A World History of Economic Warfare

By John Miller

Economic war is to the economy what the science of war is to politics, a confrontation to capture resources. From prehistoric times, men competed to conquer the best hunting and gathering territories, while phoenicians, egyptians, romans and ancient chinese secured their trade routes to eliminate competition. In the middle ages, german merchants grouped within the hanse lead wars, trigger economic blockades, all in the name of defending their commercial interests. With the great discoveries, the european states took the reins and fought terrible battles to seize the spices of the new worlds. During the first world war, destroying the adversary's commercial potential was one of the declared war aims,
We understand, on reading this synthesis, why the liberal myth of "gentle commerce" has always denied this evidence: politics does not have a monopoly on violence. It shares it with the economy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gaman Khan
• Release date: Oct 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215964781

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I NTRODUCTION

A very old story

"I f we go through all the ages of the world, the history of even the most warlike nations is as much the history of their trade as that of their conquests. If the great empires are established by the valor and the force of the weapons, they are strengthened and supported only by the helps which provide them trade, work and industry of the people. The victors would soon languish and perish with the vanquished if, as Scripture says, they did not convert the iron of their weapons into ploughshares, that is to say, if they did not have recourse to riches. produced by the cultivation of the land, manufactures and commerce, to preserve by the tranquil arts of peace the advantages acquired in the horrors and tumult of war . »

Jacques S AVARY DES BRÛLONS .

A century before Christ: the Chinese army has just lost 100,000 ponies during battles against the Xiongnu. These ponies suffered terribly from the long military campaigns and the Emperor was looking for mounts more suited to the harsh conditions of war. It is in the Dayuan region and among the Wusun, in western China, that the coveted horses are bred. They are robust, comfortable, reliable, enduring and they sweat blood, a sign of their divine origin. To offer these horses to his army, the son of Heaven is ready for anything, even economic warfare.

The Dayuan and the Wusun lands were discovered during the travels of the famous Zhang Qian, palace guard officer, sent by the emperor Wudi (140-87 BC) in order to find allies in the war against the Xiongnu. Zhang Qian 's story is truly epic. Leaving at the age of thirty, at the head of a hundred men towards these unknown lands, this brave and faithful subject returns... thirteen years later with a single companion. For ten years, he was the hostage and slave of the Xiongnu, but, driven by a fierce desire to accomplish his mission, he managed to escape. He then sets out to discover new territories. Rich in precious information, he finds his emperor and tells him of his extraordinary adventures. Convinced of the interest of this information, the sovereign sent him on a mission. "It was not about conquests, nor about wars, but about diplomacy, strategy and intelligence 2 . It was during this second journey that Zhang Qian discovered the western territories: the lands of the Wusun and the Dayuan. The first shelters horses much more resistant than the ponies of the Chinese army. Further west, the second raises these famous stallions whose sweat is reddish. Wonderful are these Wusun horses and, even more wonderful, these Dayuan horses. [...] Not only do their hooves wear little, but they are bigger and stronger [...] they can carry heavily armed riders, they can go 1,000 li a day, they have a double spine" , i.e. actually two rows of muscles, on either side of the backbone, which is said to be more comfortable for rider 3 ..."

One can imagine the disappointment of the Chinese when in 106 or 107 BC. J.-C. the sovereign of Dayuan suddenly stops the trade of its standards. Not only does he refuse the gold offered to him by the Chinese envoy, but he does murder. Double affront for the emperor who decides to force the sovereign of Dayuan to accept his commercial proposal by declaring war on him. He sends thousands of men to attack Ershi, the capital of the kingdom located in what is now Uzbekistan. This first campaign was a failure, the troops being too far from their bases. The second expedition is better prepared: 60,000 men and thousands of oxen to transport the stewardship. After forty days of siege, both sides are exhausted. The king of Dayuan still refuses to give in to Chinese demands. Within the royal court, not everyone agrees with him. Believing that trade does not deserve a war, they assassinate their king and propose to the Chinese to stop the fighting. Against the promise not to invade the city, the latter take away a large number of horses. The Dayuan also undertakes to send them a magnificent couple of this very special breed each year, in exchange for silk and gold. Thus, by resorting to violence, China forces an independent kingdom to trade with it.

Economic warfare is an old story. From prehistory to the present day, it accompanies the development of man. The gift and counter-gift, trade, international economic relations, globalization have never been a long calm river. Clashes and attacks have been combined with exchanges since the dawn of time. The competition inscribed in the DNA of the market economy generates excesses, which themselves generate injustice and violence.

Before going further, let us determine the concept of economic war by pointing out from the outset the fact that there is no academic definition. However, everyone senses, reading, listening to or watching the newspapers, that in these times of globalization, economic confrontation is a palpable and daily reality. The currency wars, the stock market war, the war for natural resources, the war against Google... Today, economic warfare is omnipresent. Which doesn't mean she was totally absent yesterday. On the contrary. Despite the lack of definition, medievalists like Paul Murray Kendall or Jean Favier use this expression to describe the tensions and even the violence of economic relations in the Middle Ages. As for Fernand Braudel, Frederic C. Lane, Immanuel Wallerstein and many others, they speak of struggles and economic rivalries between the great European kingdoms, the Italian maritime republics and certain great companies of the Renaissance.

The definition that I propose is based on twenty years of field observations and many years of study of its history. Economic warfare is the use of violence, coercion and unfair or illegal means to protect or conquer a market, to gain or preserve a dominant position which allows abusive control of a market. Economic warfare is exercised in times of war as well as in times of peace. It is practiced by states, companies, associations and even individuals. Knowing that nothing escapes commodification in a liberal world, economic war applies to all products and services as well as to all immaterial goods, such as thought (war of ideas) or beliefs (war of churches).

Gaston Bouthoul, thinker of war, defines it as the armed and bloody struggle between organized groups and specifies that blood allows war to be distinguished from other forms of opposition or competition, such as economic competition 4 . In other words, to combine the words war and economy in the same concept, blood would have to be shed. The many historical examples related in these pages show that in the name of economic exchanges men have indeed shed much blood. In the 15th century , the Portuguese set out to conquer spices by doing what they themselves already called trade at loggerheads! Nowadays, blood is flowing less, but the economic war is just as violent and its balance sheets are measured in the number of excluded, poor, hungry, relegated...

