The sanctions are so severe that they may do blowback damage to the global economy, and they carry some downside tail risk to the American-dollar system itself. This sanction of Russia’s Central Bank was an entirely new, and quite devastating, weapon. And the debut of such a weapon will cause a mad race among nations to figure out ways to counter it, or contain its damage. To unveil this terrible power in the global reserve currency is to give every nation on earth (even our own), at least some interest in a Plan B. Perhaps China will take this moment to begin constructing that Plan B in earnest.

There is also no way to escalate from this weapon short of getting troops involved. This means that we are now spectators and have to be even more inventive in the coming weeks if we want to try to influence Russian behavior in the conduct or conclusion of this war.

Speaking of escalation: NATO countries have begun looking for ways of feeding more weapons, possibly even fighter jets, to Ukraine’s army. This is understandable. Russia and America have grudgingly accepted this behavior from each other in previous wars. America did not overtly escalate against Russia or China when those nations were finding ways of supporting the Vietnamese communists. Russia did not go directly after America, though we funded the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

But there is no rule of war that requires Russia to simply treat this behavior as fair play. Russia could declare tomorrow that supplying Ukraine’s army with additional weapons during the war is itself an act of a belligerent.