The difference between the details and the reality of the sanctions on the ground is noticeable. Last Thursday, the US government announced the first series of “severe sanctions” on Russia. US President Joe Biden announced that he aimed to dismiss Vladimir Putin internationally. Within an hour of his announcement, the price of crude oil fell below the pre-ban level. The stock market moved from a dark red to a bright green zone. The rise in stocks suggests that Russia’s punishment is not enough.
A day later the European Union announced new sanctions. The EU sanctions seek to freeze the assets of Putin and the Russian foreign minister, in addition to curtailing financial flows to Russian entities, banning access to aircraft parts and critical technology. No one knows whether he has assets outside Russia. In fact, sanctions did not deter Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus and Basar al-Assad of Syria from dictatorial methods.
Not everyone was unanimous in the so-called consensus reached within the European Union regarding sanctions on Russia. It is widely believed that it is difficult to exclude Russia from the global financial system SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) banking system. Britain wanted to oust Russia from Swift. The US hesitated, while Germany and Hungary rejected the proposal.
Finally, the European Union, Britain, the United States and their allies and partners have decided to exclude select Russian banks from SWIFT and take preventive measures against Russia’s central bank. Italy took luxury Italian goods out of the ban, and Belgium fought hard to keep the diamond trade out of the sanctions package.
The European duplicity is clear—for Russian elites the freedom to purchase expensive luxuries is more important than the freedom of the people of a sovereign nation under attack. Clearly, Europe, seeing the pictures coming from Ukraine, realized that this could be the fate of any of the NATO allies, so Putin’s aggression cannot be stopped on the borders of Ukraine.
Putin can be taught a lesson only by dismantling Russia’s multilateral trade and security system in Europe. Will America and its allies be able to stop Putin? Sanctions may work in theory, but history shows that their effect is slowest. When Russia annexed Crimea, the US and its allies imposed economic sanctions on it.
Then Russia separated its public finances from dollars, now Russia has the lowest debt to GDP ratio and its reserves have reached $ 650 billion. At the same time, it has maintained Assad’s regime in Syria, Crimea remains under Russian occupation and Ukraine now faces the threat of ‘demilitarization’. This week China dismissed these sanctions as “ineffective”.
The reason for this is that after the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989, the European Union and the US imposed sanctions on it. His aim was to make China more democratic. But since then Beijing has destroyed democracy in Hong Kong, waged an unprovoked border war with India, and expressed ambitions to annex Taiwan. In such a situation, the request made by US officials to China to stop the war in Ukraine would be called ironic.
The 10 members of the European Union depend on Russia for energy. If Germany had reviewed its energy deal with Russia when Russia annexed Crimea, would it be so dependent on Russia today? Couldn’t Europe have prepared its energy grid to become self-sufficient? Xavier Blass, author of The World for Sale, says: “Russian gas sales have hit record highs since the fight broke out.”
For decades America and its allies have projected their own elective thinking as a strategy. The US and NATO allies hoped that Russia would assimilate the ideas of a peaceful and prosperous Europe after the Cold War. That’s how the Nixon administration invested in friendship with China. His government then supported China’s entry into the WTO in the hope that one day China would join mainstream democracies.
The question that should haunt the West and the rules-based world order is: What are the options for China as it moves to ‘reunite Taiwan’, according to Jinping? Can the US and its allies then see sanctions as a deterrent? The question to be answered is whether the United Nations, in its current framework, is able to preserve the sovereignty and rules-based world order? Can the West agree to a more representative Security Council? It is said that nothing happens for decades and then in a few weeks, decades of work is done. The end of history is also the beginning of history.