The CCP is watching this go down with the understanding that if they invade Taiwan the world won’t stop buying their stuff because money matters more than people.
One main difference was that the world was extremely critical of the invasion of Iraq. Not just "some countries", but Western societies at large, including - or mostly - the ones whose governments decided to participate. For anybody sane, it was a stupid war for stupid reasons and with unpredictable consequences. Not hundreds of thousands but millions of people protested in main European cities:
I was too young to remember the war in Vietnam but my older colleagues told me the general feeling was very much anti-war, and they had to do pretty hardcore stuff in order to avoid being drafted.
If not war crimes, were the wars itself of good end-result? And endless streaks of them - Afghanistan, Libya, Syria.. where next?
The person is right, US (and NATO) deserved international outcry, and sanctions as Russians got, but instead everyone accepts their twisted "justifications" for their endless wars.
'Shock and Awe' isn't a war crime simply because the US and the 'coalition of the willing' won. By any objective measure, it's far worse than anything Russia has done so far, which is saying quite a bit.
The whole iraq invasion resulted in 7k civilian deaths. Pretty sure the russians are topping that in ukraine. For comparison, another case of shock and awe in recent history was done by russians: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Grozny_(1994%E2%80%9...
which resulted in the death of approx 6% of the civilian population in Grozny. Its not like Syria or Afghanistan was conducted any different, so this is what we can expect.
Where are you getting 7k from? Iraq Body Count [0] reports closer to 200k. Even if you use [1] to limit the death count to those caused by coalition forces, you get more than 7k just in 2003. Before you try to discredit it, the main criticism the project has received [2] is that it's undercounting.
The current Ukraine civilian death count is only up to 1.5k so far [3], so Russia's got a lot of catching up to do before it can compete with what's happening in Iraq (though I truly hope it doesn't).
This includes the casualties of the insurgency and civil war in the years after the invasion.
The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) documented a higher number of civilian deaths up to the end of the major combat phase (May 1, 2003). In a 2005 report,[86] using updated information, the IBC reported that 7,299 civilians are documented to have been killed, primarily by U.S. air and ground forces.
No, they dont.
"The Iraq Body Count project (IBC) documented a higher number of civilian deaths up to the end of the major combat phase (May 1, 2003). In a 2005 report,[86] using updated information, the IBC reported that 7,299 civilians are documented to have been killed, primarily by U.S. air and ground forces."
The invasions are the worse crimes, not necessarily specific acts that happened within them.
As garbage as "they're next to us and have some shared history" is for a reason to try to conquer someone, it's still a hundred times better than invading a country on the other side of the planet, turning it in to a war zone for a decade/decades, then leaving when you got bored is.
Right, if you actually want to read my comment instead of doing as you describe the leader, you might see things differently.
Because then you'll notice a few things: a its acknowledgement of certain
USA war crimes and b that its tongue in cheek.
Although also c and d too its always a good idea to provide sources for any claim (especially heinous acts) and most people associate war crimes with human-by-human acts such as mass rape, genocide and forceful relocation, which I'm genuinely interested in knowing if USA has done such act.
The U.S. did not invade Vietnam; it assisted the Republic of Vietnam in its self-defense against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam. North Vietnam was the aggressor.
The U.S. did invade Iraq, using the authority granted in U.N. resolution 678. That was not a crime either, because it was carried out legally.
We did invade vietnam. Vietnam beat their brutal french colonizers and won their independence ( 1st indochina war ). But we decided to get involved and seized half the country. ( 2nd indochina war ).
> North Vietnam was the aggressor.
No. North vietnam were liberators helping their fellow vietnamese in the south ( viet cong ) expel a foreign occupier.
> The U.S. did invade Iraq, using the authority granted in U.N. resolution 678.
How sneaky of you. That was the 1st iraq war. What about the 2nd iraq war?
I almost agree with you but North Vietnamese as liberators... It's a bit much.
The Vietnamese wanted independence and the refusal of France and later the the intervention of the US into the Vietnamese internal politics led the Vietnamese people to turn to the Communist party as the party of independence.
The very same thing happened a few years earlier in Cuba.
But the Communist parties were not "liberators", as both the Vietnamese and the Cuban peoples discovered very quickly. But the French (obviously) and the US weren't either.
Vietnam is a nice country... for tourists. People there are not free at all. Nor are Cubans.
It invaded me attacked South Vietnam to stop a national uprising there, that was 1961, after some time the war did expand to North Vietnam and the rest of Indochina.
Saying it was legal and not an invasion, because the client regime invited them, is like saying the Soviet Union never invaded Afghanistan, because they were also invited and it was ‘legal’.
They were crimes, the two biggest crimes since WW2
> Saying it was legal and not an invasion, because the client regime invited them, is like saying the Soviet Union never invaded Afghanistan, because they were also invited and it was ‘legal’.
While Afghanistan was a Soviet client state before the Soviet-Afghan war, that War started with a successful decapitation strike by the USSR against the Afghan regime, so it’s not really analogous to the US war in South Vietnam.
>The U.S. did invade Iraq, using the authority granted in U.N. resolution 678. That was not a crime either, because it was carried out legally.
The UN explicitly stated that the invasion was illegal. I even remember the chief inspector declaring that he should have gone back to fishing instead of wasting time because the US had already decided to invade Iraq on false pretenses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_the_Iraq_War
"The invasion of Iraq was neither in self-defense against armed attack nor sanctioned by UN Security Council resolution authorizing the use of force by member states and thus constituted the crime of war of aggression, according to the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) in Geneva"
Remember "freedom fries"?
The war hysteria was as rabid then as it is now for "pro ukraine" bullshit of arming both sides and letting blood spill.
Amazing mental gymnastics white washing the millions of people murdered by US in desperate search for their oil.
UN resolution 678 granted the liberation of Kuwait. That has been achieved in February 1991. It did not grant the invasion of Iraq as it has happened in 2003.
"Russia did not invade Ukraine; it assisted the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic in their self-defense against Ukraine. Ukraine was the aggressor."
These rules get real slippery real fast. If your entire position is based on a slanted reading of some minor detail of obscure legalese, don't be surprised when evil people use the legalese against you
"Russia did not invade Ukraine; it assisted the Donetsk People's Republic and Luhansk People's Republic in their self-defense against Ukraine. Ukraine was the aggressor."
GP asks because when it’s geo-frickin-politics it’s really not - Uo is calling R bad, I must also call R bad, otherwise Uo will call I bad as well. Because Uo calling I bad - is less bad for I - than R pissed off with I. Because R and I have supported each other throughout and Uo simply can not be trusted and Uo has repeatedly proved that it cannot be trusted. In fact there’s a good chance Uo as well might call I bad after I has called R bad and had lost a long time ally and eventually has been left alone.
And here people make it look like a weekend outing with some pals - hey, you should have called Jack out because he unnecessarily yelled at me! Yeah!
And because there’s clear difference of outrage when brown, yellow, black lives are bombed into oblivion, burnt into tar, whisked away into nothingness from sovereign territories without any accountability and repercussions compared to when the war is right inside Europe. Yeah, that’s real. But you all can’t see that. Why? Because it has been given a catchy name “Global War on Terror”? By the way, this is not a thing of past. It is still going on. Full throttle.
