Why not punishing only the government: cancel all visas to the people working in the gov and especially their family. So no more rich gov kids in Western universities, etc.
I find a little unfair to punish people to push them in the streets and have them arrested, tortured or "administratively" punished (remember what happen after the Turkey coup in 2016? Military were punished but also many people working in the public sector.)
Sanctions are a form of economic warfare: they are intended to make broad swaths of the population suffer, with the goal of producing general discontent. A discontented civilian population means an unpopular war, and unpopular wars are harder to wage. Or so the theory goes.
I can only see a list of suffering people without expected outcome: North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, URSS, Cuba, etc.
(Genuine question to History geeks) Do we have an exemple of mass sanctions on a country that worked? Why are we repeating strategies that do not seem to work?
Theses sanctions seems to be designed to only short term please the people/voters/journalists of the sanctioning countries but are terrible to the sanctioned country/people long term without solving anything.
I'm not enough of a history buff to say whether sanctions are consistently successful. But I will point out that the point of (broad) sanctions isn't to win wars: it's to punish governments by punishing their people, who are then expected to pressure the government to acquiesce.
Among the targets of US sanctions in the last 50 years, contemporary Russia is somewhat unique: it has a relatively large and urbanized middle class, one that's used to the benefits of global trade and cheap European travel. Sanctions that hurt those people seem, on face value, more likely to impact Putin's decision making than e.g. sanctions on North Korean peasant farmers.
Another perspective: Russian society as of now is mostly an bubble. They don't have media that talks about the war their country started. Cancelling SWIFT is giving them something they cannot silence away in order to maintain the bubble.
Cancelling SWIFT would be a very clear signal to all people in Russia that their government overstepped a line. Without punlic support from the public an offensive war is way harder to pull off.
> They don't have media that talks about the war their country started
Stop spreading misinformation, this is not true.
This is basically the only thing that all russian-speaking media outlets are talking about. Plus, there is nothing preventing one from opening reddit and seeing what the western media has to say.
On the other hand, people in the West seem to be completely (and willingly!) disconnected from the situation in ru-net.
Most news outlets in Russia nowadays aren't even registered as proper media, so they couldn't care less for any "propaganda filters".
The article tries to assert that there is a huge difference between a perception of a "military operation" and a "war", but in Russian "military" and "war" is the same word (the same word root): "военная", "война" -- so everyone is just calling it "war".
As an example, take look at this article (vc is a massively popular news/blogs site): https://vc.ru/finance/371584-glavnoe-v-ekonomike-na-fone-voy... -- use google translate to see what words are used and what people have to say in the comment section.
I would actually argue that Russians have much more sources of information available: Russian, Ukraininan, Western, independent. The evident post-truth politics from all sides breeds radical skepticism. The current situation is far from what can be called "a bubble", probably even further from what is happening in the rest of the world.
The problem is that rich gov kids would go to China or India then. Which is the fundamental problem of all these sanctions. Ultimately it's counter productive to push Russia into closer relationships with our rivals. And it hurts twice because it does so at some economic cost to the EU/US.
The path we're on is the worst for everyone involved.
Rich people don’t want to go to China or India, and I think if you compare the offerings of the West versus these other two countries for just a moment, you’ll understand why.
Russia is a classic abuser, the only way out from a relationship like that is to walk away regardless of the personal cost.
>Rich people don’t want to go to China or India, and I think if you compare the offerings of the West versus these other two countries for just a moment, you’ll understand why
That's not really the point
>Russia is a classic abuser, the only way out from a relationship like that is to walk away regardless of the personal cost.
How exactly can the Ukraine walk away from Russia? Its impossible. So long as Russia has an army & a willingness to use it every country will have a relationship with them whether they like it or not.
Exactly. And ban re entry for a decade. When oligarch kids start showing up in mother Russia and bitching to their parents, it might help the privileged oligarchs realize they don’t have impunity outside their bubble and nobody outside Russia cares about their influence whatsoever.
Just Devil's Advocate, but what do we do if those oligarch kids simply go hang out and party with their Chinese and Indian counterparts in Shanghai instead?
Part of the problem here is that we are not the only game in town anymore.
When you start a war of aggression you calculate in that there will be sanctions against your own people. This is first and foremost on Putin. Not that he cares, and probably not that this will be a popular sentiment in Russia.
The alternative to sanctions is a shooting war, it is probably a good idea to put as many steps in between that point and now as we can, who knows, there might be someone with a change of heart high enough up in the Russian ranks that it makes a difference.
The far bigger better news to me is France started seizing physical assets like I hoped all the countries would start doing, if we aren't going to put boots on the ground then the "blood" must be from assets even if Russia counters and seizes foreign assets too.
More like a delay to get everything worked out there isn’t a button to push to cut a country off SWIFT each institution with access to SWIFTnet would have to do it on their end.
