One thing to mention is that Keynsian economic theory is not the only theory associated with capitalism. Buddist economics also applies to capitalism quite nicely, but is often mistakenly considered a communist ideology.

Economic warfare is not new (there were early attempts in the thread to link it to 4GW). Nation states have used proxies for economic warfare since long before the "East India Trading Company" in US colonial times. Domestic United States treaties, policies, and as example NAFTA could be considered to create hostile and protectionist policies if you are standing on the wrong side of them. Favored nation status for China, and embargo of Cuba are examples of a similar policies that could be considered equally hostile.

Economic warfare is the "E" in DIME (I guess there's something called MIDLIFE Arghhh). What is likely new is the position the United States is finding itself in with declining dollar. Whether that is totally good or bad is not an answered question and likely will be decided by historians. A declining dollar, receding industrial capability, exploding debtor status, critical energy needs, and a polarized political environment would all be considered the harbingers of societal upheavel. The US consumer though is pretty happy and not reacting from fear. The mortgage foreclosure crisis is hitting the basic consumer fairly hard but from the numbers I've seen it isn't nearly as bad as the early 80's.

The energy crisis of the 70's led to major construction projects in energy development and the last big bang (pun intended) in nuclear energy. The end of the cold war in the 80's included absolute financial recession, the savings and loan fiasco, and substantial changes in economic theory with the creating of the information economy replacing the last vestiges of the industrial economy. There are some suggestions that the replacement of the information economy (transitional actually) will be a bio-engineering economic model which the US lags seriously behind due to internal politics (see the mention of polarization above).

I'm not an expert at these things but this is what I've gleaned from my reading and it seems to make sense.