Others see that. Have been seeing for decades. Have seen the f..ing cold war and its farce as well.
So why GP asks? That’s why GP asks that’s everybody is bad here and calling Russia out bad will mean calling others’ actions/deeds good while possibly shooting themselves in the foot.
> Do you believe invading militaries should not be opposed?
Yes, should be. “Every” invading army should be. Every! Colonial powers should pay. Aggressors should atone, reimburse. In an ideal utopia inhabited only by pure flower children and silver snowflakes all this would happen maybe.
Not your or someone’s selective outrage!
Bit does it happen? No.
In the real world that doesn’t happen, it hasn’t happened, and hence many countries and entities are “not stupid enough” to catch a flying arrow in someone else’s yard in their own hinds. However heinous or a bad bully that archer is. Because as I said that’s the better of two bad options for many.
> So do you support taking action against the Russian military's genocide or not?
of course. and OP answered with the same answer.
please stop strawmanning, the joke is on you for not accepting the evidence. try to open your eyes to the murderous hypocrisy and deep-rooted racism of Global North/Western imperialism.
He is pointing out hypocrisy. Why is there a moral imperative to cripple your own economy because country A invaded country B, when you did not do so the 20 times country C did the same and worse?
The reasons to keep Russians wars in check has more to do than with morality. The threat that Russia will invade other nearby countries for lebensraum is currently feeling much more real for all countries bordering Russia.
The US is unlikely to invade Poland in order to displace the polish people with Americans. To some degree a war over oil resources feel much less threatening to countries than a war for lebensraum, especially for countries which don't have a lot of oil resources. Every nation however has land, and thus every nation is a target when a country like Russia is after territory. This is a big reason why a lot of countries around Russia is currently increasing their military budgets, loosing more money on that then any losses to the economy from not buying conflict resources from Russia. If you are pumping your money into the military, it makes economical sense to not fund the military threat you are defending against.
"Good" and "bad" are unhelpful, moralistic categories to gauge this kind of thing. Morals are culture- and society-specific. If I was a Raytheon stockholder, I would be ecstatic right now and would cheer the Russians on to keep kindling that flame. If I lived in Ukraine, I would have a very different opinion.
So, which categories can we apply? In the end, much like standard crime, there can be only one: Are they following the standards set by international law, or are they not? And that we cannot honestly answer as of now. Consider these basic questions:
1. Is the Russian military responsible for the decision to wage what we in the west consider a "war of aggression" against Ukraine? To parse that question lightly more pointed: Has every member of the Russian forces currently engaged in the Ukraine theatre signed off the decision to invade?
2. Is the Russian military collectively responsible for any action the Russian military and/or the Russian political leadership takes?
3. Can we be certain that all the information we get is truthful, especially when it comes to information that would suggest Russian military war crimes?
4. Which amount of civilian casualties is "acceptable" before it becomes a punishable war crime? When "we" kill civilians, "we" call it "collateral damage". At which point does collateral damage become a war crime?
5. Is the Ukraine war illegitimate? When considering this question, please take into account that we may have several gaps in our understanding of the situation, and that we tend to wave away Russian sources as "enemy propaganda".
If they are breaking international law, the decision makers in the Russian political leadership and military should be judged and potentially punished by an international court of law. Unfortunately, that only works as long as they are a member of that court (or are thoroughly defeated), and Russia isn't - much like the US - (and is unlikely to be defeated).
This seems like pretty useless ad-hominem. The US only got involved because of Pearl Harbor. At the time Long Island was "the eugenics capital of the world". The Third Reich got their inspiration from the US, although they thought the one drop rule went too far. Heck, in 1939 there was a Nazi rally in Madison Square Park. Do you think it was moral relativists going to that rally?
And truly the Nazis basically won WW2 given Operation Paperclip and all the massacres the US oversaw afterwards in Vietnam, Iraq, Afganistan, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, etc.
Sure we might not speaking German or wearing swastikas, but the American Eagle is currently financing genocide (let's use Yemen as the example here) and the only media attention we can seem to get is for Ukraine because their aggressor is our geopolitical enemy
I'm all for the sanctions against Russia before someone accuses me of whataboutism. However, I would like to see stronger international standards, as well as an ICC joined by the US. That requires the US to allow for international oversight and not have a Hague invasion clause. Are Americans willing to be held to the same standard as their enemies? If not just say might makes right and remove this pretense that it's about war crimes or human rights
Have you been to Russia?
Have you seen how they are pumped with propaganda? How every opposition voice has to worry that either they'll get arrested or killed by a "random" person when they go home.
Try that in US, what will happen? Nothing.
Russia (and China) are big countries and dangerous ones because ruled not by the rule of law but by a will of rulers and oligarchs. And now we have opportunity to stop at least one of them.
Change it - to try that “about US” and “be in” Yemen, Pakistan, Egypt, etc. Then see what happens to the individual! Guess?
Even this comment of yours reeks of hypocrisy. You are totally focused on “what happens to people in the US” and as long as that’s fine all is hunky dory.
In your comment you’ve totally not even touched upon what “USA has been doing outside USA - to other countries - usually the developing and underdeveloped countries”. Because that is “well.. you know… you know..”.
> by the rule of law
Which fucking law? Whose rule? Whose rule of law?
Entire fucking colonialism was a “legal endeavour”, in fact essentially a “civilising” the “natives” expedition that the kind white world took upon itself with great pains to do in the name of God and the King. Is that kind of rule of law you’re talking about? Because that kind of thinking never went anywhere during nid 1900s. It’s right there.
Well, then I guess Russia also decided to sell Ukraine some “freedom”. Oh, that sounds horrible? But why so?
> ...Russia? Have you seen how they are pumped with propaganda?
have you been to the US and/or UK? what do you make of the capitalist owned and capitalist controlled media?
> Russia (and China) are big countries and dangerous ones because ruled not by the rule of law but by a will of rulers and oligarchs.
ah cool, so they don't have weird things like FISA courts and a huge national security apparatus (sort of like this CIA thing), and army, which together coups countries and assassinates leaders? [1]
> And now we have opportunity to stop at least one of them.
Yes, I remember last time I posted something on the internet that disagreed with what corporate media was saying and then the secret police came to beat me and warn me that my family members may disappear.
alienation growing everywhere (parallel with increasing inquality) means capitalist realism is everywhere, so yeah, maybe the censorship and encroachment on free speech is less visible, but that's also because our imagination has been shot meaning we can't easily imagine and write about/describe alternatives. remember Thatcher's "there is no alternative" (TINA), Fukuyama's 'end of history', etc.? many in the working class now struggle to see our chains.
“have you been to the US and/or UK? what do you make of the capitalist owned and capitalist controlled media?”
You may be surprised to learn how irrelevant the corporate media is now, very low viewership counts, and a flourishing alternative media ecosystem, where everyone can believe what they want.
This diversity of information sources has its echo-chamber downside, but no one is being imprisoned because of their views like in Russia or China.
I vehemently disagree with the (second) invasion of Iraq, but pretending it's the same to step in when some dictator has torture as a favorite hobby as it is to invade a peaceful and happy democracy is taking the cynicism a bit too far. Afghanistan & the 1990 Iraqi war were entirely legitimate for obvious reasons.
