Biden will now address the nation at 1pm EST regarding the situation in Ukraine. It was just moved up an hour.
this is the first time putin took territory while under sanctions. in 08/14 russia was in good standing, and was even involved in sanctions against iran.
i think sanctions against russia did freeze the donbass conflict, and four of those were under a hapless pompeo state dept. and it still isn’t clear if russia achieved anything lasting at this moment. like javelins will start flying when separatists start encroachments onto donetsk/luhansk oblast’ currently controlled by ukraine.
iow, sanctions are not a silver bullet but it’s not as simple as “not effective”
Except no one’s arguing for autocracy, simply against war.
If you offered me a Putin style dictatorship in the UK or a huge war costing hundreds of thousands of lives here, I’ll take the Putin thing as the lesser evil.
And that’s my own back yard.
You think he didn’t know that sanctions would be the consequences for this action? It’s already baked in.
Well, we’ll see. I don’t think they’re going to stop him from doing whatever he wants.
The reason why Saddam isn’t still there is hundreds of thousands of dead Iraqis - many more than his regime killed.
no shit! had no idea
this is coming from a podcast so i guess i can also be skeptical about its insight. prior to crimea, putin saw the relatively mild sanctions used against iran, and knew he would be able to counter them. after crimea, russia was actually surprised at the severity, and was caught off guard. they were so mad, they installed countersanctions, which really only meant they created more sanctions on themselves with respect to where to buy food products.
the economic downturn that followed was not expected by putin. it definitely slowed him down, and the entire reason he waited to take parts of donbass, as opposed to annexing it at the same time as crimea.
crimea still considered occupied territory by the way, so russian businesses with presence in the west do not do business there. so, bigger russian banks and telecoms. that’s a significant economic downgrade for the region, but it’s pressure is admittedly slow.
eta: i don’t expect a sudden donbass renaissance, except actoss the border in ukraine.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
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Incredible insight, as always. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
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wrt sanctions was wondering when sanctions actually worked:
this list isn’t too impressive tbh
This could be a separate thread, but states can’t secede? Civil war implies they can’t? I think the framers thought they could and it is not prohibited by the constitution.
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Texas v White says no, but lolaw on this matter imo.
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The thing anyone should be striving for is to learn from historical precedent. Forcing a sovereign nation to supplicate to the will of its adversary by force against the wishes of the majority of its populace is a recipe for bloodshed and misery. The only ones who benefit in these scenarios are arms dealers and weapons manufacturers.
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I read up on the Texas Revolution and subsequent annexation by the US, and it does seem to pretty much be the same playbook as this.
Have you heard about South and Central America in the 1500s? The wonder of religion. Convert or die. Or Convert and die.
It’s been going on for thousands of years. Welcome to civilization. Hint it’s not very civilized.
Think that’s a little superficial. More than half of Mexico revolted in that period, the feds were trying to pull back in voting rights and massively pulling back on stage authority, it was a crazy ass time. It wasn’t just the Americans in Texas who revolted.
Nothing like that has happened in Ukraine.
Are you saying the American invasion of Mexico was more justified than the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Trying to follow along here.