Tanks are harbingers of financial chaos as well as physical destruction. Russia knows this as well as any other country. The first Chechen war drained government coffers and precipitated the Russian financial crisis of 1998. The question this time is how far the ripples will spread beyond Russia.
The most alarming portent is the rouble’s freefall after western leaders proposed much tougher sanctions. They plan to freeze assets of the Russian central bank, prohibit dealings with it and expel some Russian banks from the Swift international payments network.