Russia has huge foreign currency reserves this is the main goal of this sanction it would prevent them from using their reserves to sustain their own economy whilst their own currency collapses.
I am wondering if this automatically means Russia will switch off gas supplies? Understandably, how Europe will pay for Russian gas when SWIFT is switched off, and probably Russia won't be sending gas for free?
He might, though that would also cost russia dearly because all countries like germany that are dependent on russian gas will a) be royally pissed and b) make sure they lower their dependence on russian gas in the future. And russias economy is really dependent on their natural recourcess export
> And russias economy is really dependent on their natural recourcess export
Russia has been described as “a gas station run by a mafia masquerading as a country that happens to have nuclear weapons”, which isn’t far from the truth.
The US is also really dependent on the flow of dollars going through SWIFT. Kicking countries out means alternatives have to come online. If those get too popular it poses a huge threat to the entire US dollar reserve currency system.
It's not kicking countries out, it's just kicking Russia out. It will be a blow for all the Western countries and banks conducting business with Russia, but a necessary one.
It's not just dollars that are flowing via SWIFT. SWIFT is what blockchain wants to be, it's a way for banks to send and receive funds of many currencies.
SWIFT is a messaging system.
The actual transfer of funds is performed with correspondent banks, but they won't perform the transfer if the government says that they cannot have accounts opened by banks from other nations, then that's up to that government, not SWIFT.
SWIFT is being used as "shorthand" to mean that Russian banks will be cut off from the world financial environment. They will have to evade those sanctions via, for example, trading with multiple hops through China, if China allows them to.
I do wonder just how much German sentiment has shifted.
From the leaked clips of a high ranking German officer saying "Putin just wants respect" before the war. Now seeing a large shift amongst those I follow on twitter in German who were previous anti-action.
Assuming SWIFT access is cut, and then the Natural Gas supplies are turned off is there another escalation back? Assuming the US/EU can rally their resources how do they mount a quick recovery from the loss of natural gas which will certainly be devastating. Even if the Nuclear plants in process of decommissioning are reversed(if possible) I'm not sure how the EU gets through the next six months without a ton of pain.
> Assuming SWIFT access is cut, and then the Natural Gas supplies are turned off is there another escalation back?
Sure. We could sanction their oil and gas industry. Like we've done to Iran. There's also a whole world of plausibly deniable black ops stuff we could do to mess with their infrastructure.
I think a lot of people, without meaning to be disrespectful of Ukrainian identity and sovereignty, looked at the conflict in the Donbas and Crimea and thought:
"well, this isn't really acceptable in terms of respecting settled borders but the reality is that at least a very substantial percentage of the local population does want to be part of Russia so it isn't the worst thing in the world and probably Putin will move troops into areas he de facto controls or slightly expand borders there".
That doesn't make those things ok but it does put in a long list of other conflicts where the on-the-ground reality is complicated.
Many of us also have mixed feelings of at least partial support about other re-arrangements of sovereignty whether that is ethnic separatism within a country with a quasi-federalist state like Spain (i.e. Basque or Catalan) or other cases like South Sudan or even Kosovo where NATO actively carved out an ethnic statelet by helping an organisation that for all its roots of legitimate popular support was at least... organised-crime adjacent.
The speech that Putin gave though was not about border adjustment but about a denial of any kind of Ukrainian nation identity or nationhood. He wasn't saying, "the Russia / Ukraine border should be 10 or 20 km West of where it is" which might be unacceptable to a hardline territorial integrist or to Ukraine but is within the normal bounds of nation state conflict, he was saying "there is no Ukraine at all, it's not a real nation, they have no right to any kind of state" and that crosses many, many lines that are not crossed by taking territory here or there.
Not trying to make taking "taking a province or two" look like acceptable behaviour but I think that it's important to put previous and current EU/NATO positions in the context of the full horror of what he is now proposing to do which is to permanently destroy a nation state. Even the Ukrainian government didn't really believe this was how it was going to go.
The winter here in the Netherlands is also really mild. I'm in a 4th floor apartment with the main room facing the sun with all windows. if I clothed a bit warmer than normal I could go without gas until winder ends.
Of course not everyone lives in a small apartment facing the sun but still.
I echo this sentiment, and I am from Poland, with much colder winters. We could stop using it for heating, spend the year preparing for winter, spend a lot on insulation and then electricity, and dress warmer -- but we'd reduce the dependence on Russia. Totally worth the trouble and hardships, and long overdue.
I think for many Putin actually invading Ukraine was simply unthinkable.
Sure, some saber rattling and destabilization, but outright war?
US intelligence was not always credible, so when they presented facts that conveniently benefited American interests (shale gas export), people were sceptic.
That allowed Putin to prepare an invasion in plain sight.
