Analyst's note: Whatever the results, we can be sure that this situation is soon going to significantly impact our American financial system.
"The real risk is if we go after them with economic weapons, they come back after us and this creates World War III,”
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Kevin Freeman, a global financial analyst with expertise in financial warfare and terrorism, warned that Russia, along with allies like China, could cripple the U.S. financial system.
It’s not a theory but a “very real reality” that should not be ignored, he said.
“The real risk is if we go after them with economic weapons, they come back after us and this creates World War III,” said Freeman, who has consulted for the Pentagon, CIA and FBI. ”This is a very tough game of chicken that we’re playing, and Putin is serious.”
[....] The threat of economic warfare is nothing new. Freeman, who was hired by the Pentagon as a contractor to investigate the 2008 stock market crash, believes the economic crisis was the result of a purposeful attack on the U.S. financial market by a state actor or by financial terrorists. Last September, For The Record revealed how hostile nations such as China and Russia may have been the instigators of the 2008 crash and how a system with substantial growing debt is vulnerable to such attacks.
Following Sunday’s vote in Crimea to leave Ukraine and rejoin Russia, the Obama administration announced a number of sanctions against Russia as both U.S. and European Union officials said they would not recognize the referendum’s results — an overwhelming and questionable 97 percent win.
The crisis began in November, when then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych reversed course and failed to sign an economic agreement with the EU and instead chose to accept a $15 billion loan from Russia, sparking an uprising by protesters who wanted closer alignment with the rest of Europe, not Russia. After Yanukovych was ousted, Russian forces marched into Ukraine’s Crimea region, home to mostly ethnic Russians and territory that was once part of Russia.