The second criterion for defining war, according to Gaston Bouthoul, is armed struggle. Here again, history shows that men have often made arms speak to open the doors of trade. In the Opium Wars of the 19th century , the British used gunboat diplomacy to compel the Chinese to allow drugs manufactured in their Indian colonies to enter their territory. Today, economic wars are more subdued, because the weapons are more subtle, while remaining just as formidable as yesterday: espionage, blackmail, computer attacks, information warfare, hostile takeovers...

Finally, Gaston Bouthoul questions the existence of economic conflicts. He wonders from what poverty line an individual or a State goes to war for economic reasons. This reasoning obliges him to recognize the existence of the economic war, even if he remains convinced that psychological motivations are at the origin of these wars. "If we look deeper into their motivation, most economic wars end up becoming psychological wars . " »

Economic war is therefore to the economy what the science of war is to politics: a confrontation between men to capture resources. Economic war is the introduction of the variable violence into the invisible hand of the market. Its study follows the recommendation of Lucien Febvre, one of the founders of the École des Annales: "not to go down from politics to economics but go up from economics towards politics 6 ".

By taking up such a subject, I am perfectly aware of the risk of anachronism. How, indeed, to apply the concept of economic war to companies, kingdoms, States which do not know the law of competition? By scrupulously respecting the historical context, mentalities and moral standards of the societies studied.

This work is divided into six parts which follow the evolution of economic warfare over the ages. I choose to introduce it with a chapter that runs from prehistory to ancient Greece. We can immediately be surprised that he approaches prehistory. Did economic confrontations already exist in the Stone Age? The most recent research shows that, from the Paleolithic era, our ancestors fought terrible wars, the main stake of which concerned natural resources: lakes, rivers, hunting and gathering territories... Economic violence was accentuated in the Neolithic. Men produce surpluses which they store, and which attract covetousness. Anthropologists and ethnologists observe that, in primitive societies, groups and tribes go to war for commercial reasons, often because during the exchange one of the parties feels cheated. During Antiquity, what about the techniques of the Phoenicians who protected their markets by imposing their religion on their trading partners or by running the worst legends on the production sites of raw materials in order to prevent the curious from setting foot there? ? What can we also say of a God who, in the Old Testament, invites the tribe of Israel to practice economic espionage in order to learn about the agricultural resources and the men of the land of Canaan?

After this chapter, follows the Middle Ages. During this period, the Church, the lords and the kings dictate the rules of the trade, a trade considered as an evil necessary and the tradesman as an infrequent person. Despite the contempt that surrounds their profession, the merchants organize themselves, come together to be stronger and counterbalance the temporal power of the Princes. The Hansa is the perfect example of a league of merchant cities that engage in trade as well as economic blockade – and even war. The Hanseatic League is completely at ease in this divided feudal world. Its power declines when the state recovers all its prerogatives and strengthens itself. In the Middle Ages, some economic warriors stood out. This is the case of the king Louis XI, who decrees an embargo on certain foreign fairs in order to harm the interests of his political enemies. This is also the case of the popes who seek to impose on all of Christendom their monopoly on the production of alum. And, finally, what about those Italian maritime republics whose economic rivalry is matched only by their reciprocal hatred?

After the Middle Ages, new perspectives for world trade opened up thanks to a historic event: the great discoveries. America, by Christopher Columbus, of course, and the route to India via the Cape of Good Hope by the Portuguese Vasco da Gama. Thus began the long "Century of India 7 ". These new worlds become immense economic battlefields between European kingdoms. Spaniards and Portuguese share the territories following the Treaty of Tordesillas. That's counting without the appetite of the Dutch, the English and the French. Genocides, massacres, wars, slavery, murders, privateering, intelligence warfare, espionage... in America, as in India and Asia, trade is the color of blood. All shots are allowed to snatch the gold and spice markets from the hands of competitors.

Four centuries of great commerce and ruthless economic confrontations and here we are in the 19th century , which we are accustomed to presenting as a fairly wise century, rarely troubled by major conflicts. Yet, in order to lengthen the avenues of great commerce, corporations and states wage devastating economic wars. In China, the English bombed the ports and ransacked the Forbidden City of Beijing to force the doors of the gigantic Asian market and steal the secrets of tea...

In the 20th century, economic warfare became institutionalized and became a real weapon during the two world wars of 1914 and 1939. The concept was moreover defined by the military ; it encompasses all the means (blockade, embargo, economic espionage, etc.) likely to hit the enemy in the wallet, weaken his economic and moral resources and, finally, destroy his war effort. In the 20th century , the economy became a full-fledged front of the conflict; it is one aspect of modern total warfare.

The 21st century is the one that marks the transition from an essentially military concept of economic warfare to its civilian application in peacetime. It was after the fall of the Berlin Wall that the expression economic war took on its full scope in global economic competition. And it was at this time that the concept was developed by very few researchers, while it is still today denied by the vast majority. This century was born in 1989 with the end of the East-West bipolarity and led to a new era, that of contemporary globalization. Economic conflicts then take over from the ideological and bipolar confrontation that froze history between 1945 and 1989. This era is that of the radicalization of economic relations marked by the appearance of the concept of economic intelligence, defined as the use of information as an economic weapon. States and companies, which have become as powerful as them, therefore equip them with a real doctrine of economic intelligence to protect their information assets while plundering that of the competition.

I appreciate the shortcomings of this book. How can we claim to sweep the world history of economic warfare in only five hundred pages? So many cases have not been treated, so many historical periods are missing, so many geographical eras have not been sufficiently explored, so many points of view have not been collected. My book is only an introduction. It does not claim to be exhaustive. Its ambition is limited to opening a historiographical debate and, I hope, to arouse the curiosity of historians so that they study the phenomenon by and for itself.

FIRST PART

PREHISTORY AND ANTIQUITY

1

From violence to cunning

"T o claim that the objective of primitive wars was above all defense or retaliation is to emphasize the most immediate or immediate causes and ignore the economic rivalries which underlie them 1 . »

Lawrence H. K EELEY .