Perhaps everyone thought Russia was Saber rattling in January when they gave a 1 week deadline to NATO saying they would invade if they didn't receive it.
That said, following Russia demand, the US president went national TV and announced that Russia will likely invade Ukraine and the US will not go in.
I'm reasonably sure that those calling for Russia's ban from SWIFT are doing so precisely for that reason. They may not understand that banning them for SWIFT doesn't exactly accomplish that, but that's the motivation for the call.
> may not understand that banning them for SWIFT doesn't exactly accomplish that
There are numerous workarounds. Most involve Russia submitting to China. Given how unpredictable Putin’s become, that’s preferable to them being a regional power.
> Or CIPS which will likely undercut this attempt of isolating Russia’s financial system
This is almost expected. The calculation being that Russia is safer as a Chinese vassal than a regional power. Settling via CIPS is also more burdensome and thus expensive than settling via SWIFT.
If Europe stops buying Russian gas (a big if, and something that might happen later rather than sooner), are there other countries which would buy it? China, for instance?
Probably, but this would hurt Russia immensely. Currently there is not much infrastructure to support delivery of that much more gas to China, so it would need to be built and that would probably take years.
At the same time, it would hurt Europe more than Russia in the short-term. (But it might be really worth it in long term)
If they can build it, they still do not have the demand for that much extra gas, probably just little.
The Chinese government is despicably authoritarian, but unlike Putin, they are not crazy and they are playing it long-term.
They won't condemn Russian invasion too harshly, but they don't want to break energy supply chains from West to help out a not-exactly-friendly state (just an enemy of an enemy).
Seems like Putin missed a trick by not kicking this off in November. With a whole winter of gas supply issues in store the EU would be walking on egg shells even more than they have been.
Regardless, it seems like a small price to pay for solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
Hard to fight a war in bitter cold although that is less of a problem when the entire force has vehicles than it was during Napolean's invasion.
I am curious why he didn't wait longer. Maybe he chose now to make the crossing of rivers easier. Also, ISTR that when the snow melts the roads there get so muddy they are almost unusable.
Dec-Feb is better cause the ground is frozen so the heavy machinery won't be stuck in mud. Currently is warm, Russian army has a problem and have to use roads for tanks, which means they are easer pickings.
So, it was unavoidable for Putin yo invade Ukraine because a few countries were joining a military club he doesn't like? And shelling and using clusters bomb on civilians was also unavoidable?
Yes I think that's the idea and the reason why it's taking a while to set up. Maybe they'll take bitcoin? It will be a test of whether this can really be a backup form of payment against the will of states.
I’m sure there are other channels but I’m pretty sure cryptocurrency markets have enough liquidity to prop up gas payments.
If this goes through and BTC price starts spiking, I’d interpret that as a signal that it is happening, which would be a validation for Bitcoin playing a significant role in avoiding banking restrictions.
Just donated US$150 to UNHCR’s Ukraine program while I still can. Don’t know if online bank card payments will still work after SWIFT is disabled for us.
Even though they affect me personally, I understand sanctions directed at Russia as a whole more so than sanctions that hurt innocent people who happen to live in territories occupied by Russia/separatists. (Back when Crimea was annexed, everybody with billing address there had their existing banking cards shut off; freelancers with addresses in Crimea, Donbas etc. are long banned from online marketplaces. It did not affect me, but I never understood the intent.) Luckily, I don't have my own family to support.
Have to wonder what the end goal is here. Putin is human, but he’s also pretty calculating in his actions.
People have mentioned before China’s competing system to SWIFT and this move potentially being to their benefit. You also have the EU and US spinning up their wheels against a boogeyman, which in some ways, has the effect of strengthening and/or testing their relationships.
In other ways, it forces the West into really tough and expensive policy positions, with plenty of opportunity to damage relationships as well.
Perhaps it really is just as simple as they wanted to prevent Ukraine from joining the EU/NATO. Maybe it’s a mixture of all the above.
Blinken mentioned it - and I agree - that I don’t see whatever plan that’s currently underway as intentioned to stop at Ukraine.
My wild guess is that Putin's goal has always been cleansing the power circles of the oligarchs who got there in the 1990s, and now that he's running out of time as he's getting old, he needs help in that from the West. Now he might be betting that the sanctions will mostly target these oligarchs and make the country _really_ unattractive for them, whereas an average Russian anyway has no assets abroad and doesn't travel much, and therefore won't notice the difference, as energy and food are abundant domestically. If that's his plan, there should be no need to go beyond Ukraine.
It's just your classic, "it's not so simple" problem. SWIFT has endpoints just like any other protocol. Someone's job right now is to compile a list of endpoints (aka banks) that are to be cut off and then it'll be someone else's job to approve that list. Then there will be negotiating and agreements and whatnot.
