The master of the English language, food connoisseur, guardian of peace, strategist in the art of war, architect extraordinaire, economic guru, ambassador to the world, — bumbling, fumbling, and stumbling, Donald Trump has offered his latest solution to one of the many problems he has created; the Trumpeter vows renewed “economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale against Iran, declaring the regime is ‘hanging by a thread,’” following the collapse of non-existent ceasefire talks. Trump warned that “any country that offers Iran an economic ‘lifeline’ will face tremendous economic consequences of its own.” Oil smuggling, currency swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, and front companies for the vicious deeds will be shut down immediately. If shrieking guided bombs don’t propel the Iranians into submission, then the silent daggers of economic warfare, an economic “D-day” that features the politics of starvation will rip them apart.
The powerful has learned that it cannot always use military might to suppress adversaries. Citizens and world opinion may react unfavorably and undermine a military adventure. Logistics may not favor it. When military warfare fails, go to plan two ─ economic warfare; a method that silently crushes an adversary without firing a shot. Going to the extreme, economic warfare has the force of a neutron bomb; it disables the nation’s infrastructure and debilitates the population.
Economic warfare requires preparation before implementation.
First, the “grieved” country accuses its adversary of intended crimes of aggression. The adversary is powerless to defend itself and becomes marked with the adjective “rogue state.” Since the “rogue state” cannot ameliorate the crimes of which it is accused, being that they do not exist, and because these states are usually proud and will not compromise with their national integrity (one reason for their fate), further action must be taken against them. The next step is isolation. This step has several stages.
Although contrary to law in democratic countries and contradictory to the criticism made by the democratic countries against a policy of the former Soviet Union, which imposed travel restrictions on its citizens, the “grieved” country cautions and sometimes forbids all its citizens, except its intelligence services, to travel to the “rogue state.” Subtle enforcement procedures, such as heavy fines, harassment, embarrassing airport searches, letting the neighbors know, and calls from the Internal Revenue Department are used to protect travelers from being contaminated with “rogue” germs, shield them from vicious propaganda, and prevent them from being kidnapped for ransom and from being arrested due to accusations of spying. The two latter reasons are valid. The unmentioned reasons are to assure the adversary does not acquire tourist dollars that enable it to survive, make certain that travelers do not learn that all they have read and heard from their government is propaganda, and prevent rogueidization, in which a citizen suddenly sympathizes with the rogue state and acquires rogue traits.
In the final stage, the enemy is isolated from international agencies, relief efforts, finances, and communications, and is ready to receive the ultimate strike of economic warfare. The ultimate strike has many shapes. If preferred methods have been insufficiently effective, warships produce an illegal embargo by arriving close to the beaches and dwarfing the rowboats of the sanctioned nation, and airplanes guard against the infiltration of military weapons, such as water pumps, medicines, and construction materials. If the embargo does not complete the cleansing task, then the “grieved” country might arm surrogate warriors inside or close to the “rogue country” and have them add human catastrophes to the imposed catastrophes that already punish the undesired country.
“Rogues,” which have special qualifications, earn the title of terrorists. This title sticks to their names like Velcro. It appears in all articles, headlines, dispatches, reports, and news as if the word terrorist followed by the name is one word. The “terrorist xxxx” (insert Hezbollah, Hamas, or Iran) earns this title by committing an evil deed that is usually in response to the tens of evil deeds committed against it. At times, economic warfare leads to a final step in whipping a “terrorist nation” back into shape ─ borderline starvation. If the food supply dwindles, certainly the unfortunate citizens of the “terrorist nation” will act as those who proclaimed “Liberté,” “Egalitie” and “Fraternitie” in the French Revolution. They will storm the gates of their oppressors, take away their cake, and demand bread. The United States has implemented political policies that have harmed nutrition in several countries, most notably Iran. Despite the punitive measures, the leaders of “terrorist” nations still eat cake, while the populations suffer greatly from economic deprivation and, in some cases, function at a subsistence level
Iran’s romance with the atomic age provoked a series of sanctions. Asset freezes (March 2008) and an expanded arms embargo (June 2010) prohibited Iran from buying heavy weapons, such as attack helicopters and missiles. All of this initially proved futile and counterproductive. The 2007 US sanctions against Iranian banks provided Iran with immunity from the global financial crisis and enabled it to be one of the few major economies not to be severely affected by the 2008 economic downturn.
