Fighting Without Fighting: Super Powers Wage War by Other Means

Wars are no longer fought only on battlefields. The twenty-first century has transformed the nature of conflict: the weapons are now economic sanctions, cyberattacks, and proxy alliances, while the targets are national economies and public perceptions. The art of modern warfare lies not in destroying armies but in destabilizing societies. This is the new face of power — fighting without fighting.

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union perfected the strategy of indirect confrontation. They waged proxy wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan, where others fought on their behalf. That same philosophy now defines global politics once again. Today’s superpowers — primarily the United States, China, and Russia — prefer to engage through economic blockades, digital espionage, and information manipulation rather than direct military confrontation. The logic is simple, global integration makes total war too costly to win and too dangerous to survive.

Economic warfare has become the preferred tool. The United States uses financial sanctions and trade restrictions as strategic weapons. Russia, in turn, employs energy supplies as instruments of coercion. China manipulates market access and technology exports to shape global alignments. In this arena, a single executive order or export ban can inflict more damage than a missile strike. The global financial system has become a silent battlefield, where currencies, commodities, and credit replace tanks and artillery.

Cyber warfare adds another invisible dimension. State-backed hackers can paralyze banking systems, shut down power grids, or steal sensitive data — all without firing a shot.

The 2022–24 conflict in Ukraine, for instance, has shown how digital attacks and disinformation can amplify physical wars. The battlefield now includes social media platforms and data networks, where narratives are manufactured and public opinion is weaponized.

Meanwhile, proxy conflicts continue to shape regional politics — in the Middle East, Africa, and Eastern Europe. These low-intensity wars allow great powers to test new technologies, weaken rivals, and expand influence without bearing the political cost of direct involvement. The blood is local, but the strategy is global.

The danger is that “war without war” is harder to detect and even harder to end. Economic sanctions, once imposed, linger for years; cyber weapons, once unleashed, spread uncontrollably. The absence of visible warfare creates a dangerous illusion of peace while societies quietly erode from within.

In this new world order, victory is no longer measured by territory captured but by systems disrupted, economies weakened, and narratives controlled. The future of conflict will not be marked by explosions but by silence — the silence of power grids failing, economies collapsing, and truths being rewritten.

Dollar hegemony in danger

The history shows that the world’s base currency can lose its position, as happened with Britain’s pound in the 20th century. The US economy is much smaller as a share of world output now than it was after WWII, when its dominance began. And now some investors are flagging concerns about the potential for chaotic images emanating from the US election that could undermine confidence in American rule-of-law and the broader political system.

In 2009, after the meltdown in US mortgage securities triggered the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, China’s central bank chief of the time issued a high-profile call to move the global financial system away from the dollar. 

Fifteen years later, it continues to reign supreme — having weathered the launch of trade wars under Donald Trump’s administration and a welter of US sanctions on other countries that showcased the risk, for some nations anyway, of keeping assets in dollars. The greenback remains the main currency of choice in global reserves and massively dominates the foreign-exchange market.

Multiple stewards of US economic policy over decades have highlighted the importance of democratic, transparent governance and respect for the law in underpinning the dollar’s role. A violent attempt to disrupt the transfer of power occurred in the wake of the last election, and had little impact on markets. But further instances could have consequences, some warn.

“You can’t be complacent around any of these things” with regard to the dollar, Robin Vince, CEO of BNY Mellon — one of the world’s largest custodians of financial assets — said in an interview last week. “As is the case with many tipping points, you don’t quite know when you’re approaching it until you go over the other side.”

Thierry Wizman, a three-decade Wall Street veteran, said “the American exceptionalism narrative could end if traders lose faith in US institutions.”

“The way that could happen in the next few weeks is if we have an election without a definitive result for several weeks, and where people can’t trust the institutions to adjudicate any of these disputes,” said Wizman, a global currency and rates strategist at Macquarie.

Courtesy: Bloomberg