We should not make offensive moves - down that path lies further escalation.
We need to isolate Russia using non-violence. Primarily, refusing to buy their oil and gas.
Remote bricking all iOS devices in Russia would be an offensive escalation because it would directly harm Russian assets.
Barring Russia from SWIFT… does that amount to a refusal to trade with them? That feels appropriately non-violent, but I’m unsure exactly what it would involve.
You’re right that this is a form of escalation. You’re right to see danger in such further provocation of a nuclear rival - of an autocrat lost in historical delusion and bloody revanchism.
I believe you’re wrong to think the escalation is inherently a mistake, or never a path out of conflict. It is common wisdom to observe that bullies may only be stopped with escalatory tactics.
So it seems to me that the West must find some way to show a spine and push back, short of open war. The alternative cedes European hegemony, and the fate of those democracies, to Moscow’s cold hands.
Not really, remotely disabling the mobile phones of ~every medical doctor, firefighter, and EMS in a country of a hundred and fifty million people with no warning would likely cause on the order of 10k deaths.
It would be more deaths in 24h than the entire Ukraine invasion so far.
You can pretend such would be nonviolent, but it's basically a terror attack on civillian medical infrastructure.
I don't see the connection, but I know of a bunch of people who'd be pretty mad about how a corporation can remotely cut off an entire country's digital access.
> know of a bunch of people who'd be pretty mad about how a corporation can remotely cut off an entire country's digital access
Of course. Same with SWIFT cut-off.
Doing it in a way that is not arbitrary would be key. (I don't know how one would do that. There is no precedent for that type of action, and it is not being seriously considered by senior policymakers.)
There are no "powers that be," this is just a popular reduction used to construct simple thoughts.
There are humans, existing in a complex society. All meaning is negotiated all the time. All the expectations of behaviour from which your confidant hueristic analysis springs are at all times liable to be contradicted. For instance, few would have thought that the "powers that be" would permit massive conventional war in Europe at this late date.
There is no platonic, eternal, divine legal system in which we encode what is and isn't actually war or which escalations are permissible in discrete scenarios.
I would be very surprised if this happened. This would mean that European economies won't get their invested money back and also won't be able to pay for services. Extremely highly unlikely. Even if Europe replaces Russian LNG with American it will still be at least 3x-5x the current price.
The first is to harm the enemy. Cutting Russia off from SWIFT does that. The second is to reduce moral culpability. The idea that we shouldn't let our work, our infrastructure, be used to further aims we find detestable.
The former is an exercise in balancing costs and benefits. In this, the evidence for cutting Russia off is mixed--they will likely develop a vassal relationship with China that offsets the cost enough to let the regime survive. The latter is an exercise in measuring evil and involvement. In this, the evidence is fairly clear.
Adding an automatic off-switch triggered by total withdrawal from all of Ukraine, including Crimea, or Putin's surrender to a NATO member (or evidence of his death) would give the whole thing a sharper edge.
I'm pretty sure Russia is close to boiling over this. If the tanks roll through Kyiv and start shooting inside the city we might see massive protests in Russia.
I agree. His regime will be in a corner. What could happen then worries me to no end. We're in uncharted territory. We've never pushed things this far with a nuclear power.
In what way have "we" pushed things here. Ukraine voted for independence back in the early 90s by an overwhelming majority in all areas, including those currently "recognized" by Russia.
Ukrainians want all the benefits of EU membership, and they gave up their nuclear weapons on the promise of security from Europe, the US, and Russia.
Despite what people think kicking Russia from swift is not good. This means that lots of companies who sold to Russia will not get paid. Europe will also jave problems to pay for gas: paying with gold is a bad idea. Oligarchs will buy from Chinese resellers.
Abetter option would be go ban companies from doing business in Russia.
Bankrupting European and US comapnies that sold to Russia (and now wait for money) wont help.
Also banning fron swoft means that the big companies will still find ways to trade. Trade with them is not forbidden. I can easly see them asking to send money to some third party bank (China, North Korea) who will act as an intermediary.
> An Iran style ban on sales is much better than this SWIFT blockade
I’m advocating for placing the Russian central bank on the SDN list. Hell of a lot more than either. We could tolerate rations against the Nazis but can’t stomach a few months of invoices lost?
I find it strange that nobody talks about the SWIFT alternative Russia and China have been working on since 2013, Russia’s System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS).
If I understand correctly, there're already 23 countries with banks that have adopted SPFS, including Switzerland and Germany... so a SWIFT ban will only have a short-term negative effect on their economy and finally would be a big nudge towards building stronger Russian-Chinese ties in the future. Don't know how smart that is long-term, to be honest.
Am I the only one which is surprised that Putin actually invaided Ukraine? It is true that majority of people in Ukraine are very much against Putin but they are very much connected with Russia so this looks like killing your own people.
