As Russia’s war in Ukraine proves far more difficult than President Vladimir Putin must have hoped for, the ruble has collapsed. Putin’s gambit and the global sanctions halting the ability of Russian banks to use their money held in banks abroad have triggered ordinary citizens to make a beeline for ATMs.

As a geopolitical menace with weak economic growth, Russia was uniquely vulnerable to this sort of depreciation of its money, but the underlying factors enabling the ruble’s collapse ought to serve as a cautionary tale for our own monetary and fiscal policies.