TODAY’S CURRENCY AND FINANCIAL WARS 131a military response to this, a traditional military response. No
boots on the ground, we’re not going to put the 82nd airborne
division into Sevastopol.
What do you do? You can’t just shrug and ignore it. So, of
course, the US immediately used economic sanctions, which
are a form of financial warfare. I said at the time this happened
— I’ve been saying ever since — these financial sanctions are
not going to go very far. Why is that?
It takes us back to the 1960s and the 1970s to a doctrine
called “mutual assured destruction” — MAD — or the MAD
doctrine. You may recall it.
This is actually still true, although it’s much less talked
about today. At the time, the United States had enough nuclear
missiles to destroy Russia. Russia, or the Soviet Union also had
enough nuclear missiles to destroy the United States.
There was an enormous temptation to shoot first. If you
could fire your missiles and destroy the other side, you won.
Both sides were aware of that so they said, “What we need is
the so-called second strike capability. That way, if the other side
shoots their missiles and devastates our country, we’re going to
have enough missiles left to shoot back and destroy their coun-
ty.” Therefore, both sides developed a second strike capability.
This is what the 1960s and 1970s was all about. You can
analogize this to two scorpions in a bottle. One scorpion can
sting and kill the other, but the victim has just enough strength
left to sting back and they both die.
■ Russia, Ukraine and the Future of Sanctions
In early February 2015, I traveled to Washington DC for a private
meeting with top national security, defense and intelligence pro-
fessionals. Our meeting was focused on a specific aspect of threat
finance — the Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine, and the be-
hind-the-scenes financial war that has been going on in response.