So when Lukasenko dies then Russia will invaide Belarus and kill bunch of people who they don’t like Putin?
If you want a short summary of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, I suggest this presentation/speech by John Mearsheimer - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4 - he explains it really well.
We have had thirty years of peace among the great powers. It’s been seventy years since armies last clashed in conventional, large-scale armored warfare on European soil - or perhaps anywhere.
Through these years humanity learned to expect perpetual and cold stalemate as an inevitable paradigm between Russia and the West.
Over these generations, humanity has on average become wealthier and more educated and more democratic - all correlates of robust peace between nations.
You’re not the only one surprised. I have little doubt that everyone, even the CIA analysts generating grim predictions before the invasion, was at some level unable to believe something like this was possible in 2022.
We can still hope to prove it was the absurd strategic mistake our intuition had hoped it was.
I just read this :
https://twitter.com/i/status/1497252061678813187
EXCLUSIVE: I have been given a copy of document issued today by Russian Ministry of Health. It indicates Russia is anticipating a massive medical emergency & has ordered health organisations to immediately identify medical staff ready to relocate & work.
The human hierarchy of fear seems sorted by proximity and tractability, not a rational calculus of risk and probability. Abstract threats, or those percieved unavoidable, might inspire only apathy.
And indeed, what can I possibly do about rumors of Russia considering nuclear war? I've kept Potassium Iodide stocked since 2014, which seemed practical and easy.
Regarding Lukashenko, I have a contrarian theory that Lukashenko actually considers himself justified in rigging elections, authoritarianism, and Putin-alignment because being a Putin patsy dictator is preferable for the Belarusian people over democratic change that would result in the same fate for Belarus as Ukraine is experiencing. (his thoughts, not mine, although a weak case could be made)
Thanks for that Twitter link, that's a really good thread from Dec. 21st. I learned a lot from it even now. Although even Alperovitch said "He is unlikely to invade Western Ukraine": https://twitter.com/DAlperovitch/status/1473366370666614784.
> via Armenia, Egypt, and China via netting agreements
Nobody argues alternatives don't exist. Russia will pivot to China.
But for all our gripes with Beijing, they're a more rational regime than Putin's. (See: North Korea.) Russia being their vassal is better than the nonsense they are today. And China's systems are more expensive than SWIFT, which will reduce Russia's proceeds.
China’s reaction to this crisis has elucidated for me the fact that its government is a complex institution with separate power bases (cf. Putin’s lonely autocracy).
It’s clear that at least some of those nodes earnestly hold the principle of always-sacrosanct sovereignty which is a cornerstone of China’s foreign policy (and of its criticism of the West), and are not pleased with the hypocrisy now inherent in their alliance.
Why should we? Is Ukraine really that important to the United States? Is provoking greater enmity from Russia on behalf of a faraway irrelevance really in our best interests? Would we have been wiser to have acceded to Russian requests that we abandon the idea of NATO membership and participation for Ukraine several years ago when this invasion could have been avoided?
Americans have short memories, and don't recall President Obama saying that, while Ukraine is a critical security matter for Russians, it is not so for America, and that we shouldn't allow concern over Ukraine to overshadow our greater national interest. It's a pity that neither his administration nor the two following ones have consistently followed that principle. Our meddling in Ukraine is a large part, though by no means the whole, of the cause of this action.
> Is Ukraine really that important to the United States?
We confront this now or relearn the lesson from almost exactly a century ago about the compounding cost, in blood and money, of appeasing a despot ruling a country with falling living standards.
> would we have been wiser to have acceded to Russian requests that we abandon the idea of NATO membership and participation for Ukraine several years ago
This happened. NATO membership for Ukraine was all but abandoned after the financial crisis. Years before Putin rolled tanks into Crimea. Had we actually accepted Ukraine in 2008, the last time consultations were seriously held, we'd likely have avoided this mess.
Just last year, NATO reaffirmed plans to let Ukraine to membership, after dropping the issue since 2008. This and increasing training and arms sales and donations to Ukraine played into the situation.
One has to ask, why are some NATO members intent on continued eastward expansion.
> why do some NATO members intent on continued eastward expansion
If Russia rolling tanks into Ukraine doesn’t show why expanding mutual protection makes sense, I don’t know what would. As a direct result of these moves Putin has all but guaranteed NATO forces in Sweden, possibly even Finland.
First, nobody says we want them, their membership was not on current NATO's agenda. Nobody is forcing them to join, just as we don't put any pressure on Finnland or Sweden. But the more the merrier - you have another ally you can at least half-count on the safer you are. The same applies to EU membership.
In 2016, Ukraine was granted a NATO Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), comprising the advisory mission at the NATO Representation to Ukraine as well as 16 capacity-building programmes and Trust Funds.