Aehm, no! Afghanistan was a reaction to 9/11, since the ruling Taliban had been accomodating and supporting Al Quaeda. The first (or second, depending on how you're counting) Gulf War started with Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait.
Degrading and highjacking what might have been a constructive thread. Way to go.
Yes, lots of hypocrisy to go all around—its called human nature. But what Russia is doing TODAY is just plane evil, and what other countries have done and will probably do again does not make Russian action any less evil.
>But what Russia is doing TODAY is just plane evil
Really?? approximately half a million children died in Iraq. Russian soldiers take the brunt of civilians throwing objects and molotov cocktails at them and try to stop them by standing on the roads.
You think Iraqi civilians could have blockaded US army by standing on the road?
It's human nature when Russia does it (and what Russia is doing is abhorrent and disgusting) and when US does it, its brushed under the carpet as champion of democracy
People in the US have far more ability to change the US than they do countries on the other side of the globe. Which is why the US's crimes have to be minimized - so people can freely ignore them and simply bray for military action against other countries.
It’s also a way to smuggle claims of racism into the conversation, since in 2022 you can’t have a conversation without racism or people will fall on the floor shaking in withdrawal.
In other words, please cripple your already struggling economies because of a war that you had nothing to do with. Sure, your citizens might have to freeze or starve but this is absolutely necessary to support the current thing. Oh, and please keep buying Saudi and Emirati oil and please keep selling them weapons to bomb Yemen. Anything else would be whataboutism.
>>Totalitarianism and capitalism always worked well together.
The most totalitarian states were the most anti-capitalist.
Capitalism means tolerating the emergence of independent centers of economic power, which is a threat to totalitarian control. That is why the PRC has been arresting wealthy tech founder-CEOs in China.
I think you misunderstand me.
I don't mean that the totalitarian and capitalist state are the same but capitalist states work well together with totalitarian states.
Cheap labor is easier to get in totalitarian states, that's why China is the workbench of the world and that's why the FRG let produce in the GDR and even gave it credits so that the production could continue.
I think you're technically right, but what you're implying is not. States following all kinds of economic systems work well together. For example, Venezuela works well with Russia and China, and is a fully socialist state.
And while you are right about capitalist states benefiting from the cheap labor of totalitarian states, capitalist states benefit even more from the capital skilled work forces from other capitalist states.
I'd wager most Europeans are willing to sacrifice comforts.
I'm not aware of EU wide polling around this theme, but look at page 7 of the latest Infratest-Dimap survey[0] for example. A majority of Germans want an oil boycott, even if that is forecast to bring a -3% negative effect on German GDP. The only population subgroup with a clear majority against a boycott are AfD supporters.
> The only population subgroup with a clear majority against a boycott are AfD supporters.
Seriously, what is it with far right groups and Russophilia ? One would think they'd be against the menacing nationalistic foreign power. Like the various quislings, it's funny how they square their nationalism with cooperation with another people's nationalism against their own's.
Or maybe it's simpler and it's just a matter of money. It's well documented Le Pen was saved by Russian loans, who knows if AfD aren't also on Russian payroll.
> I haven't run my gas boiler in 30 days. No heating. No warm showers.
> Sadly most people I have suggested this to think I'm nuts.
there's probably thousands of times more gas used to produce all the commodities you buy and use in your everyday life. so this strategy of individualist 'sacrifice' (vs. systemic change) is merely a fart in the wind.
Exactly. Thank you for reusing cardboard while the airlines fly empty planes just to maintain their slots.
It makes you feel better for having a moral high ground, sure. Objectively it's not that big of a change, while systemic social changes take time. For the most people, it feels like not in their lifetime.
no, it's actually worthwhile. Studies for Germany said that reducing room temperature by 1 degree Celsius mean that 5-6% less gas would be used for that. Households account for like 43%[1] of gas consumption in Germany and within that it's 80% for heating and 20% for water heating; so we're talking about a few percent reduction in overall gas consumption just by heating a little less. German politicans are already asking (politely) that the citizens should do it.
[1]https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/service/gasimporte-aus-rus... [sorry it's only for paying customers but there are the numbers]
Unfortunately they don’t go into any second order effects. In particular I’d be curious about how many hospitalizations it would take to zero out the advantage of reducing ~2% gas usage.
The problem we have right now is: we literally don’t know what the consequences of going cold turkey would be. It’s very likely, that creature comfort would be _completely_ unaffected.
The problem lies within the industry. And it’s unclear how elastic the demand there can even be. E.g. things like ceramic burners, it’s unclear whether you can reactivate them after you let them cool down or whether they’d burst. Same goes for nearly every intermediate stage in chemical processes and storages. It’s unclear if “pausing” production doesn’t also imply “rebuilding”.
And depending on the elasticity of the demand (which will probably be surprisingly high, since these companies are _extremely_ well motivated to find solutions to a problem they hadn’t had before) it’s unclear how much gas we need (both in storage and by implication still buying from Russia).
We now have best-case scenarios talking about ~6% GDP loss max. But that assume practically no second order effects and is based on GDP numbers. Ie i wouldn’t be surprised, if that requires gas to go where there simply is no pipeline.
As I said in the beginning: The problem is we don’t know how things are interconnected. Yes by all means: if you feel comfortable with a lower room temperature then lower your temp. But these 1-2% things… we don’t have 30 of those. And they are extremely costly in terms of political capital
> no, it's actually worthwhile. [...] Households account for like 43%[1] of gas consumption in Germany
no it isn't.
does Germany produce the smartphones its citizens use? does it mine the rare earth minerals inside those phones? to pretend that we originate from inside of imaginary lines on a map and therefore should only be concerned with national issues is false. our world is one whole and we are all children of the same tribe.
Global North capitalists hoard science, send commoditized 'intellectual property' recipes for black boxed hardware to the Global South, collect rents on those recipes while not physically producing anything themselves... all while plundering the resources and labor/life-energy of people in the Global South.
this is a dirty rentierist black-box technological hellworld through and through. causing ecological and social damage and externalizing responsibility/costs is the name of the game here.
adding this as a source these highlights from a recent paper (especially the last point is relevant to this convo):
• Rich countries rely on a large net appropriation of resources from the global South.
• Drain from the South is worth over $10 trillion per year, in Northern prices.
• The South’s losses outstrip their aid receipts by a factor of 30.
• Unequal exchange is a major driver of underdevelopment and global inequality.
• The impact of excess resource consumption in the North is offshored to the South.
40% of gas usage in Europe is domestic. I think that's not insignificant.
I agree my individual action is not very relevant but I think a widespread adoption of such measures would have an impact on political thinking in Europe. Obviously that hasn't happened.
You're overdramatizing. At worst, your 80-year old man would get double or triple the heating bill, then probably demand that to be paid from taxes via subsidies. And that is what people don't want.
Money doesn't create natural gas. If you shut down a pipeline bringing in some amount <x>, and you cannot find a new source to get that amount, somthing has to give, somewhere, you have to use less of the stuff.
You don't need natural gas for housing heating. Buy an electrical heater, pay "exorbitant" electricity bills, get electricity rerouted from other sources (you could still, like, import coal by sea if you don't like nuclear).
