For centuries, the paradigm of nation-state conflict has been physical dominance. This model, however, is built on a fundamental fallacy. Any war is, from day zero, a matter of economic siege. The deployment of troops, the destruction of infrastructure, and the loss of life are merely crude, inefficient instruments of that siege.
From a purely logical, state-vs-state perspective, the cost of a physical war is catastrophically self-defeating. Every soldier lost is not just a human tragedy, but a quantifiable economic deficit—decades of lost productivity and tax revenue erased. Every bomb dropped on an adversary's city is a "one step forward, ten steps back" maneuver; it may degrade their immediate capacity, but it also creates martyrs, galvanizes their population with a righteous cause, and necessitates a costly occupation or reconstruction. Physical conflict is a net-loss enterprise.
Wars only truly end under two conditions:
Both outcomes are driven by the same catalyst: the deterioration of day-to-day life for the populace. When a government's ideas and actions no longer benefit the people, the economy collapses. This collapse is not a byproduct of war; it is the emergent result of a government failing its primary function. The empty shelves, the worthless currency, and the loss of moral cohesion are the proof that the leadership is acting for its own benefit, taking from everyone else. Physical war is simply the most expensive and least effective way to induce this state.
The architects of the Minimisation Plan understand this reality. They have rejected the folly of physical conflict in favor of a far more potent and efficient strategy: a philosophical and economic war that tricks the enemy into attacking itself.
The goal is not to defeat the West's armies, but to convince the citizens of the West that their own governments are illegitimate. The war is fought on the battlefield of the mind, with the understanding that a philosophical victory inevitably precipitates a total economic collapse.
This is where the two fronts become one:
The philosophical war makes the economic hardship palatable to the enemy's population. When prices skyrocket, they don't blame the external aggressor manipulating the market; they blame their own "corrupt, pedophilic, incompetent" leaders. The enemy is convinced to besiege itself.
The most effective way to conceptualize this new warfare is to view the entire world as a stock market of ideologies. Nations like the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom are not just countries; they are "ideological stocks." Their value is based on their political stability, economic strength, and global influence.
In this model, a Minimiser power doesn't need to launch an invasion. Instead, they can "short" the stock of "USA, Inc." They do this by:
The dividends from these investments aren't paid in dollars, but in social decay, political paralysis, and the systemic erosion of the enemy's will to fight. It is a war of attrition where the aggressor profits from the enemy's self-destruction, all while maintaining plausible deniability. This is the true face of 21st-century warfare.