Every since civilization began, there has been wars between neighboring communities, wars between neighboring nations, wars between nations that wish to conquer other nations, and everything else in-between. These wars for the most part, have always been physical wars, and obviously physical wars have enormous costs associated to society, to mankind, to trade, to life itself, and so forth.
In today's interconnected world, there has evolved a new type of war, that involves significantly less bloodshed and significantly less physical destruction, and that type of war, rather than relying on machines and soldiers, is economic war. After all, if the objective of today's wars and conflicts is to bring your enemy to heel, than a given nation, has an obligation to look and pursue all reasonable avenues that will allow them to achieve that goal, and one of those options is to take away the capacity and wherewithal for a country's capacity to live to fight.
The infrastructure of just about any nation, depends upon the reliable and continuous supply of food as well as clean water in order to feed their population, along with basic infrastructure needs such as shelter, good hygiene, electrical power, fuel supplies, transportation, roads, and typically some form of monetary base that will allow businesses to conduct their day-to-day activities in a manner in which it is conducive to trade and to exchange goods. When any country has these things disrupted for any length of time, and longer that this is, the impact will be felt almost immediately, and the more things that countries literally depend upon on a day-do-day basis that are disrupted, the more that country has been weaken.
It doesn't matter much how large, or even how powerful your armed forces are, if that infrastructure has been compromised so that the air force, the navy, and the support behind those soldiers, no longer has the means to effectively operate their machinery and to deploy. Even more to the point, if your armed forces are relatively paltry to begin with, to lose the little that you have, means that it is absolutely futile to even consider putting up a defense, as you are instead, in a position, in which, you must, if there is any sanity, negotiate the best deal that you can, and possibly appeal to the world for the rights of any nation to have its own sovereignty not infringed upon.
Most forms of money and capital in today's world, is not physical currency, which is defined as coins and paper money, but instead is money that is held in various stock markets, bonds, banks, and other forms of capital that have been deposited within what are essentially electronic accounts. If, access to that money, is disrupted, prevented, or precluded for any length of time, basic societal things that need to be accomplished, have been effectively stopped or damaged to such a degree that very poor substitutes must be created immediately, in which these substitutes will not be able to perform at even close to the capacity needed to keep things running in a competent motion.
Physical war is very cruel, as it kills and hurts both soldiers as well as civilians, whereas economic war, dependent upon the length of time and how effective it is, is while still cruel, or even inhumane, at least keeps the door open, that if a nation that has few options, submits, that things can be restored to a "new normal" in a relatively short period of time with minimal long-term depredations.
This would signify that when contemplating war against a given nation, that taking away the basic oxygen that is necessary for life, can win the battle without a shot ever being fired.