True, industrial users can't just start using something else instead of gas in their processes. And if they go out of business, that's production gone, supply chains gone, workplaces gone. Certainly not a good thing, but please – it's not elderly frozen to death by this Christmas.
Do electric heaters magically appear? You do know that stores don't stock enough electric heaters for an entire country to go out and buy them, right? An economic and manufacturing powerhouse like the US couldn't even deal with people buying extra toilet paper. What would happen if everyone in the EU all at once tried to buy electric heaters?
Electric heaters don't go down the sewer shortly after being turned on, and Europe is not embargoed to not be able to import some in the coming months. Surely, the price is going to jump up.
My point being, it's not about individual heaters and house heating. That would be a solvable problem – an expense. However, making that expense is a different thing, since now you'd gotta convince your citizens that they must – not should, but must pay up in taxes for that solution to be enacted. And why? Because some other country got invaded and that pro-o-o-obably might cause something bad in the future for your country.
The other side of the coin being that some things are harder to solve: you can't import on a short notice a replacement for, say, chemical plants that need gas and everything that's connected to them.
> Electric heaters don't go down the sewer shortly after being turned on, and Europe is not embargoed to not be able to import some in the coming months. Surely, the price is going to jump up.
Does this matter? The embargoes are putting up a heavy strain on the world's logistic supply chains. The price of everything that depends on logistics is going up, including things in theory not directly related to not-embargoed electric heaters.
Maybe Americans or Libertarians don't want that, but average people do want that, Hungary's govt has been doing that for years and they have supermajority (70+%) in a free election. Subsidizing utilities is a populist way to get re-elected, but of course it's distorting the market and making everyone else look stupid.
Now in France Macron and Le Pen are looking to do the same as Hungary, handing out meal vouchers and subsidizing utilities. They are polling the voters and that's what the voters want.
Almost no one in Hungary is investing into renewables, since energy prices are frozen to 2017 levels (around a quarter of what it should be on the free market).
Why would that 80-year old man just not wear more clothes instead of freezing to death? Is the implication that he lacks the mental capacity to do so because of old age?
Does the old man just not own enough clothes? If so, why would gas prices be the problem instead of his lack of clothes?
From the Highlights section in your link: "In 2019, households represented 26% of final energy consumption, or 17% of gross inland energy consumption, in the EU".
So 74% of consumption is not households. What am I missing?
So, what are Americans suspending? After all, American expansionism is what got us into this mess.
That being said: the problem is not necessarily gas-powered heating. The problem is an industry that is hugely dependant on gas, and - specific Ural-originated gas (yes, the factories can be modified to accept gas with a different chemical composition, but that takes time and money).
Actually, it was Russia tearing up the Budapest memorandum, which has far greater future consequences, as now everyone knows if you don’t have nukes you will be attacked.
Putin is a paranoid tyrant who should be put down like a rabid wolf. Nobody should care what Putin thinks or wants. After he's gone let's see what shakes out.
Exactly this. NATO literally ignored Putin. We unfortunately found that the events a while ago were the straw that broke the camel's back. Putin is now angry, and ignoring what he thinks or wants turned out to be stupid.
> or wants.
I don't think not caring about the Ukraine situation is the right call either.
Well, Ukraine doesn't want things to stop either, otherwise they'd loose the juicy transit royalties they get from their pipeline that delivers gas from russia to EU countries
So i suppose it is the same here, EU are way too dependent on fossil fuel from Russia, stopping everything right now = some families won't have energy to heat their homes, very important these days since EU got hit with a cold wave
Also stopping everything right now mean no way to get the food industry to run properly and farmers to secure their production for next year
People die in Ukraine, so but let's not add more death on top of them because of cold and famine
As an immediate goal – maybe, but how connected these things are? It's not like Ukraine getting paid their transit tariffs actively funds the war.
Also, would the war stop if Ukraine takes a nuclear option and blows up the pipeline? Unlikely, I'd say. But that's a good way to jeopardize the future in N years, throwing away economic and political leverage like that. The war would go away – but so would the income and power.
But it's a tariff on revenue that goes to Russian oil companies--all of whom have close ties to Putin's administration.
Again, I can't speak for Ukraine, but I think their policy position is clear. It's not like the Ukrainians are saying, "Russian oil is great! Everybody buy it now!"
The EU just told Zelensky not to touch the pipelines, otherwise Ukraine would loose support of many European countries.
Since the start of Putin's criminal invasion of Ukraine, the EU has paid 35 billion euros to Russia and send about 1 billion € of weapons.
The UK sent plenty of weapons, certainly because the Tories had to prove that they have not been corrupted by Russian oligarchs' money - which they were. London has been nicknamed "the Laundry" by Russian oligarchs.
The US has sent plenty as well.
Stopping the imports of oil and gas would be a huge blow for the Russian economy. The EU is working on it, but the dependency is very high.
So the EU ought to act more decently towards Ukraine and provide all the weapons and training they need. I consider that volunteers among professional soldiers should be allowed to take a sabbatical and go - by their owns means and without weapons - to Ukraine. In the end, they will retrieve the weapons they are used to.
We need to do more for Ukraine. The dependency on the Russian has and oil makes that need even more pressing.
Tens of thousand professional soldiers from the EU would make a difference.
Note: The volunteers going on their own, it implies that they won't be paid. So private citizens would have to compensate them: they have families to sustain. I'm pretty sure that money wouldn't be a problem. But it has to remain a private decision, nothing involving the states.
By the way, OTAN is a defensive alliance. It doesn't forbid a member to decide to send troops on the Ukrainian front. The US won't and shouldn't. That's an European war. Having the US support (weapons, logistics, intelligence) is already a huge help.
As a French citizen, I feel that our duty as a democracy is to officially sends troops to Ukraine. Putin needs to be stopped.
I don't believe in a second of a nuclear escalation, escape on one matter: Crimea. It's an Ukrainian territory but Russians may go bersek if we retake it. But let's kick Putin out of Dombass and Transnistria.
But, if reelected, Macron is far too concerned by French large investments in Russia ; and its far-right opponent, Le Pen, share many views with Putin (and has yet to reimburse 12 millions of euros lent by a Russian bank for her 2017 campaign).
Small useless nitpick, it's called NATO in English.
> I don't believe in a second of a nuclear escalation, escape on one matter: Crimea. It's an Ukrainian territory but Russians may go bersek if we retake it. But let's kick Putin out of Dombass and Transnistria.
It's a matter of water - strategic access to the Black sea, and actually having water in Crimea for food and drinking.
I don't think "leave Putin with just Crimea" works either, it's long term unsustainable. Potable water access issues are always ugly, and often lead to instability, like the conflicts that happen in the Palestine region (most of them, at least partially water related), or the current issues plaging Egypt and Ethiopia (disputes over the use of the Nile's water). Russia is not a rich country and can't do the equivalent of the Berlin airlift to relive Crimea of water issues if, say, the North Crimean Canal closes again.
Yes, NATO of course, I often get lost between my languages.
I had no idea of the water dimension of the Crimean issue. Btw, just to be clear, I'm not at all at ease with the very idea of leaving Crimea to Putin: it's an Ukrainian territory.
