General Conclusions

Abstract

The economics of warfare is concerned with the resources and requirements of opposing belligerents, measured in fiscal terms and also in terms of matériel and manpower. The conduct of economic warfare, accordingly, not only involves devising means of impoverishing the enemy, but also calls for the maximisation of resources, and their most economic expenditure. Decisions have to be made whether the emphasis of effort will be on the negative objective, or on the positive one. Each involves peculiar difficulties. The decision will be influenced by the nature of the available forces. The historical record does not present consistent answers to these questions, because of environmental changes. It is possible, however, to identify at least some of the factors which produced a strategic pattern, and which led to its modification over time. In this conclusion the more consistent observations which may be made about employment of naval forces of economic warfare will be noted, and also some of the less constant ones, the disappearance of which affect the utility of the strategy.