UKRAINE CRISIS: Russian financial and economic warfare against the West?

"An attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial system of the United States, which would cause the end of the domination of the United States in the global financial system." - Sergei Glazyev, Kremlin aide, 3/4/14

(NSA Official) Plunkett told CBS: “Don’t be fooled. There are absolutely nation states who have the capability and the intention to do just that,” ie “literally take down the U.S. economy.” If this revelation is widely discussed tomorrow morning, it could very well have a serious negative effect on stock prices. - Forbes, Some Foreign Nations Have The Cyberwar Capability To Destroy Our Financial System, NSA Admits, 12/15/13

Last Tuesday, the U.S. and E.U. announced new economic sanctions against Russia in response to ongoing Russian military involvement with separatists fighting in eastern Ukraine.  These new stringent sanctions that are geared to impact Moscow's access to Western capital and the Russian oil industry came in the wake of the downing of Flight MH17 over the Donetsk region of Ukraine on July 17th.

Right after this new round of sanctions was announced, a sharp sell-off in stocks began on Wall Street with dramatic reversals from the psychologically important 17000, 11000 and 6000 marks in the DJIA, NYSE and DJ Composite indices, respectively:

The drubbing on Wall Street was spearheaded by a pronounced decline in financial stocks:

The five big American investment banks, J.P. Morgan (JPM), Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), Goldman Sachs (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS), all fell sharply.  These key financial institutions "control 95 percent of cash and derivatives trading for U.S. bank holding companies", a $700 trillion (with a "T") market.  Thus, the more they go down, the greater the danger of a collapse in the global financial system.

The sell-off in stocks last week was attributed to a bond default by Argentina and the newest round of economic sanctions on Russia, and this is the most likely and plausible explanation.

However, the lack of really pertinent news to cause such a sharp drop, including a 300+ point plunge in the DJIA on Thursday, prompted me to wonder about how Russia might retaliate against the West for new economic sanctions.  Beyond banning the import of some European fruit, Moscow has done little.

Such an impotent response from the Kremlin thus far seems a little odd to me given my supposition that Russia's emergent war on Ukraine is part of a large-scale plan to draw the West into World War Three.  Surely more aggressive retaliation must be in the works.

Indeed, keep in mind here my Global Bipolar Hypothesis.  According to this hypothesis, Western beliefs and expectations have been misled to irrational heights, represented by the DJIA peaking above the 17000 benchmark in July, for the sole purpose of a strategic upset by the powers of the East in the form of a surprise third world war.

While I've long emphasized that the form of that war will ultimately involve a thermonuclear attack on the U.S. and its allies, what I've failed to highlight is how the Kremlin's war plan involves using all fronts to overtake "world capitalism" including psychological, ideological, diplomatic, economic and political forms of struggle.

Nuclear war is a complex and many-sided process, which in addition to the operation of the armed forces will involve economic, diplomatic and ideological forms of struggle.  They will all serve the political aims of the war and be guided by them. [Soviet Strategy for Nuclear War (1979)]

In this regard, Russia has already been achieving great successes such as global misinformation campaigns to vilify America using media outlets like RT and al Jazeera and the election of Barack Obama as U.S. president.

But what of economic warfare?  After all, if I'm right, the worldwide struggle between the forces of Communism and Capitalism never ended but rather took a dangerously deceptive new form with the purported 'end of the Cold War'.

It would make sense that part of the Kremlin's strategy is to effect the failure of the capitalist system to prove the need for a authoritarian 'socialist' new world order in place of Capitalism before nuking America to assuredly gain global dominance.

How might this be achieved?

As made clear in my "Manic-Depressive Man" thesis, I'm aware of the inherently cyclical, self-destructive dynamics of market economies. The question here is whether or not these tendencies might be strategically manipulated by Moscow to achieve the end of world Capitalism.  Certainly the last major cyclical downturn into 2009 was a close call and little has been done to correct the failings within the system since then to prevent a far graver collapse:

But what if the Kremlin plans to give the global capitalist system a 'little push'?

In this light, please read TheBlaze.com article, ‘Jaw-Dropping’: Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Makes Bombshell Claim About Russia and 2008 Financial Crisis (and Why It May Sound Familiar).

Also see the Washington Times article, Financial terrorism suspected in 2008 economic crash. Here's an excerpt:

Mr. Freeman wrote the report (“Economic Warfare: Risks and Responses”) for the Pentagon’s Irregular Warfare Support Program, part of the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office, which examines unconventional warfare scenarios. 

“The preponderance of evidence that cannot be easily dismissed demands a thorough and immediate study be commenced,” the report says. “Ignoring the likelihood of this very real threat ensures a catastrophic event.” 

The report concluded that the evidence of an attack is strong enough that “financial terrorism may have cost the global economy as much as $50 trillion.” 

Because of secrecy surrounding global banking and finance, finding the exact identities of the attackers will be difficult. 

But U.S. opponents in Russia who could wage economic warfare include elements of the former KGB intelligence and political police who regard the economy as a “logical extension of the Cold War,” the report says.

Finally, check out Kevin Freeman's web site, GlobalEconomicWarfare.com.

This is a little something to think about as the stock market reverses, along with misled global beliefs and expectations, from the "peak of Western Civilization" most likely reached last month...

"These financial wars are inevitable, and they’re coming sooner than we think. We can hear their rumblings already. This is the beginning of World War III, and—God help us—we are not ready." - Kevin Freeman, World War III: The Coming Cyber-Financial Attack that will Shock America, 2/20/14

"In 2014, we face the imminent danger of a cyber-economic market crash that could wipe out $8 trillion or more of American wealth with a keystroke. It will make 1987’s Black Monday look like a picnic." - Kevin Freeman, THE STOCK MARKET WILL CRASH AND IT WILL HAPPEN IN MINUTES, 1/20/14