Comparisons are being drawn between potential escalation of sanctions against Russia and, say, sanctions against Iran that failed to change Tehran's behaviour and, if anything, had a rally-around-the-flag effect. This is not a particularly valid comparison.
First of all, it is a lot easier to present sanctions against Iran as "unjust." After all, why should Iran be denied a nuclear bomb when others have it? (The same, by the way, applies to North Korea). But in Russia's case we are dealing with something else entirely.
Sanctions are being proposed to penalise Russia for the use of chemical weapons against its own opposition activists; the narrative of "injustice" falls flat here. True, the domestic audiences will still be presented with the familiar line of "the West is trying to keep us down."
But it'll be a hard sell with he elites, since everybody perfectly understands what's happening and why, and, moreover, who is to blame.
BTW, the parallel with Afghanistan/1979 is especially pertinent here because then, too, the elites were fully aware that sanctions were not for nothing - they were a consequence of actions Moscow itself took, fully aware of being morally in the wrong.
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And maybe the last series of remarks on Russia's "divorce" from Europe. Europe should exercise strategic patience. The reality is - however the Russian Eurosceptics try to frame it - quality of life across much of Europe is incomparably better than in Russia.
The possibilities for personal growth, self-actualisation - are all incomparably better. Personal freedoms are much wider than in Russia. Legal protections of individual rights are much stronger. Personal incomes are generally much higher.
Moreover, Putinism is a barren idea. It has nothing to offer to the world, except for the dubious freedom of venting one's racism or homophobia (but it comes with a price of having to keep your mouth shut on Putin's transgressions and of having to join Russia's WWII cult).
On the question of Russia sanctions - and putting on my historian's hat - the following two considerations come to mind. 1) In the short term, sanctions can and do result in a dramatic worsening of relations; 2) in the longer term, they can be useful in changing behaviour. 👇🏿
Let's consider the following interesting example. In 1979 the Soviet leadership considered whether or not to invade Afghanistan. In March 1979, they firmly decided against it, and one of the reasons put forward - I'd argue the crucial reason - was that it would ruin detente.
Of course, by then detente was already on life support but the prospect of a superpower summit (took place in Vienna later that year), plus expectations of breakthroughs in arms control, helped steer the discussion towards non-intervention.
politico.eu/article/estoni…. "When we impose sanctions, some ask after six months, ‘Have they worked?’ And if they haven’t, ‘Remove them because they don’t work.’ But actually it is a longer process."
I'd have to agree with @kajakallas here. Not only is this a longer process - sometimes stretching decades - but the effectiveness of sanctions is often under-appreciated because of the mistaken view that their aim is to reverse bad behaviour.
Often, the aim is to deter the sanctioned party from further missteps (in which case, the effectiveness is hard to prove because one would have to demonstrate that actions that did not take place did not take place *because* of sanctions).
rt.com/russia/515246-…. I try not to retweet anything by Russia Today in order not to amplify State propaganda but this piece is fairly interesting.
It compares the ongoing prosecution of Navalny for alleged defamation of a WWII veteran with a case in the UK, where a 35-year old man is being brought to court for insulting Captain Tom. More broadly, the author argues that Russia's WWII cult is "normal," compares it to the UK.
The argument here is very much in line with the common and largely discredited RT take that things happening in Russia are entirely normal because they also happen in the West. Here's where the author gets it fundamentally wrong. First of all, the scale.
atlanticcouncil.org/content-series…. Have read the new Mister X on China. Problematic. The very first page proclaims that Xi Jinping has "returned to classical Marxism Leninism," which inter alia show the author has no clue about what Marxism Leninism is.
Or here. What risk-averse post-Mao predecessors? Meaning, "invading Vietnam in 1979 risk-averse"? Or perhaps "Shooting missiles at Taiwan in 1996 risk-averse"? I have no patience with historical backgrounds that are start out by getting historical facts completely wrong.
Or this. How was China a status quo power under Xi's predecessors? I think the author is trying to say that it was not trying to overturn the international order. But this was less a matter of intention than of capabilities. If you are powerful enough to set the rules, you do.
Dismayed about Navalny. However, his arrest was predictable (I don't think anyone who followed this story was actually surprised). The issue is not Putin's "fear" of Navalny - it's Putin's credibility. He had signalled that he did not want Navalny back, promising arrest.
If Navalny were allowed to go free in Moscow, the inevitable conclusion would be that Putin was weak, that he was "afraid" to arrest him. Now, much depends on the international reaction. Sanctions have already been ramped up but could of course be massively extended.
My expectation (alas) is that the EU won't do it: it would require much greater cohesion than what the EU can actually afford. However, if they did, and if Navalny became a trading chip in this game, you'd expect the regime to strip him of his citizenship, and then deport him.