Prehistoric man is violent. He has no choice if he wants to feed, protect himself, reproduce. He must use force to ensure his existence. With him, aggression and food merge 2 . At the beginning of humanity, the exchanges are rare, only the violence makes it possible to ensure its means of subsistence. Neanderthals and Sapiens are already economic warriors.

Violence in prehistoric times is a controversial subject among anthropologists and archaeologists. Some believe that at this time war was rare; others that it is not. The first are the disciples of Rousseau and his noble savage; the seconds of Hobbes and his famous maxim, Man is a wolf to man. For many years, the design of the former dominated in academic circles. Man is considered as naturally good. Little by little, this vision is changing. New research makes it possible to relativize the Rousseauist approach. They show that the first men did not take refuge in caves only to protect themselves from wild beasts, but also to protect themselves from humans 3 . Witness the traces of entrenchments and fortifications that appear from the prehistory 4 . Recent studies show that the war for the economy is already a reality for our very distant cousins. The study of primitive societies also indicates that exchanges are sources of conflict and that violence is often the response to an exchange perceived by one of the parties as unequal.

Prehistory, already the war and already for economic causes

Violence therefore exists, but it remains limited. During the Paleolithic, conflicts are rare because men are too, and they are scattered over huge areas. There is therefore a lack of elements to assess the degree of violence during this long period. Out of 209 individuals found in the south-west of France and having lived more than twelve thousand years ago, ie at the end of the Palaeolithic, only five of them show signs of violence of human origin 5 . It was only at the end of the Palaeolithic that formal proof of the existence of wars between human communities appeared. Around the current border of Egypt and Sudan, there are traces of a necropolis, the famous site 117, in which half of a group of about sixty men, women and children died violently: fatal blows to the head, abdomen or thorax 6 . During the era of the first sedentarization, between 12,000 and 7,000 BC. AD, that of hunter-gatherers, cases of violence between men are increasing. As shown by studies on the sites of Colombres (Spain), Trou Violet (France), Hohlenstein-Stadel (Germany), Vasylivka (Ukraine), Columnata and El-Bachir (Algeria), Korsør Nor and Tybrind Vig (Denmark) 7 ...

This is even more evident in the Neolithic, during the Great Transition. The man became sedentary thanks to animal husbandry and agriculture. He appropriates land, marks its borders and protects it against those who challenge his ownership. "It was therefore necessary to impose a property right on the harvest, in the middle of nature. Where previously everyone had the right to pick. What must have been the most difficult to invent was not agriculture, it was the society that went with it 8 . Thus is born private property. From this to economic conflict, there is only one step, which man takes naturally to protect his crops and/or steal those of others.

Man becomes a food producer. It consumes them directly and stores the surplus. This storage is then a source of inequality and covetousness for those who have nothing 9 . "This climate of violence was also maintained by sedentarization itself and by the birth of the concept of territorial limits. The establishment of villages in the heart of real lands and the taking possession of land, motivated by the search for new pastures and fertile soils, constituted so many subjects of tension and discord between more or less neighboring populations 10 . »

In the Neolithic period, weaponry became more refined with the generalization of the bow. Hence many traces of struggles between the villages. In the necropolises of Voloshkoe, Vasylivka I and III (near the Dnieper rapids, in present-day Ukraine), the traces of clashes suggest that men fought for the appropriation of natural resources, including rivers that serve both as water and fish reserves, but also as borders 11 .

With the Neolithic, appear the first conflicts between communities partly due to the economy 12 . "The pivotal period between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic is marked by many changes of a different nature: environmental (warming, appearance of patriarchy, castes and an elite), economic (search for new territories, domestication of plants and animals , surplus and storage of foodstuffs, increased trade in prestige goods) and beliefs (appearance of male gods) 13 . »

We attacks the neighboring village to extract its food reserves, but also to capture its women 14 , or even use its individuals as meat. The woman is booty, a commodity that allows the growth of the group; individuals, a nutritious resource. In certain Paleolithic and Neolithic cannibalistic practices, the body is a food product. In certain cases, such as that of Baume de Moula-Guercy 15 or the Fontbrégoua cave (Var) 16 , it is indeed a matter of food cannibalism identified by identical treatment of human and animal carcasses, not of a religious ritual.

In the Paleolithic and the Neolithic, studies show that politics is not the main cause of clashes. The first men do not fight for the sole purpose of dominating and enslaving others. They resort to violence above all to obtain the group's means of subsistence and reproduction: food and women. We go to war to plunder the agricultural wealth of the neighbor and / or take possession of his territory. It is a war for corn, and soon for iron.

The sedentarization of man, his agricultural activity lead to modifications in the organization of the band. Some men stand out as excellent hunters, others (sometimes the same ones) are brave warriors who protect the group. They are often the ones who take the head of the tribes and impose themselves as chiefs. This warrior elite then directs the group for the benefit of its own politico-economic interests. "Initiated by hunter-gatherers for reasons of food necessities, accentuated from the Neolithic period by demographic pressure, war was taken over by the rising elites to become a social springboard. Leaders then used it to control economic flows and networks of prestige goods, to consolidate their political power through the use of force and a redistribution of resources favoring their position 17 . »

No sweet trade among primitive peoples

To know and understand the life of prehistoric men, scientists rely on the study of primitive societies. They observe the behavior of individuals and the functioning of these tribes to get an idea of how the first humans lived. As far as our object – economic warfare – is concerned, we rely on the work of the anthropologist Lawrence H. Keeley. His studies on the Indians of North-Western America show that honor and the capture of economic resources are the main causes of violence in primitive societies. The statistics on the motives and causes of wars in non-state societies (169 groups listed) 18 published by Lawrence H. Keeley are unambiguous. Comes first, with 93.5%, revenge for murder. In second place are reprisals for pillage, with 60.1%, followed by the kidnapping of women (wives) for 58% and economic goods (including food) for 46.4%.

The anthropologist compares the reasons for war according to three categories: among Indians, among peoples without a state and among peoples with a state. The conclusion is edifying: wars for economic reasons (loot, land, looting, slaves) come in second place among the Indians (70%) behind revenge and reprisals (94%), in the lead among peoples without a state (86 %) and among peoples with a state (90%).