In 2018, Ukraine was officially given an aspiring member status.
In 2021
NATO reaffirmed that “Ukraine will become a member of the Alliance with the Membership Action Plan (MAP)", which is the most traction on the topic since 2008.
In parallel to all this, joint military exercises and arms shipments have been ramped up.
I found this old article from the Ukrainian perspective to be informative:
>But the more the merrier - you have another ally you can at least half-count on the safer you are.
This seems to be the critical question. I think that current NATO members are safer without expanding east. I certainly feel that way today! In the future, I don't think conflict is less likely if Ukraine joins NATO and there are more us missiles and troops stationed on the Russian border.
Because the Ukraine does not fulfill the criteria for membership. The article you linked says "In spring 2021, Ukraine pointed out little progress in NATO’s “open-door” policy" and "U.S. Department of State spokesman, noted that the “open door” policy is applicable for states meeting the standard for membership and emphasized that Ukraine should do its homework"
> I think that current NATO members are safer without expanding east.
Well, this may be true but the problem is that this requires a lot of trust. You have to trust that if you do nothing, the other party also does nothing. I understand that Russians are scared and that they are acting out of fear but we (Poles) are acting out of fear too. In the past ~230 years for only ~50 we were not occupied by Russia.
I hope that one day we can talk honestly with Russians and address each others fears, but well, right now we are where we are :(
Ukraine wasn’t a NATO priority until now. Given what Putin has done, and his oligarchs have permitted, it is clear Ukraine must be a NATO member to keep Europe stable. Russia can be attended to by China. They will grant them financial access. In exchange, they will make Russia their vassal and keep them in check. What an idiot of a society they have been…
I can speak from perspective of Poland. We simply don't want to have a border with Russia. If our eastern neighbors were part of NATO we could sleep more peacefully. We feared of what just happened with Belarus - Putin effectively took it over and we now have Russian troops near our border. Now, instead of worrying about cigarettes smugglers, we need to secure the border from Putin. Just two months ago we had to deal with the immigrants crisis that he's caused.
I can understand that from the Polish perspective. From the American perspective, I know that the United States is one of the only countries that is more aggressive and interventionist then Russia in the world. I don't want our military bumping up against Russia any more than it has to. I think there are risks to Poland from this as well.
Interesting, so is the idea that neutral buffer states are impractical in the long term, and it would be better to have them in NATO than Russian control?
Generally speaking, yes (but again this is only Poland's perspective). Tbh you can't take anything for granted, being a NATO member does not guarantee that another member won't stab you in the back one day, but it makes it less likely.
What about Finland and Sweden, are those important to the United States? Because those two countries were threatened by Putin today with the same actions he's taking in Ukraine. Your line of argument assumes he'll stop with Ukraine. It's a fair line, but he's recently sent troops into Kazakhstan and Belarus, and remember he played by the same playbook in Georgia - "they are killing ethnic Russians let me recognize those 'republics' and pacify them".
Internet access and personal computing devices are critical civilian infrastructure. That's like advocating to blow up all the bridges in the whole country.
Can sympathize with the intent. However, remember an isolated country whose president loves playing with rockets every now and then? Now imagine a slightly bigger country with slightly madder and older dictator joining in on that game. I can see we may well be headed towards that world. (Edit: replaced 'nukes' with 'rockets', I cannot remember what North Korea has exactly.)
It's different. North Koreans never had the modern life in the first place, but Russians do. When you're used to that, when you take it for granted and it's suddenly taken away from you - that is the one thing that can cause unprecedented mass protests that Russia badly needs now. Want to get your tech back? Stop the war in Ukraine.
First, those who had modern life are not going to want to lose it by getting murdered in an attempted violent uprising. Second, Russia will just keep using Chinese tech which has always been more popular than Apple tech. A generation grows up without iPhones and there isn't anyone left to miss them or empathize with Western democracy.
This may backfire though, since people could simply turn on the Western companies and say "hey Putin was right, they ARE out to get us".
Stoking protests against the Russian government using the very same tools you mentioned above sounds like a more promising route. Maybe there are still factions inside Russia's political apparatus that are powerful enough to decapitate this government. Not that they will hear "the will of the people", but they may sense an opportunity to take Putin down and enrich themselves, while cutting down on the USSR imperialism nostalgia.
Let's start with cutting off their cloud/remote services before doing something with very large friendly fire potential. I think Ukrainians with devices sourced through Russia would prefer they stay working
> I would say it's time to take the gloves off. If you want Putin to listen, you need to speak his language.
> Remote wipe and brick all iOS, Android and Windows devices in Russia, then cut off their internet and see how they can "live with it". I've seen arguments like "But... but... how can other countries trust FAANG after that?".
If they can do that, the intelligence value of keeping those devices active surely outweighs any advantage of disabling them.
