The Financial War, Part I
By 
1945 is running a five part series based on the chapter from Wars Waged with Gold that deals with the Russia-Ukraine War. Here’s the first part:
Just as states have armies, navies, and air forces as tools of defense statecraft, they also have groups of professionals dedicated to protecting state interests with financial tools: “gold forces,” if you will.
We call the space in which these forces operate the “finance domain,” much as we call the space that navies and air forces operate the “maritime domain” and “air domain” respectively.
States have competed in the finance domain for as long as substantial trade financed with liquid assets has existed, although the complexity of operations within this domain has varied over time. Over the past eight years, the United States and its allies have used tools of the finance domain in a coercive effort to change Russian policy towards Ukraine. The effort began even before the Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine, but escalated in intensity after the seizure of Crimea and again following Russia’s full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This campaign offers a unique lens into how modern states compete in the finance domain.
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