In the tribes of New Guinea, war is waged over the theft of a pig or the depredation of crops. At the Nambikuara in northwestern Brazil, neighboring tribes are attacked to steal bean seeds, but also shards of pottery, because we do not have the skills to make them. In California, the cause of the war is the poaching of neighboring tribes. Also in America, among the Indians of the Plains, the hatchet is dug up because of a theft of horses. On the north-west coast of the continent, we tear ourselves apart to prevent our neighbor from fishing for salmon in his river. Further on, it is the wild rice fields that provoke an armed conflict between the Chippewa and Sioux tribes.

In societies without a strong, centralized state, the goal of war is not necessarily to subjugate others. It is a question of mentality and means. How to dominate others when you are not able to subjugate the members of your own tribe? War for subjugation is therefore a more typical feature of state societies. "On the contrary, decentralized societies focus all their efforts on the pacification of dangerous neighbors by means of intimidation, expulsion, annihilation, and by acquiring by the direct methods of plunder and capture a additional food resources, labor and of territories 19 . And Lawrence H. Keeley adds, Once this fundamental difference is taken into account, cross-cultural studies indicate that the motives and purposes of state and non-state warfare are substantially the same. and that economic reasons predominate in both categories . »

But then, how did these men of the very distant past manage to avoid a perpetual economic war? Through trade? It is true that trade can prevent war. In general, goods are exchanged only in times of peace. It is also true that trade can trigger war. "Primitive trade was subject to all the distortions and misunderstandings that plague civilized trade and other forms of trade typical of pre-market economies. In the absence of impartial arbitration or third-party adjudication, disputes centered on trade often turn into war . »

Claudius Lévi-Strauss observes that the failure of marriages between tribes, and therefore of alliances, often leads to war. Same thing for trade. By observing the Nambikuara of Mato Grosso, in Brazil, the anthropologist concludes that the war is the consequence of a bad economic exchange. The tribes of Brazil exchange goods without ever... haggling! We give and we receive, the exchange is limited. Cotton, thread, wax, resin, shells, jewelry, tobacco, seeds, weapons. This trick works well. Until the moment when it can slip when one of the parties considers itself aggrieved: it has the feeling of having given more than received. "Under these conditions, it is not surprising that, once the exchanges are over, one of the groups leaves dissatisfied with its lot and, by taking inventory of its acquisitions and remembering its own gifts, accumulates during weeks or months a bitterness that will become more and more aggressive. Often, it seems, gang wars have no other origin . In other words, for Lévi-Strauss, war and trade are not opposed. They are part of the same process of social relations between groups. "Trade represents potential wars that are peacefully resolved, and wars arise from unfortunate dealings . For Lévi-Strauss, any economic relationship generates a danger of war. Trade is never neutral. He is sometimes gentle, sometimes violent. It is not, and never has been, an insurmountable wall against war.

But is trade really responsible for Indian wars? Some, like Pierre Clastres, doubt it. In his eyes, the war is not an economic question, but a political question. The anthropologist-ethnologist assumes that primitive societies are societies of abundance and not societies of scarcity. So there is no reason for groups to fight for resources since they are not lacking. What then are the causes of war? They belong to the structures of primitive society. According to Pierre Clastres, these companies do not seek exchange. On the contrary, they pursue an autarkic goal: to get by alone, without external relations. Because contact with foreigners threatens the unity and identity of the tribe. Therefore, it is not the exchange that first establishes relations with the Other, it is war! Contact with the Other is bad for the cultural purity and social cohesion of the group. At the same time, permanent war is impossible, because it too threatens the sustainability of the group. It is therefore necessary to find a compromise and seal alliances with other tribes, in particular through the exchange of women. "It is through war that one can understand the exchange, and not the other way around. War is not an accidental failure of exchange, it is exchange that is a tactical effect of war. It is not, as Lévi-Strauss thinks, the fact of the exchange which determines the non-being of the war, it is the fact of the war which determines the being of the exchange. The constant problem of the primitive community is not: with whom are we going to exchange? but: how can we maintain our independence? The Indian point of view on exchange is simple: it is a necessary evil; since we need allies, so much so that they are brothers-in-law 24 . » The exchange that threatens the identity of the group. This is a thesis that particularly resonates today, in these times of global economic integration.

Claude Lévi-Strauss and Pierre Clastres disagree on the status of exchange. The first thinks he is the cause of the war, the second that he is its effect. Not enough exchanges or a bad exchange and it's war, according to Lévi-Strauss. Too many exchanges that threaten the intransigent conservatism of the group and it's war, according to Clastres. Be that as it may, in both approaches the exchange threatens the peace.

Contrary to popular belief, peoples primitives also compete for territories. Certainly, few are the tribes like that of the Mae Enga of New Guinea, who openly recognize this war goal 25 . However, these violent struggles often result in a modification of the borders in favor of the winner 26 . In addition to land grabbing, wars are also an opportunity to organize raids to steal neighbour's tools and food stocks. Among some tribes, such as the Mescaleros and the Chiricahuas Apaches are even a way of life: commercial exchange does not exist, only looting is considered. "While plunder and trade are two sides of the same coin, acquired goods and people constitute therefore the medal itself 27 . We loot the neighbor for his food reserves, but also for products that we cannot obtain otherwise. Lawrence H. Keeley talks about the Flint Conflict and the Salt Wars about trade clashes fought around 1800 by the tribes of Northern California. The Salt group Pomo tolerates outsiders sourcing from their saline spring. On one condition: receive a gift. Otherwise, it's war 28 .

Among our distant ancestors, as in primitive societies, exchanges do not immunize against violence. Since their appearance, men have been quarreling over a piece of land, a fruit tree, an animal, a tool, a stock of cereals... If trade softens morals, it does not guarantee peace. On the contrary, it can be the source of war. Because some covet what others have, because the fruits do not belong to everyone and because the earth has an owner, the war for economic reasons hardens with civilization.