But I don't think that's "speaking Putin's language." To do that would require some kind of military action (e.g. shooting down Russian aircraft over Ukraine at the very least, and maybe airstrikes against Russian invasion forces there). Basically showing some backbone and willingness to risk escalation.
These kinds of more-severe sanctions, while stronger than last time, still show fundamental weakness. In the end, I doubt they'll accomplish anything besides pushing Russia deeper into China's arms.
I agree. While Russia has lots of popular services which win over western counterparts (Yandex>Google, VKontakte>FB ...) they still do use Google/Apple devices. Blocking them would cause more powerful force than any government can currently yield.
We have a way to go though - Google generously offered $2M in Adwords credit as a response to Ukraine war. Let's encourage them to do more!
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30476940)
The unquestioning desire to inflict serious harm on 100+ million civilians in this thread (by bricking their communication devices) is disturbing to me.
I agree. From what I understand the Russian people mostly don't want this war. It's Putin's war, not Russia's.
There's a point to be made "if the Russian people feel this, they might revolt against Putin since this is his fault.", although that could easily backfire in the opposite direction "if the Russian people feel this, then that means Putin was right, the west IS out to get us".
Bricking devices remotely sounds terrible for this reason already, let alone the damages regular civilians will feel.
> I agree. From what I understand the Russian people mostly don't want this war. It's Putin's war, not Russia's.
I'm no expert, but this is probably not a sufficient understanding. As I understand it, Putin's successful invasion of Ukraine to annex Crimea in 2014 was deeply popular and helped boost his popularity at a time when that was needed. It may be useful to look at this invasion of Ukraine through the same political lens, which you can't do if you see most of the populace as being unsupportive of it.
That's the depth of my understanding of the situation, though. So definitely don't take my word for it. It is fair to imagine that the attractiveness of annexation to the population is less now than it was in 2014.
It is certainly true that there's significant lack of support, though you said "most" which is much stronger.
I think there should always be something left on the table. If the west does everything possible to hurt Russia, Russia will have nothing to lose and will be more likely to attack NATO countries. This is something they should reserve in case there is a risk for such event.
If Apple shows off that they can and will remotely brick iOS devices at US demand, how many Chinese people (their soon to be largest market, and fastest growing market) will buy iPhones in the future?
Do you think the Chinese government would permit iPhones to then be sold in China?
Worse yet, do you think the Chinese government would continue to allow iPhones to be manufactured in China (where the vast majority of all iPhones sold worldwide are made)?
Apple ceases to exist without China.
What you are advocating is corporate suicide, and that doesn't benefit Ukraine, the US, or Apple.
EDIT:
Also, you are advocating for bricking the mobile phones of approximately 100% of all medical doctors and firefighters and EMS in a country of a hundred and fifty million people.
That would kill more people in 24 hours than have died in the entire Ukraine invasion so far.
Apple smartphone market share is like 8% in Russia according to a quick DDG search. Maybe stop with exagerations...
Also if people don't already know that remotely updateable device can be bricked by the manufacturer, they're just very ignorant. But yeah, people pop up on HN again and again surprised that Google can just take away everything from them without a moment's notice, so that one is not a remote possibility. People just don't understand technology very well.
Anyway, I'm against bricking phones. That'll not do any good. It will harm communication between disidents, and spread of news/information, too.
Does the US have legal authority to kidnap, detain, torture, murder random people from all over the world? Or forbid anyone to deal with countries the US doesn't like?
Even the law is 'founded' on the monopoly of state violence within its borders. Extend this logic to the whole world: whoever has more power to inflict violence has the 'legal' authority. Law without the monopoly on violence is toothless.
The only possible "good" way for this to end is for Putin to fall or at least feel significant internal pressure forcing him to back down. Destroying the communications of all Russian citizens will not only make this impossible, but actively harm any chances of people siding with Ukraine and its friends/allies/backers over Putin.
What do nukes have to do with FAANG, a bunch of private companies, cancelling their products and services? I'm sure they can come up with something from the fine print in their T&Cs to justify that.
This is the only way that is not direct military action to hit them hard. So why not?
Sorry, but bricking mobiles is not "the only way ... to hit them hard".
Cutting them off from international trade, refusing shipments of semiconductors and other "dual use" resources, refusing docking rights to load/unload to Russian flagged vessels, refusing travel visas, etc etc are all ways to impose pressure on Russia to cease it's war.
Well, with a crazy person who seemingly doesn't care anymore - I can see the "fuck it, it's my way or the highway" scenario playing out when he feels the gun put to his head.
Not sure what your question means. One presumes that the EU's goal here is the obvious one, namely to make trade increasingly harder for Russia until they stop invading other countries.
