204 THE BiG DROP
strike” might be, the country under attack would have enough
surviving missiles to launch a massive “second strike” that would
destroy the attacker. This is what was meant by “mutual as-
sured destruction” or the balance of terror. Neither side could win
and both sides would be destroyed, therefore they went to great
lengths to avoid confrontation and escalation in the first place.
In financial warfare between the United States and Russia,
a similar balance of terror exists. It is true that the United States
has powerful financial weapons it can use against Russia. The
United States can freeze the assets of Russian leaders and oli-
garchs that can be found both in United States banks and for-
eign banks that do business in dollars.
The United States can deny Russian access to the dollar
payments system and work with allies to deny Russian access
to the SWIFT system in Belgium that processes payments in all
currencies, not just dollars. Many of these tactics have, in fact,
been used against Iran and Syria in the financial war that has
been going on in the Middle East and Persian Gulf since 2012.
But, Russia is not without financial weapons of its own.
Russians could refuse to pay dollar-denominated debts to
United States and multilateral lenders. Russia could dump the
billions of dollars of United States Treasury notes they own
thus driving up United States interest rates and hurting the
United States stock and bond markets.
Most ominously, Russia could unleash its hackers, among
the best in the world, to crash United States stock exchanges.
On August 22, 2013 the NASDAQ stock market crashed for
half a trading day and no credible explanation has yet been
offered for the crash. Hacking by Syrian, Iranian or Russian cy-
ber warriors cannot be ruled out. This may have been a warn-
ing to the United States about enemy capabilities.
In short, the United States has no interest in intervening in
Ukraine militarily and even its economic response will be muted
because of new fears of mutual assured financial destruction