Silk: a jealously guarded manufacturing secret

How could China keep this secret for more than four thousand years? How was it able to preserve the monopoly of the production and manufacture of this luxury industry for so long when for hundreds and hundreds of years its competitors tried to steal the secret from it? In vain. For the Chinese, silk is more than an economic issue, it is a power issue. To attack it is to attack the sovereignty of the Middle Kingdom. Silk and its manufacture are state secrets and ancient China condemns to death anyone who communicates abroad the methods of breeding worms and manufacturing silky fabric.

Silk does not only distinguish the rich from the poor. It is also a currency used in economic exchanges, a value in the same way as gold or silver. The Chinese emperors control the market. They codify its production and distribution: according to one's rank, one is entitled to such and such a quality. Some civil servants are remunerated in silk and it even happens that one pays his taxes with silk. In short, it is highly sought after in China and elsewhere. Until the 6th century AD, Beijing controlled the price . A price still too high for its Asian and Western customers who have only one goal: to stop enriching the Chinese and produce the precious yarn themselves. We still have to discover the secret of sericulture. Attempts are numerous and span several centuries. They end up succeeding and China loses its monopoly in favor of Constantinople, which then becomes its most formidable competitor.

Until the beginning of the 1st century BC . BC, the West knows absolutely nothing about silk. Neither the origin of the fabric nor the manufacturing techniques. The Romans discovered silk in 53 BC. J.-C., in very regrettable circumstances, with the defeat of Carrhes (current Harran, in Turkey) vis-a-vis the Parthes. Exhausted from battle, Crassus' legions are blinded by the glare of their enemies' standards and banners, which sparkle in the bright sunlight. "At the same time fascinated by the brilliance of the new colors of these silk fabrics as light as a cloud and exhausted by this dazzling combat, the Romans turned around. But other Parthian horsemen had had time to circumvent them and they pierced them with their arrows 29 . »

Despite the sad memory, Romans and Romans fell in love with the noble fabric. The citizens of Rome then imagine, like Pliny the Elder, that the thread grows on the trees, that it comes from the "white down of the leaves 30 ". In his Georgics , Virgil also evokes a silk that comes from trees. "Shall I speak to you of the fragrant wood which distills the balm, and of the berries of the evergreen acanthus? The woods of the Ethiopians whitening under a soft down? Of the way the Seres comb the leaves of their fine fleece [2,120] 31 ? We do not yet imagine that the thread comes from the cocoon of butterflies. So what exactly does the Roman of the 1st century BC know ? AD?

It is known that the fabric is made neither by the Parthians nor by the Greeks. But that he comes from a country that the Romans call pays des Sères (country of Silk); hence its name serum tissue. The problem is that no one knows about this country or its people. We therefore send travelers, real spies, to collect valuable information. All fail. The most terrible stories circulate about the dangers of the road that leads to this region: monsters, brigands, impassable paths... In short, adventure only tempts the most unconscious. Often, they do not return, thus feeding the most terrible legends about this unreachable land of the Sères.

It is by a Chinese legend that everything begins. This one says that the discovery of the silkworm is the result of chance. One day that Lei-tsou, one of the emperor's concubines Houang-ti relaxes in the shade of a tree, a cocoon falls into the young woman's tea. She unrolls a long thread there which she finds of great beauty. She then asks that we weave a sumptuous garment with it. Silk was born and the emperor immediately obtained a monopoly on it to manufacture fabrics and supports for writing ideograms. Archaeological research dates back almost five thousand years the use of silk in China 32 .

Aware of having a unique product and having a monopoly on it, the Chinese prohibit its export. The Han prevent any leakage of information on manufacturing secrets. The production line must be completely preserved from the gaze of foreigners, from the raw material, the mulberry worm, to the weaving technique, including the temperature at which the eggs of the silk moth (butterfly whose caterpillar is the silkworm) are reared, feeding the worms with fresh mulberry leaves picked every half hour, protecting the young worms from stress, noise and strong smells and, above all, the technique of killing the chrysalis before the moth pierces the cocoon and does not permanently damage the thread, which must never be broken.

Few Chinese texts describe these techniques. They are found only in a document dated to the 13th century AD . It is late for millennial processes. "It is because, in antiquity, the technique of breeding the worm and processing the cocoon was strictly secret, to the point that it was forbidden, under pain of death, to take eggs and eggs outside the Chinese provinces. cocoons. The secret [...] has been kept for more centuries than any other secret in the world . »

The price of success, the value of silk climbs very quickly, to the point of becoming a bargaining chip. It is used in particular to pay allies necessary for the defense but also for the conquest of new territories, as well as for the commercial expansion of the Middle Empire. From the 2nd century BC . BC, the country is threatened by foreigners. To cope, China needs weapons, horses and men. She then agrees to export her precious yarn, in order to buy war material and pay Allied troops. Thus was born the famous Silk Road.

The peoples, tribes and groups along this route wish to control part of it. The Silk Road becomes strategic; she is the subject of wars and incessant struggles, which see kingdoms appear and disappear. The Son of Heaven, who was well aware of the advantages of this commercial axis, placed numerous garrisons there to protect it from the attacks of the bandits. Economic opening is a success. Europe is tearing itself away from the precious fabric, for which it is paying dearly. Money leaves the Christian kingdoms to enter the coffers of the Middle Kingdom. This ends up worrying the European sovereigns, the silk weighing on their budget. How to get it while paying less? By removing the intermediaries, first, then by making it yourself.

But the road is long, very long, between the West and the land of the Sères. It takes months, more often years, for the silk to arrive in Europe. An impassable wall of time and space. For the Europeans and the Byzantines, it is an obstacle; for the Chinese, an advantage that protects the secrets of their sericulture. This immense distance between the producer and the buyer also feeds the many intermediaries, mainly Turkish and Persian, who take their commission in passing and thus reduce the profits of the Chinese while increasing the prices for Christian customers. The emperor wishes to eliminate them, but does not succeed. These traders cunning tell terrible stories of the hardships awaiting Chinese envoys who want to go to the West and point out bad roads to those who are not discouraged. Some intermediaries also decide to manufacture the silk themselves. It is still necessary to master the manufacturing techniques.