To "impose a sanction" in this context is to apply a costly restriction to yourself, using the negative effect your self-restriction has on other parties to punish those parties, usually hoping that the negative effect is worse for them than it is for you. Any given trade happens because both parties want it; artificially making trade harder makes both parties worse off. The EU does not have to benefit from the intervention at all; they are apparently willing to pay that cost to make trade harder for Russia.
In the short term, sanctioning an action in a civilized manner that used to be a casus belli. In the long run, not allowing Russia to further modernize their military and likely preventing a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction.
You don't see how sanctioning an action that in the past used to be reason for war and likely preventing nuclear war in the future is something positive? Geopolitics is not your strength, is it?
Well, to make it simple for you, EU gets a weak Russian military in the future, which is very desirable.
Edit: Oh, I see. I've replied to another 4 day old account. What a coincidence!
The EU is not worried about Russia? From where on earth did you get this bizarre and obviously false view? Every Eastern EU country is extremely worried about Russia right now and NATO has sent reinforcements to them.
Whether you're trolling or not, you also genuinely don't understand the current situation. So I'll explain it in more detail to you. Putin and other key members of the Russian government have just proven to be unreliable persons who cannot be trusted and negotiated with. This makes future ways to deal with Russia extremely difficult. It is also unrealistic to expect that this is going to get better, the older Putin gets. On the contrary, if he stays in power indefinitely we can expect his revisionary pseudo-historic views and his disrespect for national sovereignty to increase. His successor might even be worse, given the poisoned political climate in Russia today. However, Russia is a major nuclear power. There is a realistic worry within the EU and NATO that Russia would get emboldened by past lackluster responses and risk a calculation that attacking a smaller NATO country might not invariably activate nuclear defense plans.
All of this taken together makes imposing heavy sanctions on Russia essentially inevitable. They are the only civilized response available, and not doing anything could have fatal consequences far beyond the EU. Governments across the world rightly realized now - unfortunately, too late - that the comparatively weak response to the 2014 annexation of Crimea has emboldened Putin to order a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They will not repeat this mistake.
Edit: Looks like a consensus has been reached and Russia is about to get excluded from SWIFT.
> In the short term, sanctioning an action in a civilized manner that used to be a casus belli. In the long run, not allowing Russia to further modernize their military and likely preventing a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction.
The EU nomenklatura gets to pat themselves on the back, and that's about it.
How will sanctions prevent Russia from "further moderniz[ing] their military"? They can probably get whatever tech they need from China now, if they were previously getting it from the West.
How will sanctions prevent "a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction"? If Putin attacks another country, there won't be any more sanctions to enact, and these actions have demonstrated a fundamental unwillingness to engage militarily (e.g. Germany wouldn't even send Ukraine even small guns, so instead they promised * 5000 hats*, which they also apparently failed to deliver).
I don't know how much this will influence possibilities of Russia buying military equipment from China, but China officially stated today that they don't support this invasion.
> How will sanctions prevent Russia from "further moderniz[ing] their military"? They can probably get whatever tech they need from China now
Modernizing a military is extremely expensive and Russia will not be able to afford it. This is crucial, given that Russia is waging aggressive wars within Europe.
> Modernizing a military is extremely expensive and Russia will not be able to afford it. This is crucial, given that Russia is waging aggressive wars within Europe.
IIRC, Russia gets most of its money from selling gas and oil. If Europe won't buy it, China will. I don't think this will really affect what the Russian government can afford.
> It will substantially affect what the Russian government can afford. There is no doubt about it.
No, there is doubt about it. There's a lot of bluster about the effectiveness of sanctions, but frankly, I'm skeptical. It sounds like politicians puffing up the actions they're willing to take.
> * It sounds like politicians puffing up the actions they're willing to take.*
I agree with that. Maybe I should have said that there is no other civilized response available than imposing heavy sanctions. Even a slightly weaker Russian military and some impact on Russian oligarchs may be better than nothing to prevent future misjudgments about the prospects of waging 19th Century territorial wars in the 21 Century.
> Maybe I should have said that there is no other civilized response available than imposing heavy sanctions.
That's kind of the problem, though. The catalog of "civilized responses" may not be up to the task of responding to these events, and being constrained to them prevents effective responses.
> Even a slightly weaker Russian military and some impact on Russian oligarchs may be better than nothing to prevent future misjudgments about the prospects of waging 19th Century territorial wars in the 21 Century.
Sometimes "better than nothing" rounds down to nothing. You might end up having more "19th Century territorial wars" because you let the war itself.
IMHO, the only thing right now that has a realistic chance of preventing another one of these wars from happening is a military failure by Russia. Right now that depends on the Ukrainian state acting on its own without much support from Europe.
I find a little unfair to punish people to push them in the streets and have them arrested, tortured or "administratively" punished (remember what happen after the Turkey coup in 2016? Military were punished but also many people working in the public sector.)