Rickards: The new balance of financial terror (analysis of sanctions against Russia)

`` financial warfare tactics will not go very far and will not be very effective. The reasons for this go back to the Cold War doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction or "MAD." During the Cold War, the United States had enough nuclear missiles to destroy Russia and its economy and Russia had enough missiles to do the same to the United States... In financial warfare between the United States and Russia, a similar balance of terror exists... 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.''