President Obama has ramped up his second round of economic and financial sanctions on Russia, and on Vladimir Putin in particular. Some of this is already working. But if anybody believes it will be easy to financially deflate Russia, they better think again.

Russia holds $132 billion of U.S. Treasury securities. That’s a big number, and it could be sold in the event of financial warfare. That won’t kill the United States. But it will undoubtedly cause interest rates to rise.