Economic, and more recently, financial warfare has become increasingly in vogue among nations worldwide. In this article we explore how countries profit through economic aggression,  whether it is all just a nation-sized version of hardball business and what it means for business owners and executives in today’s climate. It is time to up your game to prevent your business from becoming collateral damage. ...Read the Transcript

Dr. Howard Whetzel Chairman & CEO The Whetzel Group http://whetzelgroup.com

Dr. Whetzel has been involved in the Field of Intelligence for more than 35 years. His career included 24 years of military service in US Army, in the areas of SIGINT, HUMINT and IMINT. In addition to his active duty service Dr. Whetzel was a Senior Intelligence Officer for the Defense Intelligence Agency in Command, Control and Communications, and Intelligence (C3I), supporting the National Command Authority as the Science Advisor for Collection Management. All of these lead to his current career in the Defense Contracting Arena. Before he decided to venture out and successfully build multiple Defense related companies, he worked for two of the top 5 Federal Contracting Companies.  He continues his success in different areas of the Intelligence Community.

Economic, and more recently, financial warfare has become increasingly in vogue among nations worldwide. In this article we explore how countries profit through economic aggression,  whether it is all just a nation-sized version of hardball business and what it means for business owners and executives in today’s climate. It is time to up your game to prevent your business from becoming collateral damage.

Economic Warfare, including the more specific Financial Warfare may include blockades, preferential purchasing, bank account seizures, trade sanctions, industry-specific laws, media coverage of financial issues, and much more. With economic warfare, one state can actually profit while the other collapses and all the while maintain cordial relations in the court of world opinion.

In the Fall 2007 issue of Orbis, Paul Bracken, Professor of Management and Political Science at Yale University, suggests that, “Financial warfare is likely to be an increasing form of conflict because it lies at the intersection of powerful long-term trends in technology, networks, and finance.”

But just how wide-spread is it today? The Fauklands are accusing Argentina of economic warfare and Argentina openly admits it. At the same time, The People’s Bank of China is calling for a new “super-sovereign” currency to take the place of the dollar in the global financial system. The mere suggestion temporarily dropped the value of the dollar. Was that deliberate? The brilliance of economic warfare is that you will never know. For most actions you would not be able to prove that the offending country was not simply acting in their best interest - because they are.

The reality may be that the US is already under attack. According to Howard C. Whetzel, recent article The War No-One Is Talking About, “...we are paying for our own demise.  As China and Russia are some of our biggest debt holders, our own treasury is paying for the purchases and foreign policy funds they are using to reduce the US economy to lower and lower levels.“

If another business puts out a product that is better than yours, specifically to take your market share, you have no legal recourse. You can, however, become better at the game and produce another product or strategy to reverse the trend. Is it warfare? Is it aggression? Or is it just business and they all need to grow up a little and stop whining. 

Whether your business is large or small, local or global, business owners and executives must become more globally, politically and economically savvy.  Consider whether your overseas and domestic locations and partners alike are in zones of potential economic conflict or ripe for financial attack and who would “win”. Cordial political ties do not imply economic bliss.