Bumper crops mean Russia can hurt Ukraine without triggering a rise in global food prices. 

Wheat is the world’s most important staple — and so, perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s also been wielded as a powerful weapon. Luckily for the world, this time around it’s mostly proving to be a dud.

The US weaponized the cereal against the Soviet Union in 1980, when President Jimmy Carter imposed a wheat embargo on its Cold War rival in response to the invasion of Afghanistan. Four decades and another Russian invasion later, it’s Vladimir Putin who’s dragging wheat into war, imposing an embargo on Ukrainian grain exports that could cost the nation as much as $800 million a month in badly needed hard currency.