The Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War
Journal: Journal of International Economic Law
Year: 2022

When Britain and Russia went to war in Crimea in 1853, they continued to service each other’s debts. In the summer of 1934, when the German Reichsbank held barely a week’s worth of hard currency to finance foreign exchange transactions and sanctions might have toppled the new Nazi regime, British banks opposed sanctions due to a risk of default and losses on their holdings of German debt. In 2022, the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the US Treasury has by turns permitted and blocked Russia’s