经济战是指利用经济封锁敌方补给资源，以达到使敌人军队士气低迷厌战而主动投降的作战方针之一，此战略曾用于史达林格勒保卫战(苏联对德军第6军团的口袋包围)

The Oxford English Dictionary defines economic warfare or economic war as involving "an economic strategy based on the use of measures (e.g. blockade) of which the primary effect is to weaken the economy of another state". In military operations, economic warfare may reflect economic policy followed as a part of open or covert operations during or preceding wartime. Economic warfare aims to capture or otherwise control the supply of critical economic resources so that the military and intelligence agencies can operate at full efficiency or deprive enemy forces of those resources so that they cannot function properly.