Indeed, the water issue would inevitably lead to a new conflict later.
I'm very afraid of the possibility that the democracies have not sent enough weapons to Ukraine for the coming operations. I doubt Russians will make the same mistakes again. Obviously, they are taking their time to reorganize ; I guess that also give time to Ukrainians to prepare and to move the newly delivered weapons to the front.
I also brace for a very possible victory of the far-right candidate to the French throne - since we French basically elect a temporary monarch with very large powers without the decent level of checks and balance. That candidate would a new Orban among the EU and NATO. She is a typical populist, but Macron is, to be fair, the lesson-giving super bright guy which policies favor the bourgeoisie and the wealthy.
What's new? Why are we all pretend acting as if corporates finding and exploiting loopholes is something new? Or that some loopholes are deliberately introduced by the government on behest of some corporate lobbying?
While western propaganda may hype about all the crippling sanctions against Russia, and Russian propaganda might to try to reassure everyone that the sanctions do not hurt because of the counter measures they have taken, the political reality in between is that Europe does not currently want Russia as a failed state next door. It is simply not prepared right now to deal with the repercussions. And the US also knows that sanctions cannot achieve their full goals of totally crippling the Russian economy while Russia has support from China and India and other smaller emerging economies. If the US sanctions China and India, as they are legally required to, it would lead to the consolidation of the world's largest market (China and India) with Russia. That is something that both Russia and China really want (something like BRICS, but not just on paper) but what US & Europe do fear.
Not sure how preventing half of Europe's economy grinding to a halt and Joe citizen freezing their butt off because of natural gas supply running out can be characterized as "corporates finding loopholes"
I addressed that later - governments deliberately introducing loopholes (though I omitted to add, "to protect their own interests") and Europe not wanting Russia to be a failed state.
That's a complicated matter.
Without oil and gas Europe's economy will take a massive hit, same with poorer countries that can't afford the higher prices.
This money is missing then to help Ukraine.
On the other hand what can russia do with the money?
If they need components from other countries they are largely cut off from access.
If they don't need foreign components then they don't need money they can print it.
I think certain sanctions will hit others harder than russia and will actually put leverage in the hand of russia.
Without gas steel and glass producer risk of losing their melting tanks, ehat will directly effect weapons production.
Since hydrocarbons are used a lot in heating, and so demand is much lower in summer, there might be an opportunity here : hit Russia as strongly as possible with sanctions, going as far as to break the supply contracts (including for coal !), and hope for a quick capitulation before next winter. (Going to depend on the state of strategic reserves of course, AFAIK they're not in their best shape right now, but still...)
A strong strike also makes it less likely for Russia to be able to adapt fast enough using loopholes like these.
They all started from a much less developed and connected economy. The average Russian has a smartphone, access to Internet, uses YouTube, etc. It's part of their daily lives and it's no longer there ( or severely restricted). Contrast that with the average Iranian or North Korean, who had limited interactions with "western" products that matter.
And that's just for the people and the hope they'll rise up. The Russian economy is also very dependent on imports of high quality stuffs they can't replace. Including their main income source, natural resources ( they use Western tech for sensors and whatnot around extracting and transporting oil, gas, etc.).
Russia can import all the Western consumer products it wants from China in exchange for natural resources.
The idea that Russians will rise up because they can't access YouTube is wishful thinking. Stalin was objectively worse. But he still managed to die in office without ever having to face a real uprising.
While there might be a degradation in efficiency, it's not like Russia will be unable to keep extracting natural resources without Western assistance. Iraq under Saddam Hussein was able to keep selling oil despite the sanctions.
Russian aircraft industry still remains very capable. It's not unimaginable that they'll be able to keep the planes they stole flying for a while. Sure, there might be crashes like with Iran. But it's not like Russian regime particular cares about the lives of Russian citizens.
Last I checked iPhones were made in China. Sure, Apple might decide not to sell them in Russia but that still leaves perfectly serviceable smartphones from the likes of Xaomi, Huawei and Oppo.
Iran somehow manages to keep pumping oil and gas despite the sanctions.
While there will be obvious loss of productivity, let's stop pretending that the sanctions will somehow grind the Russian economy to a halt or that they will induce regime change.
Engaging in war takes a massive amount of economic production. Especially when your burning resources like Russia is currently. If Russia wants to replace its technology losses in a relatively quick manner it absolutely will take a large portion of their economy to do so.
China itself won't do it, but I forsee that less savoury third parties are probably very interested in partaking this potential highly profitable triangular trade route.
Tu-204? It's performance and efficiency are horrible by Western standards, but it's by no mean bad enough to be unusable.
Irkut MC-21? Most of the actual aircraft don't need to be big to be effective. Russia actually has a small population for it's size.
They actually (well, not anymore) build a substantial ammount of Ukranian aircraft as well, most of the Ukraine Antonov aircraft was more or less actually manufactured in Russia.
The question at hand is the practical impacts of economic sanctions against Russia. Imagining Russia will capitulate by next winter when much weaker regimes managed to hold out for decades is pure fantasy.
You have ingested too much propaganda (no insult, just a cheery consideration): living in France, if the government change from the actual cleptocratic one to a democratic one perhaps re-nationalizing EDF and pushin nuclear enough a small cohort of people who live in homes insulated enough to been able to cool and heat with electricity, owning EVs, can survive without much more issues than a big rise in expenses for anything, food and goods in particular.
BUT those who live in classic badly/non insulated homes (vast majority of the population, and vast majority of those who can afford new homes and EVs, have no choice than revolt in a new French Revolution, hoping to do better than the first witch means avoiding putting a new élite in chief like the old one, or exactly the old one with different puppets/public face or starve to death. That not counting a "small" fact like the industry energy needs, since even with nuclear not everything is electric and not everything can be electric in a short time period.
The strike of sanctions actually is AGAINST EU interest, far less against Russian interest. The USA/UK want to destroy EU since they know EU was approaching Russia, since that's our best interest [1], and they know the next war in Asia will impede them to keep EU under their boots. A small suggestion: read Klaus Schwab, Mark Carney books for knowing their agenda and Antony Sutton's books to know a bit of history. You'll discovering that you fight/cheering for your own enemy, even if you are from USA. I'm not joking, really.
[1] we have the tech but not space nor natural resources, Russia have natural resources, space and a solid enough country to be a fair partner not a dictatorial one like the USA/UK (together since these days are not two countries but a similar élite that act with equal targets against any population, their one included) and a near partner, Europe by nature till the Urals.
I only see here lots of words and no numbers that would actually provide criticism of my plan. Even though I left an opening with the mention of strategic reserves !
What numbers you have and what numbers you want? I imaging you did know that most cars, trucks, ships, airplanes, many industries run on oil. Cheap oil is obviously a nice thing to have also to build the Green New Deal. I imaging you have seen the food provisioning issues. The skyrocketing prices sold as "caused by the war" but skyrocketed before the war and caused by financial speculation not by the evil Russian bear and so on.
What's your plan? Produce fertilizers without gas + without animals since the Green New deal dislike meat? Produce the electric revolution without energy? BTW strategic reserves are for emergencies, using them without a plan to replenish them means consume anything and remain without anything and no plan.