This is what successfully undertakes, at the beginning of the 5th century, the king of Khotan ( in the region of present-day Xinjiang), whose kingdom crosses the Silk Road. The king is an intelligent and cunning man; he wants to seize the bombyx eggs without starting a war with his powerful Chinese neighbor. His plan is simple, yet subtle. He begins by asking for the hand of a Chinese princess. Then, before bringing her to his palace, he sends her an ambassador to tell her that his kingdom does not manufacture silk and that it would be a pity if a princess of her rank and her beauty cannot benefit from it to dress herself. The ambassador then suggests that he hide some bombyx eggs in his cap. The border guards may carry out a complete search of the princess's convoy – remember that the export of bombyx eggs is prohibited and punishable by death – they dare not run their hands through her hair. This is how the Kingdom of Khotan became China's leading competitor in the production of silk.

A blow for the Chinese. Since the beginning of our era, they have tried to lower prices by eliminating Parthian middlemen. Obviously, the Parthians do not accept being sacrificed on the altar of costs and forbid the Chinese to cross their territory to go to Rome. It is therefore necessary that General Ban Chao (73-102) leads his troops towards the Aral Sea then towards the Caspian Sea and that he sends his lieutenant Kan Ying on a trade mission to the Daqin country (Rome) to make direct contact with the Romans. The Chinese envoy was then the victim of a misinformation from the Parthians. They take him to Basra (now Iraq), a port in the Persian Gulf which they pass off as a port in the Mediterranean, the Roman Sea. They tell him of the immense dangers and troubles involved in such a journey. Discouraged, the Han soldier abandons his mission. The operation is a success for the Parthians; the Chinese definitively give up their project. After all, what interest would the Parthians have in supporting the projects of the Chinese? None.

It is now up to Byzantium to enter the game. The finances of the Eastern Christian Empire are exhausted by paying heavy sums to the Chinese in exchange for silk. It happens that a kilo of fabric is paid for a kilo of gold! The Empire does not produce silk, yet its workers know how to work it. The oldest silk clothes found and fashioned in Constantinople date back to the 7th century 34 . Since the year 369, the work of silk is an imperial monopoly, following a decision of the emperor Valérien which led to the exile of many craftsmen and merchants and the development of an underground market. The accession to power of the emperor Justinian the Great (527-565) radically changes the situation. Justinian wants to make silk one of the strategic axes of the economic development of the Empire. To achieve this, Byzantium must control the entire production chain: from the breeding of worms to the manufacture of fabrics. No more question of being dependent on the land of the Sères. Justinian 's plan unfolds on two axes: an internal trade policy and an external economic strategy. First, cut the price of silk; Justinian caps the price of a pound of silk at eight gold pieces. All merchants who do not respect the law are banned from trading. Some senior officials take advantage of the situation to enrich themselves. This is the case of Petros Barsyame. With the complicity of the Empress Schuyler, he forces traders to work only with him. Moreover, he demanded to buy the silk six pieces of gold instead of the eight imposed by the emperor. Result: the craftsmen fled again Byzantium and settled among the Persians, economic competitors and historical political adversaries of Constantinople. They are welcomed with open arms. Justinian 's strategy turns out to be disastrous: far from weakening his adversary, it strengthens him while exhausting the gold reserves and the Byzantine human resources. His domestic policy is therefore a failure.

On the diplomatic level, the sovereign has two objectives. First eliminate the Persian intermediary, then definitely do without China. To achieve the first objective, Constantinople appeals to Christian solidarity. Justinian asks the Christian kingdoms of Ethiopia and Yemen to link up with Byzantium in order to break through the Persian commercial wall. But Ethiopia and Yemen control the traffic of ships coming from the east on the Red Sea, not that of ships coming from the Persian Gulf, from where some of the Asian goods arrive. In this region, the Persians are too strong and the Ethiopians find it impossible to drive them out. "Persia, in full phase of military and economic power, thus monopolized a good part of the terrestrial and maritime traffic; she sent her merchants and her ships everywhere, and controlled certain ports of India and even of Ceylon, and those of the Persian Gulf, and [...] made herself feared enough by the kingdoms bordering the Red Sea for the eliminate competition for goods from India 35 . »

It is therefore difficult to dislodge the Persians with such poor allies. The war between Byzantium and Persia continued until 562. A peace treaty was then signed between the emperors Justinian and Khosrô I. _ From a commercial point of view, this treaty marks a status quo (therefore a defeat for the Byzantines): Persia, via the customs town of Nisibis (now Nusaybin, on the Turkish-Syrian border), remains for Constantinople the only access to Chinese silk.

Justinian does not give up, however. He seeks new friends, more powerful than the kingdoms of Ethiopia and Yemen. And too bad if he chooses an ally who is not a Christian but an infidel. Make way for Realpolitik ; the emperor made an alliance with the Turks. He sends ambassadors to the Ottoman authority, a rising power at the time. He receives in return envoys from Dizabul, the Turkish ruler. In 568 or 569, the Turks proposed an alliance, which Byzantium accepted. This lasted for ten years, until the death of Khan Dizabul. The politico-commercial treaty between the Turks and the Byzantines makes them military allies against the Persians and commercial partners with the objective of taking market share in silk. That's good, the Ottomans, who have just granted their protection to the Sogdians, former vassals of the Persian enemy and great people of traders, ask them to replace the Persians as intermediaries. But the treaty did not last and hardly produced convincing results. The finances of the Byzantine Empire continue to deteriorate. It is therefore a double failure for Justinian, in foreign policy and in domestic policy.

What about his third objective: to seize the secrets of silk manufacturing? He never gives up and multiplies his attempts to achieve his goal. He clandestinely receives Khotan moth eggs and begins breeding them, but the caterpillars are fed ash and wild mulberry leaves, resulting in the production of poor quality yarn. The emperor also received visits from Nestorian monks, members of the order of Saint Basil, and Buddhist monks from Khotan. They claim they can supply him with worms and deliver the manufacturing secret to him. Their plan is simple: return to China and bring back this precious cargo safely. The Emperor gives the green light to this operation spy. The monks are cunning, they carefully hide the silkworms in the hollow of their sticks and bring them back to Byzantium in good condition. They reveal to the Byzantines all the techniques to raise, feed and protect these caterpillars, so that they give the best of themselves. Byzantium thus won the battle of sericulture and definitively put an end to the Chinese monopoly of silk production.

