Olivier de Maison Rouge is a doctor of law, associate lawyer (Lex Squared) and member of the French Economic Intelligence Observatory (OIEF). His latest published work is:
Winning the Economic War
(VA Éditions, March 2022).
The Russian armed offensive on Ukraine bears witness to a critical intensity such as has rarely been recorded in recent decades, especially since it directly hits European soil.
An armed conflict inevitably questions the jurist because, contrary to popular belief, there is indeed a law of war, partly codified, but also the result of usage.
In the present case, the Russian President justifies his intervention on the basis of Article 51 of the UN Charter, which states:
Nothing in this Charter affects the natural right of self-defence, individual or collective, in the case in which a Member of the United Nations is the object of an armed attack, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
(…)
Read alsoWhat are the Minsk agreements, a Franco-German solution to the Ukrainian crisis?
In doing so, Vladimir Putin affirms, according to his interpretation of the texts, that the Minsk agreements of 2014 – which had provisionally settled the Ukrainian question for the first time – were deliberately violated by Ukraine, on the one hand, and that it ci knowingly engaged in hostilities in February 2022 directed against what the Russians now consider to be autonomous regions (notably Donbass), on the other hand.
Therefore, Russia would have only come to the aid of those territories which would have called for the protection of Russian forces.
Everything is a matter of point of view on the subject;
in the end
, it is often military success that determines
the applicable law
a posteriori .
Vae victis
.
History is not yet written to this day, even if it is clear that Russia has already permanently lost its international authority, which it had been trying hard to restore for twenty-five years.
What is, to say the least, new in the context of this conflict is the announced recourse to
“economic warfare”
.
Failing to engage on the military front, France replied through the voice of Bruno Le Maire, Minister of Economy and Finance, announcing that it wanted to contribute to
"the collapse of the Russian economy"
by delivering
" an economic and financial war”
(on France Info, March 1, 2022).
To which Dimitri Medvedev, vice-president of the Russian Security Council, hastened to reply that this statement could openly be interpreted as a declaration of war, forcing the French authorities to backpedal immediately.
While the West strongly condemns the aggression directed against Ukraine constituting an attack on the integrity of its territory, the countries of the Atlantic Alliance (NATO) do not intend, to date, to go to war frontally against the Russian armies.
Olivier de Maison Rouge
The media frenzy created the risky possibility of an all-out war, which would have been insane.
This nevertheless demonstrates that while the West firmly condemns the aggression directed against Ukraine constituting an attack on the integrity of its territory, the countries of the Atlantic Alliance (NATO) do not intend, to date, to enter into war frontally against the Russian armies.
On the other hand, past masters in the matter for several decades, the United States have not failed to initiate economic sanctions intended to influence the Slavic belligerents (Russia, Belarus, Chechnya), and even more to want to affect their potential for war.
This consequence shows how war is like Janus, subject to change of face, and therefore presents a particularly hybrid nature where the Russians use their side of cyber warfare in support of their armed forces.
This conflict will therefore by no means be strictly conventional.
“
Economy is essentially a balance of power.
Admittedly, it takes the form of collaborations and voluntary exchanges.
Of course, it allows peace.
But it remains basically, to paraphrase Michel Foucault about politics, "the continuation of war by other means".
Olivier Babeau[1]
Economic warfare must not be confused with economic warfare, such as the destruction or sabotage, by armed means, of armament factories, communication routes, airport sites, supplies, means of telecommunications, cyber infrastructures, etc., which actions are more like total war[2].
The war on the economy is to neutralize the production and transport capacities of the enemy.
Nor is economic warfare the war on the economy that the anti-globalizationists wage in their desire to annihilate capitalism in all its forms.
If the economic war does not prevent the questioning of an economic model, it does not relate to the despisers of capitalism, except to denounce its abuses.
Olivier de Maison Rouge
Nor is economic warfare the war on the economy that the anti-globalizationists wage in their desire to annihilate capitalism in all its forms.
If the economic war does not prevent the questioning of an economic model, it does not relate to the despisers of capitalism, except to denounce its abuses.