I've built my new house few years ago, well insulated, with p.v. etc I do not own EVs because so far a far from being a good idea but when neoliberals will push, because they'll do, gasoline to 4 euros/liter than an EV will be needed and I can recharge it, but industries can't and I do not produce such systems in my garage. While vast majority of population can't even afford a new home.
When I posted my first comment, numbers in the link, I expected at least some of the answers to be in the vein of "lol no, we've been caught with our pants down, see this [source], we would have horrible shortages of X Y months before even the next winter", or maybe "ok, looks like we'll make it up to Z date[source], but that's quite the risk to take !"
But nope, it's mostly been what looks like posturing about how I'm in denial of how the economy needs energy to run or something, even though I've explicitly based my first post on those considerations ! Really disappointed about HN here... (Jancovici, anyone ?)
Numbers in modern managerial-driven society are consider The Absolute Truth while reality is "just a defective instance of our model", they are not. You can't have real tangible numbers, just generic approximations that might be more or less true.
Climate change is evidently an emergency and evidently the Green New Deal public answers are not answers, their green color is dollar green not spring-grass ones. Actual shortage are probably 30% due to climate change, the rest due to artificial speculations and maneuvers to push "World Government" [1] green deal/great reset. But try to analyze it: from what they published so far if you want a realistic scenario you need to kill around 4 billion of humans, pushing too many more in extreme poverty. Did you really want numbers?
> Numbers in modern managerial-driven society are consider The Absolute Truth while reality is "just a defective instance of our model", they are not. You can't have real tangible numbers, just generic approximations that might be more or less true.
Yet again, why do you assume that I'm guilty of this ? I didn't ask for precise numbers, and you're throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I'm talking about the (new) Russian invasion of Ukraine being an emergency.
(And the issues of overpopulation/pollution/depletion of natural resources aren't new - King Hubbert predicted in 1956 that US oil production would peak between 1965 and 1970 - and it did in 1970 - and it's not like he pulled those numbers out of his ass, but he based them on known numbers about production rates and discovery trends. And these topics were discussed quite extensively in the 70's, before we decided that we didn't care about the future - if anything, a forced reduction of EU reliance on hydrocarbons is also a good way to finally prepare us to the inevitable shortages that we're going to face anyway in the next decades.)
It's not something to be guilty :-) it's just a common way of thinking. Like when you read "that's X temperature outside" thinking that's a real temperature not a local and punctual measure witch give some insight but just at a short distance it can be really different.
Ukrainian war for instance is an emergency in certain terms:
- first for the people living there, on both sides, and that's more a tragedy than an emergency but not a new tragedy, it's start formally in 2013-14;
- secondly for countries that depend on Ukrainian and Russian's grains and poultry like Turkey, Middle-est in general, large part of Africa etc, that's new, but that's not a thing can be solved without ANNIHILATING NATO witch means that the EU en-mass say: we are out, we are interesting in entering CSTO and EAEU as partners, something not going to happen seen actual élites and mean population;
- an emergency because it's the first start of WWIII, witch is a tragedy by itself, and a special one since we have nukes and some in the NATO area think they can be used as offensive means not just as a last resort suicide since the '60s. Again the sole way to stop that is erasing neoliberals, not something going to happen;
- climate change is another tragedy, but not something can be changes by us in little time, we can only adapt, and Green New Deal is not really a way to adapt, it's just a way to replicate a Chinese society in the west, some tech aspects are good of course, but they can't work on scale and more important they can't work if not managed by States NOT by public-private criminal associations, pardon, partnerships, another things that can't be politically fixed soon;
- resources are a big issue that will bring all to war, as always, again not something solvable.
So what? So the sole rational choice I see, seen the mean population, is try to protect ourselves individually, hoping the new "20+years nazi-fasists regimes at war" will not last more than the old ones and that at the end when enough population revolt we still have means not only to revolt but to live correcting the errors of WWII revolts witch means annihilating not just the public puppets but the puppet masters.
Oh, BTW there is NO EU preparation to reduce the reliance on fossils, there is just a push toward impoverishing again and destroying again Europe switching from Russian sold resources to USA sold ones. If you really read the actual state of thing and you try very simple mental calculus that's the sole conclusion you can draw. Even if we start to put all industrial power in p.v. and eolic now we can't really reduce reliance on fossils for decades. We can't really run on p.v. or eolic for industry so without nuclear only fossils remain. As they remain for aviation. The logic path for EU is keeping buying Russian fossils (as it happen) but with a public trial and lifetime sentences to those in EU Energy and EU Commission who choose to transform an inter-State public market in a financial one in Holland, with Dutch TTf etc. clearly saying that now energy sector is back to the public and all managers and politicians involved will discover how hard Democratic justice can be. In the practical side pushing renewables, relocalization, etc BUT nothing done by the private under public-private partnerships. And pushing fusion research with ONLY public bodies involved.
I can't really know how terrible is the actual situations but in any case the sole hope for humans is changing capitalism, not in the Schwab-ian way but in a classic European democratic way, with so hard actions against neoliberals that no one for a century will even though a night to imitate them again.
It's definitively not, see the past: after WWII "the ally" promise not to expand to the est Europe, they breach the agreement with Berlin since the start, and they keep going. They have, it's now history, planned invasion and destruction of "Russia" since WWII [1], when they start putting nukes near Soviet Union the Soviets rightly respond putting nukes in Cuba and you know the history. You know what neoliberals (western, mostly but not only anglophone ideology + some Russians in that case) have done after URSS collapse. What you call that? Oh, just to corroborate with USA neoliberal official sources https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html
About EU: we do have the most advanced tech of the world, but we do not have natural resources, the nearest, developed and vast potential partner is the Russian Federation, witch is geographically Europe till the Urals (so Moscow and most developed areas included) and we share a vast border, so no third party geopolitical tension can endanger our supply chain. In the last decades Russian Federation have try to offer the olive branch few times [2] but NATO (USA/UK) pressures stop them. In the meantime Russians have made the EuroAsiatic Union (EAEU) and we can complete it, commerce was flourishing etc.
Now? Just for Ukraine read the OSCE report about who have started the war, who are the criminal (well the most criminal, at least) and where arms came from: https://www.osce.org/files/f/documents/e/7/233896.pdf also if you really follow the news you'll easy discover that vast majority of war crime reported on medias are classify as fake in few days, by western sources, like Italian TV showing a cut-scene from the game War Thunder stating that's the bombardment of Kiev, crying mothers sold as Ukrainian (true) omitting that's not a 2022 picture but one from 2014 of Russian-speaking Ukrainians mothers after Euromaidan nazi massacre so "one the other side" or the pregnant influencer "forced to live the maternity by the bomb" that declare just few days after that Azov nazis force her and other to leave because they took the hospital for military reasons etc. Oh, I've no doubt that there are crimes on both sides, that happen in all wars, but definitively the genocide I see is of Russian-speaking Ukrainians by nazi militia armed by NATO, and no I'm not a Putin fan. BTW just demand yourself why bomb a hospital, a theater etc if that's not used for military reasons, missiles have a price, an error can always happen, a systematic bombing means wasted gears so a nonsense.