Following the Byzantines, other kingdoms seized the secrets of silk. This does not prevent Chinese products from remaining of much better quality for many centuries to come. During the 17th , 18th and 19th centuries , the English and the French wanted to match Chinese quality. In 1685, Louis XIV sends a mission of Jesuits to China. This is responsible for propagating the Christian faith, but also for studying and collecting information on various Chinese industries, and more particularly on sericulture in the Middle Kingdom 36 .

For millennia, the Chinese resisted the attacks of their competitors who wished to steal the secrets of silk manufacturing from them or preserve their status as commercial intermediaries. On the defensive and against aggressive competitors, they eventually lost their monopoly, not through military defeat, but because of their competitors' employment of trickery and theft, two techniques that Egyptians, Phoenicians and ancient Greeks used them to beat and/or drive their opponents away from the juiciest markets.

And God created economic espionage 37

Even the oldest texts mention practices of economic espionage. In Antiquity, the Old Testament tells us of two edifying examples of economic warfare. The first concerns Joseph, his brothers and Egypt, the second God himself. Egypt is suffering. For several years, harvests have not been good and famine threatens. Fortunately, Joseph, who had become an adviser and friend to the pharaoh, anticipated successive droughts by storing wheat from good years all over the country. One day, his brothers arrive. A few years earlier, jealous of the special relationship Joseph had with their father, Jacob, they had thrown their brother into a pit, leaving him for dead. At first, his brothers do not recognize Joseph and ask him for wheat for the tribes of the land of Canaan. Joseph identifies them, but prefers to hide his true identity from them. He decides to play a bad trick on them by accusing them of being spies who came to Egypt to assess the country's economic situation. So Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. joseph remembered the dreams he had had about them and said to them: You are spies! It is to recognize the weak points of the country that you have come" 38 . » Egypt's weak points? It was above all his ability to overcome the terrible famine that intrigued Joseph's brothers and especially the neighbors of the country of the pharaohs. They ask for his help. They also want to know why and how Egypt escapes the vagaries of the weather and ensures food security for its population. If Joseph is suspicious of spies, God recognizes their usefulness: Yahweh commands Moses to send twelve men from the tribes of Israel to reconnoitre the land of Canaan in order to prepare for the invasion. Here is how, in the Bible, Moses presents their mission to them: "See what the land is; what is the people who inhabit it, strong or weak, sparse or numerous; what is the country where he lives, good or bad; what are the cities where he lives, camps or fortified cities; what the country is, fertile or poor, wooded or not. Have good courage. Take the products of the country 39 . The spy mission lasts forty days. It allows the twelve spies to bring back the products of a marvelous country with delicious natural resources, where the purest milk and the tastiest honey flow. But also, report the twelve spies, a country guarded by strongholds and tall men ready to defend their territory.

Egyptian economic diplomacy

What if the pyramids were partly the fruit of the economic war waged by the Egyptians? It was under the New Kingdom, in the 2nd millennium BC, that the pharaohs secured their supply of metals. Because, without bronze, there would be no great Egyptian civilization, no temple, no pyramid. "We are in a period where all technology is based on bronze. tooling and armament are based on bronze. It is the equivalent of our oil today 40 ", recalls Pierre Grandet of the Khéops Institute. Bronze is an alloy made of copper and tin. Two raw materials essential to the greatness and power of the civilizations of the time.

The powers of the North (kingdoms of Mitanni and Hatti) get their hands on the tin, which comes mainly from Asia, probably from present-day Afghanistan. The Egyptians then decided to seize the other constituent of bronze. They send their soldiers to occupy the ports which receive Cypriot copper. Remember that the name of Cyprus comes from the Sumerian kabar (or gabar ) which means copper. By seizing this raw material, the Egyptians forced their adversaries to pursue the metal trade. We see, adds Pierre Grandet, "that the Egyptians, in order to obtain tin, tried to deprive their opponents of copper. They are then stronger to negotiate the exchange. They use the economic weapon to influence the opponent's decisions. Thus, Pierre Grandet observes that the Pharaohs already at the time had a foreign policy aimed at guaranteeing and securing the power of their Empire. It is therefore a form of economic warfare.

How could it have been otherwise? The Egypt of the pharaohs and more particularly of the New Kingdom is a centralized and strong state, which owns almost all the land, erects temples and pyramids, but also hydraulic infrastructures, dykes and basins to tame the famous floods of the Nile. The State and nothing but the State, no private actors and no markets to regulate economic relations 41 . The state makes and breaks the economy, inside and outside the Empire. He procured metals in the North and in Asia, wood in Lebanon, ivory in Africa, essences and perfumes in Arabia... It was he who decided on the economic strategy to ensure the power of Egypt. The pharaohs plan expeditions to open the great trade routes. The Egyptian administration is strong, organized and present throughout the New Kingdom. It rigorously applies the sovereign's decisions. The diplomacy of the pharaohs is turned towards the defense of the territorial and economic interests of the Empire. War, but also intimidation and negotiation are in turn used to secure access to the necessary natural resources.

By studying the military campaigns of the pharaohs – and especially their number –, Pierre Grandet believes that the Egyptians appealed more to diplomacy than to war to settle border disputes as well as economic disputes with their neighbours. Admittedly, territories and economy are sometimes linked, but it seems that some of the Egyptian wars serve to ensure the supply of resources and not to occupy a territory to control it entirely. Moreover, in Asia Egypt often leaves the management of the conquered territory to the indigenous elites. Its only objective is to guarantee its access to natural resources. The Egyptian authorities posted garrisons in the conquered countries or contented themselves with a representation in the commercial ports located outside the Empire. At the borders, the Egyptian administration imposes its commercial laws. Adolf Erman and Hermann Ranke 42 recall that under the XII th dynasty the Egyptians forced Nubian traders to have their goods shipped by Egyptian transporters. In the Mediterranean, the Egyptians use intermediaries to trade with the outside world. Phoenician and Syrian merchants thus served as buffers to protect Egypt from external influences.