Economic warfare soon reached full scale by strikes against Iran’s earnings from its most precious resource and export ─ oil. The U.S. Congress passed unilateral sanctions that targeted Iran’s energy and banking sectors and imposed penalties on firms that supplied Iran with substantial amounts of refined petroleum products.
The economic warfare affected Iran’s industries and welfare. On August 20, 2026, 1000 Rial of Iran’s currency, was worth two cents. Real GDP fell from $644b in 2010 to $363b in 2025. Food inflation averaged 34.95 percent from 2012 until 2026, reaching an all-time high of 105 percent in February of 2026
Sanctions did not stop Iran’s nuclear activities, did not prevent it from signing contracts with foreign firms to develop its energy resources, and did not stop the Islamic nation from implementing other contracts by funding in currencies other than the dollar. Crude oil exports, an essential part of Iran’s economy greatly declined, but increased in recent years, as Iran adapted to a new world order.
Economic warfare against Tehran has not worked and will not work for one simple reason ─ The Islamic Republic continues its efforts without regard to consequences. In its war with Iraq, Saddam Hussein made several overtures to end the war; all of which Iran refused unless Hussein stepped down ─ tens of thousands of casualties because of the refusal. Moral authority comes before personal wants. The Iranians will never give in to threats and obfuscations. Not surrendering to their oppressors is a guiding principal of the Axis of Resistance, shown by the bravery and endurance of the Palestinian people and refusal to surrender by Hezbollah..
A former economic adviser to Iran’s central bank, Mehrdad Sepahvand, disputed Trump’s claim that the country is on the brink of economic collapse. “We should be a little bit cautious about the view that the Iranian economy is simply on the verge of collapse,” Mehrdad Sepahvand told CNBC’s Dan Murphy on “Access Middle East.” Sepahvand also said, “Shops are still full of food and basic goods, and there is no sign of panic buying. Despite serious imbalances in the banking system and even severe cyberattacks, public confidence in the banking system has not collapsed, and we have not seen any major run on banks. Although hope has clearly weakened, it has not completely disappeared. So the situation around is not as bad as we imagine.”
Completely ignored by the commander of the oval orifice is that there are other nations in this world and they may decide not to obey the commands. China, Russia, and the growing powerhouse – The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) ─ might have their own plans. Surprise, the shoe might be on the other foot.
Iran might suffer , but the U.S. might collapse. We are already witnessing a slight wiggle in the U.S. dollar market and a larger movement in other markets that indicate dollar weakening — long term bond rates escalating up, gold returning to a bullish pattern, foreign currencies ticking upwards, and bitcoin quickly recovering from a recent $60,000 low and again reaching $73,000. Dollar weakening increases import and supply chain prices, which are heavy influencers on inflation and industrial production. With U.S. government debt at $40 trillion and total U.S. debt at $102 trillion, borrowing rates will increase, lending will become more restrictive, and bankruptcies will frequent those denied monetary support. As the dollar falls and exports to the United States of Duped Americans decrease, Japan, South Korea, and Germany might also decide that obeying Trump’s edicts is counterproductive and decide to engage in all the good things — oil smuggling, currency swap lines, cash transfers, exchange houses, ship registries, and front companies for the vicious deeds.
Conclusion
Warfare is visualized in terms of dead soldiers, battlefield blood, eerie noises, and bombed-out structures. We cannot easily comprehend that warfare can be silent and still be deadly. Economic warfare has equivalents to military war ─ the country that takes the offense becomes the aggressor, as in any war, and the destruction to the defending state is equally brutal. In most cases, the economic war has worse results. In a one-sided manner, the civilian population of the defending nation suffers greatly and the aggressor country suffers few losses. The war rarely achieves the results that the offended party desired, and no peace treaty is signed. The struggle remains an open issue. This economic war has subtle differences. Iran has shown resilience. Trump has shown impatience. Resilience has an edge over impatience. Iran’s resilience will win out over the Trump impatience, the final blow to the 81 year of U.S. holding the rating of the world’s #1 superpower.