What are Some Causes of Pushing Nations to War While in an Economic War?

"The world has never been as divided as it is now, what with religious wars, genocides, a lack of respect for the planet, economic crisis, depression, poverty, with everyone wanting instant solutions to at least some of the world's problems or their own. And things only look bleaker as we head into future." ~ Paulo Coelho

To me, the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover. ~Stephen K. Bannon

Economic war is bluff, a test of endurance. Miscalculation is the most disastrous mistake. Pressure can make the threatened country believe that an adversary lacks the guts to retaliate, that another push will bring surrender. A step too far, a blockade a notch too tight, a sanction one degree of viciousness too inhumane, and the payback is not subjugation, but vengeance. Most wars in history were unforeseen; they were errors by leaders who felt they could play with power without consequences.

Power is never constant. It rises and falls, ebbs and flows, governed by those who understand its tides and those who don't. A nation that fights economic war, employing sanctions, tariffs, and financial clout as instruments of war, believes it can vanquish its foe without firing a gun. But history is a gentle whisper of an alternative lesson: when power is smothered, it does not die. It strikes back. And so economic war often is the harbinger of a hot war.

An economy under attack does not go quietly, especially USA or China. The pain of hyperinflation, starvation, or industrial collapse turns the population into a weapon of its own. Governments, fearing revolution, find war, although costly, the only means of survival. When Japan felt its oil supply cut off in 1941, it bombed Pearl Harbor, not for lack of prudence, but because it saw no other course of action. Economic strangulation creates desperation, and desperation produces war.

Hardship in itself is not sufficient to make a country go to war. It must have a narrative, an antagonist. A leader who knows this will leverage suffering, shaping it into a power that will rally the people against a common foe. The people, previously fragmented, now believe war not as a necessity, but as salvation. They will fight not merely for resources, but for pride, revenge, and national renewal. When there are times of hardship, the weak leaders cower. The sly ones form meaning.

Power is not with governments alone. There are the war profiteers, weapons makers, The military industrial complex funded well over a trillion dollars worldwide, generals, corporate interests with war as opportunity. They whisper in the ears of politicians, funding campaigns, fueling conflict that gives meaning to their enterprise. The nation believes that it is fighting for dignity; it actually fights for the wealth of the individuals with no loyalty but to themselves.