The commercial intelligence of the Phoenicians

Their reputation is not usurped: the Phoenicians are among the best traders of their time. It's a merchant people who open many maritime routes for the greatness of their civilization. Is this the first historical trace of traders who hunt in packs, united and united when it is necessary to capture market share? They do not enjoy a reputation as honest men. In the Odyssey , Ulysses meets a Phoenician merchant "full of lies 43 . Homer presents them as famous and skilful cunning nautical sailors . " Herodotus mentions it, notably in his description of a Phoenician temple dedicated to the goddess Astarte, the Phoenician Aphrodite 45 . He doesn't spare them either.

Great navigators, but poor colonizers, the Phoenicians set up their trading posts along the current Lebanese coasts and as far as Spain and Portugal, via Cyprus, Sardinia and North Africa. Merchants and non-miners, they settled near iron, silver, tin, gold, copper, lead mines... no political intention, testified to the desire of the Phoenicians to become permanent collectors of raw materials intended for the eastern market 46 ..."

The Phoenicians never take charge of the production of these metals: they serve as intermediaries between producers and customers. Doesn't the Bible call the Phoenician city of Tire a "broker of peoples to many islands 47 "? They are said to be very prosperous, to the point of replacing the lead in the anchors of their ships with silver, in order to transport even more, especially from Tartessos in Spain 48 .

Initially, among the Phoenicians, the economy was a matter of state. Only princes and kings are allowed to trade with the distant. Then, between the 10th and 6th centuries BC . J.-C., the private takes the reins. Even if it means crossing the yellow line. This is the case of the pirate merchant Urkatel which crosses the eastern seas with its fifty ships. According to the Greeks, he engaged in looting, the kidnapping of women and the sale of slaves. "From this stems their reputation as cruel pirates, skilful and cunning traders, swindlers 49 ..."

The Phoenicians are then derided by certain Greek authors. The latter present them as a people of petty merchants who sell trifles and deceive their wives in all the ports where they stop. Herodotus (IV, 196) is surprised by certain techniques for selling Phoenicians. In particular, he describes the methods, which are not fair, used with African producers. When they arrive in Africa, the Phoenicians announce their presence by lighting a fire from their ship. They then unload the goods on the beach, then go back on their boats. The natives approach and deposit gold sand. The Phoenicians do not set sail until they are satisfied with the weight of this gold. The Phoenicians are the masters of the game; they decide their tariff as they please. In the eyes of Herodotus, this type of barter is not at all balanced.

This is another relationship that links the Phoenician kingdom to that of the Hebrews. Hiram I , master of Tyre, maintains political and commercial contacts with the Hebrew kings David and Solomon. It is because these relations are friendly that he sends cedar and juniper wood, architects and masons to build the famous temple of Solomon commissioned by his father David. The Tyrian and Israelite kings seal an alliance to control the trade that comes from Asia, from Arabia to Mesopotamia via Syria-Palestine 50 . The Tyro-Israelite understanding extends later to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. At the same time, the private trade of the Phoenicians developed from Byblos and Sidon, and coexisted with state trade.

Gathered within brotherhoods, the Phoenician merchants shared the markets, thus creating monopolies. This particular sense of solidarity is based on commercial imperatives but also on religion 51 . The Phoenician gods forbid and punish bad business practices. One of them, Melqart, is considered by the Tyrians as the founder of their city, but also as the god of economic activities, protector of merchants. His cult is found in all the Tyrian factories, as well as in the colonies of Carthage, one of the most powerful cities founded by the Phoenicians. It is within the brotherhoods that the merchants protect certain manufacturing techniques from outside gazes. Temples serve as gathering places for information regarding trade routes and the location of mines. The counters ( emporions ) are almost always located around a sanctuary. If we start from the idea that the temple is not only a building or an architecture but an autonomous unit of production", that is to say a structure capable of favoring transactions thanks to the neutrality of the place [...] and the weight it has in the local society, one realizes that one cannot understand the system of exchanges by ignoring the role of the sanctuaries 52 . The locations of temples, sanctuaries, and trading posts form a canvas upon which Phoenician traders abroad rely. Today, we would say that it operates like a network of subsidiaries serving the multinationals of Tyr, Sidon or Carthage 53 .

By basing their commerce on religion, the Phoenicians may even have invented soft power (which consists of imposing one's point of view by soft coercion and not by brute force). Indeed, they manage to sell their gods to the populations of the territories where they settle. Sharing the same beliefs thus makes it possible to agree on the type of divine reprisals in the event of non-respect of commercial commitments 54 . The temple is a kind of divine witness that obliges business partners to keep their word.

When religion is not enough, the Carthaginians wage war. They do not hesitate to sink all foreign ships that have the nerve to trade in the vicinity of the Pillars of Hercules (current Gibraltar), the islands of Malta and southern Sicily. They also practice information warfare to manipulate their economic competitors. In the regions where they extract the metals, they invent legends about horrible monsters in order to keep the curious away from them 55 .

Far from being weakened by the Assyrian conquest of Tire in the 9th century BC. AD, the Phoenicians take advantage of their powerful protector to consolidate their foreign trade. Nineveh indeed has no interest in destroying or weakening Tyr. On the contrary, Assyrians need the economic skills of Phoenicians to support their war effort, especially in the supply of precious metals.

If the Tyrians undergo the Assyrian protectorate while finding their interest in it, the Carthaginians go ahead and opt for an expansionist economic policy through military conquests. The city-state, which has a great appetite for territory, imposes its trade by force in North Africa. Carthage is also eyeing Sardinia and Sicily, thus triggering the Punic Wars against Rome, whose interests are threatened by Carthage's economic activism.

The Greek metis or the art of trickery

Greece is a world empire . It reigns over a large part of the Mediterranean for centuries. Its economy is essentially based on agriculture and crafts. Some precious metal mines are also exploited, particularly in Thrace for gold and in Attica for silver. Even if the philosophy of a Aristotle encourages economic autarky and denounces outrageous profits, Greece cannot do without trading partners. She lacks grain and has to import a lot of wheat. If his territorial conquests mainly respond to political objectives, some are carried out with the aim