I'm a nephew of decorated Italian Partisans from WWII I was trained from my childhood to spot nazis with and without uniforms, and these days I realize that Putin is a dictator, but the USA and UK are worst dictatorship then him, also against their own people interests, and being European my interest is on the opposite side of the front because my interest if form a real EU, not just a monetary one, a Democratic one, not a Barnum circle, having cheap and abundant Russian resources not skyrocketing prices before the war because EU neoliberals, son of those who have created original nazi and fascist regimes, want big profits against their own people interests, my interest is a Russian Federation detached from China because China need a war just to have food for it's enormous population and USA/UK need a war to counter China because loosing South America and the see dominance for them means being destroyed and unable to continue their cleptocratic policies so my interest is left the hitting each others while EU+EAEU remain aside an profit.
No conspiracy theory there just history, geopolitics and basic simple reasoning instead of slavishly and acritical trust of propaganda, from all sides.
I'm still trying to figure out how is it possible to be wary about USA propaganda yet also, even now, still buy Russian propaganda hook line and sinker !
Even though we rarely had a war where the side that is in the wrong was so clear cut ! And it's not like this war hasn't been ongoing for the last 8 years ! (And we still don't have any concrete proof that, say, the CIA was (directly) behind the Maidan massacre - in an age of WikiLeaks/Snowden (!!) - I mean, if Macron had ordered to open fire on the Gilet Jaunes manifestations killing a hundred, I would hope that a coup would have shortly followed, regardless of whether a significant fraction of the protesters were CIA agents !)
I guess it's some combination of "the enemy of my enemy of my friend", and the sheer lack of interest in most (?) EU media (but especially the French one?) in the ex-URSS, resulting in a lack of competent specialists, resulting in an astounding lack of understanding of the situation, after which Russian propaganda was quick to fill the resulting void (especially noticeable in the "alternative" medias like Agoravox since 2014).
> I'm still trying to figure out how is it possible to be wary about USA propaganda yet
Did you think OSCE publish Russian propaganda? The Atlantic Council? Rand corp? Because those are my cited sources... Beside that I'm not worried by USA propaganda but by propaganda in general and by the vast mass of vulnerable people that ingest it acritically: thanks to propaganda we already have had two world war, I think they was enough...
> Even though we rarely had a war where the side that is in the wrong was so clear cut !
Wars are done for interests, needs, not on moral basis there is no right or wrong side, just interest on one and another and also other sides. Best EU interest is the Russian side, best China and USA interest is keeping that war a long as possible to on one (USA/UK) side demolish a resurgent EU that was about to left NATO oppression and on the other (China) push Russian resources and military tech to China, witch means they'll be ready for WWIII in just few years.
> And it's not like this war hasn't been ongoing for the last 8 years !
OSCE report? It's from an EU official body, hard to say it's Russian propaganda... Or another example https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/ukrainealert/ukraine-s... just to add another I do not cite before. Or you prefer the Russie.NEI.Visions in English from the French IFRI to cite another definitively not putinian body? BTW you can find sources from The Diplomat, Foreign Policies and various others of the same kind, all you need is a honest web search...
> And we still don't have any concrete proof that, say, the CIA was (directly) behind the Maidan massacre
We have phone interceptions but it does not matter at all a single episode, what it matter is the macro level, witch means NATO expansion, NATO creation of nazi forces not even just in Ukraine but in all western EU, and not today but in few decades (did you remember op. Stay Behind, Aldo Moro killing etc? To cite some historical and well documented ones). We can't know the truth about a specific episode even if someone say it. We can instead know the global truth because at macro scale nothing can be really hidden for long.
> resulting in an astounding lack of understanding of the situation
I suggest you to try the mirror test: how can you say that you have a clear understatement while those who think different are caught in Russian propaganda? How many reasonably official source of information you have read, looked for? I mean public institutions not generic press of any kind and any country. How much you followed in the timeline the news stream? How much you know about Ukraine, just in history terms (did you actual Ukraine was a Soviet-made country from 1954?), did you know who manage Ukrainian infrastructures especially oil&gas ones? (hint: USA, UK and Holland companies, like for Kazakhstan). Try to honestly reflect on those aspects. Than tell your conclusion.
Oh, in evilness terms, did you remember the Iraq invasion based on claimed lies from some USA and UK élites about the Saddam mass destruction weapons that do not exists? Or the Afghanistan invasion based on the false claim they protect bin laden? Or the France ops in Libya when Qaddafi start to touch France-controlled CFA? Or Syria? Just to cite actual ones, but we can also came back to famous propaganda-made wars like Guatemala, the last strike of Eduard Bernays for the United Fruit co, those of Chiquita bananas between the rest.
Putin's side is even more tied to fascists (even and especially across EU !) than the Ukrainian side...
I have a much better understanding than your average West European because I was born in Russia, am fluent in Russian, and have family roughly split between Russia and Ukraine (and for what that's worth, had a grandfather that actually fought Nazis - I can't really believe it, but I'm now glad that he didn't live to 2014 and to see this insanity).
And now I'm going to have to cut this discussion short because I have to try to reach my Ukrainian relatives again, which I'm having a hard time to, because cellphones have trouble working from bomb shelters, and they're even being shelled during the day these days.
Of course, that's does not means Putin isn't similarly a dictator, the the blackbird is black like the crow of course but actually Russians aren't ready for Democracy so unfortunately they haven't much choice. Back in the past when bolsheviks overthrown the Mensheviks (thanks to Kaiser money, via Sweden) was already clear that seeds of Democracy were not enough, for Russian Federation Putin now it's the sole option, the other one will being back to a new and correct Soviet Union but that's an utopia so they can just try to be back as an empire. That's is.
Similarly most EU citizens are pushed again toward nazi ideas, we are around the thirst 20-30 years of 1900, a new world war is "needed" and many civilians will be killed, NOT much by Russian army, far more by militia armed by the same cancers of humanity that crafted nazi-fascism before.
BTW I'm Italian but I have some Russian and Ukrainian friends with various political ideas, and some news: if you imaging that "cellphones have trouble working from bomb shelters" you are just spread propaganda for a very simple reason: Russian targets are unknown to us, but Russian strategy is not: they do not bomb anything like USA in the WWII or NATO thereafter, they want a country or part of it, not ruins, when they bomb hospitals they bomb military targets occupied by Azov, C14, Pravy Sektor, Svoboda, ... not because that's what their press say but because bombs are not cheap and they haven't the USA military-industry complex nourished by wars and reconstructions thereafter, so an error can happen, but nothing more than that for mere practical reasons. Bomb shelters beside these days does not exists anymore than in the USA and some abandoned in Swiss. They came from WWII kind of mass-bombing not today's one.
So please do not consider that a sterile polemics or a personal attack but from what you write I can be wrong of course, but I suspect you have absolutely no knowledge of what's going on in Ukraine nor in EU. That's perfectly legit, you probably just "trust the system", accepting propaganda press not that different than soviet Pravda, as reality, but on HN typically there are a cohort of people who look under the tree, no one is immune to propaganda, no one can really know the truth but dissecting news enough to understand what's real and what's manufactured at a certain level is easy.
I have been watching the sanction game for 45 days now. Almost every day, we have new sanctions ... bigger and better, and this time we will fix them. For first 2 weeks I ignored it, because it takes time to get your act together (although I am sure CIA has a cookbook somewhere so if they really wanted to do it, they could).
