Currency Warfare and Just War: The Ethics of Targeting Currencies in War |
| |
Authors: | Ricardo Crespo |
| |
Institution: | 1. Department of Political Economy, Grossmont College, El Cajon, CA, USA ricardo.crespo@gcccd.edu rcres001@ucr.edu |
| |
Abstract: | ABSTRACT Is Currency Warfare defined as, the use of monetary or military force directed against an enemy’s monetary power as part of a military campaign, a just way to fight a war? This article explores the ethics of waging currency warfare against the Just War Tradition’s principles of jus in bello (just conduct in war) and its criteria of discrimination and proportionality. The central argument is that currency warfare is inherently indiscriminate but may be proportionate when policy makers consider the nature of the threat confronted and the targeted currency's level of internationalization, that is, to what degree it is used in foreign transactions or used as a foreign currency reserve. I evaluate this argument against historical cases during the Second World War (1939–1945), the Gulf War (1990–1991), subsequent operations against Saddam Hussein in the early 1990s, and the ongoing campaign against ISIS. |
| |
Keywords: | Currency just war tradition jus in bello economic warfare Islamic State |
|
|