Finally, it is not the war economy, namely the industrial effort of armaments companies to supply the military apparatus with armaments.
In reality, economic war thrives precisely in times of peace and constitutes the geo-economic confrontation of the great powers, failing to employ armed means.
Hence the essential recourse to indirect and/or asymmetrical strategies including law, taxation, technologies, environmental standards, etc.
It is a clash of wills in the economic field, creating a relationship between the strong and the weak, and without prior declaration of war.
The banning of Russian banks from the Swift electronic clearing platform illustrates this.
There are also the freezing of financial assets or the embargoes decreed on armaments and dual-use goods.
Read alsoWar in Ukraine: the complex implementation of international sanctions
The academic Frédéric Munier specifies that:
“Economic war can first of all be defined, in the strict sense, as a modality of war.
It is then part of a context of conflict between nations in the form of actions of economic violence: the embargo, the boycott, quota measures are examples among others.
Economic weapons are used for a political project, most often the weakening of a target.
(…) This economic war is akin to a war through the economy.”
[3]
For Pascal Boniface,
“economic war can be defined by the mobilization of all the economic means of a State against other States to increase its power or the standard of living of its inhabitants”
[4].
Therefore, can we consider that the economic war, which really constitutes a characterized confrontation, is a conflict of a conventional nature likely to be part of an armed conflict?
It should be remembered that international treaties and agreements do not designate the weapons and procedures specific to war;
the law excludes or regulates some of them: nuclear, chemical, bacteriological.
The use of cyber weapons – offensive or defensive – has become an essential element for modern armies.
Consequently, the law of war does not obey a strict classification of armaments.
On the other hand, to return to the UN charter, there is expressly provision for a graduation in the scale of sanctions likely to be imposed on a warmonger country.
In this regard, Article 41 provides that the Security Council may decide on various measures not involving the use of armed force.
“These may include the complete or partial interruption of economic relations and of rail, maritime, air, postal, telegraphic, radioelectric and other means of communication, as well as the severance of diplomatic relations”
.
It is only after having exhausted these actions which would have proved fruitless, that recourse to armed force can be used in order to restore peace.
This means that the measurements of
"economic war"
apply upstream of the use of arms, during a time which is not yet war strictly speaking.
In this regard, Jean-Vincent Holleinther declares:
“While the law of war does not prohibit killing, but regulates the use of force.
In my opinion, the economy is closer to peace than to war.
Let us take care not to use the economic weapon indiscriminately, which would only accentuate a still very localized conflict, and let us favor peace and security.
Olivier de Maison Rouge
However, we must not forget that very often economic warfare measures, like those expressed by Bruno Le Maire, also apply in times of war to weaken and constrain the adversary.
Therefore, economic war applies just as much in times of conflict, and is integrated into total war, as Dimitri Medvedev precisely supposed.
It is in this sense that the German jurist Carl Schmitt expressed himself at the dawn of the Second World War:
"The passage to total war therefore consists in the fact that extra-military sectors of human activity (the economy, propaganda, psychic and moral energies of non-combatants) are engaged in the fight against the enemy.
This going beyond the exclusively military plan entails not only a quantitative enlargement, but also a qualitative promotion.
This is why, far from attenuating hostility, it reinforces it”
[6].
Let us therefore be careful not to use the economic weapon indiscriminately, which would only accentuate a conflict that is still very localized, and let us favor peace and security.
[1] BABEAU Olivier,
The new digital disorder
, Buchet Chastel, 2020
[2] See
Jean TANNERY 1878-1939 at the origin of the economic war
, by Michaël BOURLET, in "World Wars and Contemporary Conflicts", 2004/2, n° 214
[3] MUNIER Frédéric,
The Economic War.
Anteios 2010 report
, PUF, 2009
[4] BONIFACE Pascal, The wars of tomorrow, Seuil, 2001
[5] HOLEINDRE Jean-Vincent,
Cunning and Strength
, Perrin, 2017
[6] The notion of politics, corollary II: the relationship between the concepts of war and enemies (1938)
