EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR FRIDAY, APRIL 16, 2021

Biden Administration Unleashes Financial Warfare Against Russia; Have We Gone Mad?

April 15 , 2021 (EIRNS)—The White House announced a series of sanctions against Russia today, the gravest of which—because of what it portends—is an attack on Russia’s ability to issue ruble-denominated debt, with the stated purpose of triggering massive capital flight and wreaking havoc on the Russian economy.

By prohibiting American companies and financial institutions from purchasing ruble- denominated public debt as of June 14, 2021, a Senior Administration Official briefed the press on background today, the U.S. intends to provoke “a negative feedback loop”: “This is the main market that funds the Russian government... Removing U.S. investors as buyers in this market can create a broader chilling effect that raises Russia’s borrowing costs, along with capital flight and a weaker currency. And all of these forces have a material impact on Russia’s growth and inflation outcomes.”

Biden justified the measures, which included the expulsion of ten diplomats and other sanctions, by “declaring a national emergency with respect to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States” purportedly posed by Russia. His Executive Order also threatens to impose additional measures in the future: “We are prepared, going forward, to impose substantial and lasting costs” on Russia if they do not behave as they are told.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova responded to the measures: “We have repeatedly warned the United States about the consequences of their hostile steps, which are increasing the confrontation between our countries to dangerous levels.” She also stated that such U.S. actions bring into doubt “the practicability of the use of the dollar and the reliability of Western-controlled payment systems,” according to an account in Sputnik. On April 11, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had told Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that, in light of the killer economic sanctions being imposed on countries like Syria, Yemen, Iran and Venezuela, Russia would be “stepping up efforts to reduce risks associated with sanctions,” and that “gradual steps should be taken to move towards de-dollarization.”

Biden’s moves today could well accelerate the process of the BRICS and associated countries moving to dump the dollar altogether in self defense, possibly detonating the entire trans-Atlantic financial system. The big winner of a combined blowout of the financial system and war-like confrontation between the United States and Russia, and between the U.S. and China, would be the British Empire.

The Ukraine and Taiwan provocations against Russia and China, respectively, continue to create the grave danger of military confrontation as well. Add to that the worsening pandemic and the famine threatening hundreds of millions, and we have what Helga Zepp-LaRouche has referred to as a civilizational crisis of an unprecedented nature.

To wake up the world to that danger, to shake people out of the moral indifference which breeds pessimism and inaction, Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute today issued an “Urgent Call to Stop the Genocide in Syria and Yemen; The Moral Collapse of the Western System Cries Out for a New Paradigm.”