output is not so much an indicator of real economic performance as it is an indicator of how much creation of wealth there has been for an absolute minority.

Fabius: Excellent post on empowered individuals, I remember when the Asians were blaming on international investor for the fairly recent economic down turn in Asia. Very few investors are putting their money into the U.S. now, I even recently read that they preferred Egypt of all places for "safe" investments!

Kehenry 1: I second slapout's comments, you couldn't have phrased it better, we are dropping bombs on our own position.

Agreed on practically all counts here, with all parties mentioned. Just to remind though, the events of the Asian Currency Crisis were not the result of a deliberate attempt to subvert the economic order of South-East Asia, but of a speculator handed too much rope by his own superiors trying to disguise bad investments. A deliberate plot by an individual, group, or state, could not have done a better job of disrupting the economy of entire region.

The potential of economic warfare along the lines of 4GW Theory is demonstrated here, but it is a way of war no more exclusive to 4GW actors than it is to state actors and the like. It is a capability afforded to all who possess the means at hand.