But after those 2 weeks, I have lost faith. Everything seems to be a charade and the next round of sanctions get applied after 1) some oligarch is exposed, or 2) some major war crime news comes out. I am sure we can go another 100 rounds of sanctions. Quite sad.
Does the world stop doing business with the US each time they invade a country, throw a coup, or is revealed to spy on literally everything and everyone, including its allies?
No? Huh, I wonder why. Maybe it's their bullet sucking vacuum tanks that rebuild hospitals and schools. Or the democracy building aircraft carriers and the polio curing laser guided payloads they are so proud of.
I am friends with a couple where one is from Ukraine, and the other is from Moscow.
Even though the Russian has been against the war since at least 2015, when I first met him, I should totally cut my ties with him and actively try to sabotage his life because that's what I've been told by the good guys across the Atlantic because their actions are not self serving at all.
psssssst!! but yeah, buy cheap, sell expensive to Europe, while claiming high ethics and all for their independence :D typical win-win-win (just for us though..)
I think it's worth noting that blended fuels aren't simply a way to dodge sanctions. Fuel from different sources has different properties -- most notably Sulfur levels -- and Shell might have been blending them for decades for purely technical reasons.
I might have missed it but how is the Russian oil being imported to Latvia (EU state, sanctions against Russia) in the first place? Is it because it is not 'sold' until after the blending or some such move?
I don't get the point of this. As the article points out, it would be perfectly legal for Shell to sell refined oil products of 100% Russian origin. Why do they go to the length of blending it to 49.99% Russian origin and expect to get away with calling this "Latvian", in a day and age where far more clandestine operations become public knowledge in practically no time with p>0.99 (remember, Russian troop movements prior to the war were reported practically in real time with satellite imagery, something Putin surely didn't appreciate)?
What a mad phantasy... Undermining your closest allies' economy to win the war?
And, no, it cannot confiscate the oil and, even if it would, most of the energy comes to Europe in the form of natural gas, which is moved by pipeline. So, yes, the US can stop that by bombing Austria or Poland.
It's obviously a bad place to be in, strategically, for Europe to be somewhat reliant on Russian fuels. But you should note that current sanctions are already far more costly for EU countries than for the US: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/fileadmin/_processed_/f/2/csm_mi2022...
For Latvia, it's 64x more expensive. Even for Germany, it's factor 10.
Nobody is denying anything, except people claiming these are easy decisions to make and some approach a totally obvious choice. Finland & Germany have changed more drastically than either one has ever before, and more than anyone else in this situation. The Baltic states can also take a 20 % hit to GDP and they'll be fine, because they make up a small fraction of EU GDP and it would be easy (and right) to help them. The same happening in France, Germany, or Italy will not only hurt citizen in those countries, which would be uncomfortable but not disastrous. It would likely shut down every manufacturing on the continent that's more complicated than fish & chips.
And that’s exactly why humankind is forever bound to repeat the same mistakes over and over. We have all the information in the world and yet politicians still think that this time is different and you can appease dictators and they’ll just stop. But once they do realize, it’s already too late and it ends up costing many magnitudes more.
It’s always about choosing short term gain over long term thinking. Can’t wait to see when global warming really starts to hurt.
Nobody is appeasing anyone. They are trying to keep the lights on while everyone scrambles to find other sources of energy. These are the largest sanctions ever, already, oil and gas are on track to be included within six months, they have been impounding yachts left and right, delivering offensive weapons on previously unknown scales, etc.
On what grounds? And how exactly would that work? Through piracy in international waters? Or will the US liberate ports in Russia, Latvia or the Netherlands?
US sanctions usually work by denying violators access to US dollar flow, US customers, or just punitive taxes on US operations.
So even if they can’t go and grab the oil, they could force the issue: you buy this pretend-not-Russian oil, very well, next time someone pay you in dollars, we take a 75% cut.
But in the current climate, they would like to agree that ahead of time with Europeans who are right now dependant on Russia hydrocarbons for dear life.
Sounds like an easy way for Europeans to get rid of the dollar as a world currency - they would just doing business with third parties in Euros then. Which would have catastrophic consequences on the US economy.
The only thing the US is going to achieve is finally putting a wooden stake through the heart of the dollar as the default world trading currency.
Now that the world has witnessed them using the dollar as a weapon to deny other countries their sovereignity, they (China, India, Iran, Africa) will be working 24/7 to build an alternative payment system.
The US hasn't figured out that cancel culture on twitter doesn't scale up to nation-states very well. 'Go build your own twitter' is now becoming 'Go build your own international banking interchange' to powers who are very excited to have that exact opportunity.
So far China hasn't shown a penchant for destabilizing foreign countries for its own ends. Sure, they brutally oppress their own citizens but their foreign policy outside of border disputes has been non-interventionist.
You do realize that India and China have been locked in a bitter border dispute for decades, right? One that periodically results in casualties on both sides? The idea that China and India are going to meaningfully align can only come from wilful ignorance. Or perhaps the You are either with us or against us binary thinking has become pervasive.
You could argue that it would be a very good thing to have currency competition. In that sense it would increase possible efficiencies, and reduce the need for America to be the world police. If you believe this, then what is going on is good for future stability.
Reading through the comment I'm both amazed and appalled about how people are mostly looking at things from the money-perspective, ignoring that people can less and less afford to heat, cook ... or even food.
How disconnected from both reality and humanity can someone be?
Freeze for Freedom!
Starve for Freedom!
Also noteworthy is, that people seem to believe the sanctions are harming the people of Russia, or its economy, more than it harms Europe or the rest of the world. ... lol
Anyone thinking these sanctions are a good idea is completely wacko, out of this world. Politicians shit on us people for bullshit reasons with predictable outcomes, none of which are harming Russia (economy/people/government) significantly.
What do you propose then? Let Russia do whatever destruction and war crimes and genocides it wants? Or start a nuclear war? Those are the three options on the table, and the EU and US are taking the middle way. Yes, the sanctions are hurting Europe too, but their impact is enormous for the Russian economy and people.
> I guessed I missed the memo. Which countries are on this list?
Who knows except the man himself. That's the problem right there.
Belarus? Why not make it official?
Georgia? Maybe they deserve another round?
Baltics? It'll be interesting to see how much effort NATO puts in over those. Certainly not nukes. Can turn them into rubble to prove a point, if nothing else.
What about Hungary and Poland?
Also, aren't you forgetting a couple of countries, scroll up on Google Maps...
> Who knows except the man himself. That's the problem right there.
But you do know that there is a list?
And after being routed by the Ukrainians, the assumption is that Russia will then invade not just former Soviet republics but also other countries? That's an interesting take.
Look at it this way: the man has shown he doesn't have respect for borders of other countries, he doesn't care about not having friends in the west for the foreseeable future, he doesn't mind expending men and material. He sees something he wants and thinks he can get. Why would he not try, former Soviet country or not?
> But you do know that there is a list?
Well obviously I can't know, and it's not the point. The point is, with how things have developed, you have to assume that there is a list. It's hard to know who exactly would be on it, but you can make some good guesses who probably aren't.
