The New Map: Energy, Climate, and the Clash of Nations

by Daniel Yergin

One set of sanctions was aimed at specific individuals and organizations that were judged to be either close to Putin or active in Crimea and the Donbas. A second set restricted Russia’s access to the global financial system and its ability to raise money in international markets, and at the same time choked off foreign investment into Russia. It made international banks very leery of doing business with Russia, for fear of running afoul of sanctions or inadvertently falling short on some compliance rule and becoming subject to multibillion-dollar fines and public shaming. Such financial sanctions depend on the centrality of the United States in the global financial system and the world economy’s dependence on the global dollar payments system that flows through New York—and the danger of being shut out of that system.