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If commerce is , and has always been blind to friendly or warring relations , its eyes are exclusively riveted on the notion of profit . In recent years politics and ideology have become an essential element in the manipulation of the economic fabric . Also , some countries have inflicted more and more economic sanctions , towards others , because of political ambitions that aim to weaken ideological adversaries .
However , it should be remembered that the use of economic weapons is often an admission of weakness of declining empires which , militarily , can no longer conduct battles on the ground e ciently . The Ukrainian crisis with its procession of sanctions against Russia , recalls in detail Napoleon ' s Blockade against England in 1806 . Indeed , during the signing of the Peace of Amiens between France and the United Kingdom , Napoleonic France the world ' s leading military power is almost at the height of its glory . In addition to confirming the possession of Belgium and the port of Antwerp , this agreement returns to France its colonies , thus confirming the empire as a commercial and political world power . The breach of the peace , generally attributed to the United Kingdom , is a major game-changer . The United Kingdom indeed seized the French colonies again , almost completely destroyed the French fleet at Trafalgar and ensured control of the oceans . Napoleon then recognized the impossibility of fighting on the maritime domain and , as he declared in a letter addressed to his brother , Louis , King of Holland , tried to reconquer the colonies by land , and to conquer the sea by land
Flashmag ! Issue 128 April 2022 by depriving the United Kingdom from its allies and by shifting the fight to the financial and commercial fields . From 1806 , the French ports as well as the mouths of the Ems , Weser and Elbe were closed to British goods . However , they were introduced to the continent by other means , and Napoleon had to find more rigorous means to achieve his ends . The United Kingdom itself showed the way by declaring all the ports between Brest and Hamburg in a state of blockade , including for neutral nations . This statement provoked a strong reaction from the French Emperor , leading to the concept of a continental blockade . The invasion of Russia in 1812 by the army of Napoleon will simply be a disaster which will come to confirm the decline of France which , no longer able to play in the court of the great Westerners , will be content to fall back on the search for new colonies and consolidation of its power in its backyard in Africa , the Caribbean and the Pacific , where it will erect an impassable iron curtain , from the early 20th century . In 2022 more than two hundred years later the world is once again facing a dilemma or better facing a paradigm shift , accelerated by the war in Ukraine , and its cohort of economic sanctions against Russia , economic sanctions which normally should bear the name of political sanctions because they are in no way linked to the non-respect of the economic commitments of nations in conflict but strictly motivated by ideology , because we have seen Russia endeavor to pay its international creditors whereas it bent on the blow of economic sanctions ; probably a way of trying to reassure international investors and lenders about Russia ' s solvency . Nonetheless , the economic war could only lead to the war of trust and in this battle , it is increasingly clear that trust is no longer simply about trading with yourself and feeling strong in your own backyard , like the Western world which veils its face by trumpeting it , but to trade with the rest of the world where the sanctions against Russia have greatly damaged confidence in trading with the West , using currencies such as the Dollar or the Euro , which overnight can be seized by the Western bloc because x or such a country would not be in phase with its ideology and its visions of the world .