Biden’s War Plan Was to Sink the Russian Economy. It’s Stronger Than Ever.

At the beginning of the War in Ukraine, Biden pounded the table and said he was going to destroy the Russian ruble. He also imposed sanctions on everything from oil and natural gas to Russian exports of strategic metals and much-needed agricultural produce.

Biden banned U.S. exports of high-tech machines to Russia, kicked their banks out of the global payments network (SWIFT), and seized over $300 billion of assets of the Central Bank of Russia in the form of U.S. Treasury securities. How has all of that worked out? It hasn’t.

As reported here, the ruble is stable and only slightly lower against the dollar than it was in February 2022; this is mostly due to weaker global demand for oil than any sanctions. The Russian economy is growing faster than the U.S. economy, with only moderate inflation.

Russia is on a total war footing with extensive production of 155mm artillery shells, while Western arsenals are totally depleted. Putin is more popular than ever and has just won reelection to another term as president of the Russian Federation. At the same time, Germany, the UK, and the EU as a whole are all in recession, and Ukraine is losing the war badly.

Experience shows that economic sanctions may work in some cases against small or medium-sized powers with limited reserves and limited access to non-Western payment channels. They do not work against major powers like Russia, which has ample reserves (including $250 billion in gold) and an extensive network of trading partners who do not participate in the sanctions. Too bad for Biden, he never studied sanctions before he went down that dead-end road.

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