I think this is good example, that sanction can have undesired effect.
If the goal was to interrupt commerce - I guess it was interrupted for a day or two.
But now:
- Russia is pushed to double efforts to achieve independence from Western infrastructure
- Freedom advocates in the West now have very clear example, that even SSL certs can be used to silence (to cancel) anyone
- The next logical step for Russia (I think they are doing it already) is to build it's own SSL infrastructure. And probably DNS, too. West probably not going to trust it, so it will result that people in the West and in Russia & East will have limited means of communication (China scenario), which is net negative for both Russia, but negative for the West, too.
Oh, and the garden gnomes here and the fake Eiffel Tower in Las Vegas are authentic?! Considering their Communist past, just look 20 years from now and let's see who's laughing then!
Well, Russians can said same thing: we can survive without West just fine.
Even North Korea - struggle, but keeps ok on it's own. Russia will have no issues, because it has much more resources, and is in much better position.
My point was, that it's unfortunate, that today situation shows that we - West and Russia can't live peacefully together, and it's not 100% Russia's failure.
As it said in the article, the backstory of this move is that DigiCert revoked SSL certificates of some major Russian banks that come under the US sanctions, including their Central Bank (the Russian Fed). And all their sites, remote banking, 3-D secure pages went down for some time immediately. IMO it is a pretty understandable move for the Russians as a national security measure not to depend on some random American companies switching off Russian critical infrastructure.
It's not that extreme. They have the BRICS sphere of influence on their side.
More likely, the SWIFT sanctions will prove a mistake for "the West," when it realizes the downstream effects of cutting off Russia from the dominant payment network of the global reserve currency. Russian banks have already started offering accounts in yuan. This will lead to further balkanization (unfortunate pun notwithstanding) of world reserve currencies, which means increased decentralization and a reduced dependency on the dollar. Eventually the world will naturally diversify their reserve holdings to the point that the dollar loses its power as leverage in diplomatic negotiations.
At this point, there will be jockeying for position of a dominant currency, and it will be more than just fiat currency in the race. In the next 5 years, we will almost certainly see the emergence of a central bank digital currency. Within the next 10 years, it will be clear that paper USD will not be the dominant currency in 2040, and it will likely be obvious which currency will take its place.
As far as the SSL certs go, all these arguments also apply to balkanization of internet infrastructure. In fact, they'll happen together, since the information networks banning Russians refuse to interface with their payment networks anyway.
Is this actually the greatest opportunity for Russian entrepreneurs since the fall of the Soviet Union? Suddenly there is demand for an alternative to every Western online service. The products that were previously 80% as good as their Western counterparts now find themselves as the leading option in the local market.
This same pattern happened in China when they introduced The Great Firewall — the censorship regime favored local providers, so they had a route to catch up with the Silicon Valley companies. Now look at the Chinese internet economy. Russia doesn't have nearly the population of China, nor the population growth that China did the past twenty years, but it's not unreasonable to expect significant growth in Russian internet sector over the next 5-10 years (after the dust settles on sanctions and the winners emerge).
I think you're forgetting how small Russia is. They're on par GDP-wise with Australia or Brazil (equivalent to Ohio and Pennsylvania together). Sure, not negligible, but at the same time not enough to revolutionize the world finance order.
It is very wishful to pretend that Russia can cut itself off from rich countries amounting to over half the world’s economic output and still come out fine. They are already incredibly poor by western standards, they will only get poorer.
>It is very wishful to pretend that Russia can cut itself off from rich countries amounting to over half the world’s economic output and still come out fine
China and India rising will make these "rich countries" start to seem poorer at an accelerating rate and the "half the world’s economic output" fact will not be true for very much longer.
> They have the BRICS sphere of influence on their side.
So and so, my banks in BRICS countries are refusing to accept incoming transfers from Russian banks. At least in China, India and the UAE Russian money seems to be a no-go.
Pretty sure other BRICS countries are only providing moral support at this point.
I suspect Russia will soon enough find itself closely intertwined with Chinese ecosystems and standards. I think Putin has envy for Xi’s autocratic-techno-state and wishes to emulate it. What better way than to become a part of it.
Yeah with Russia cut off from rest of world, it'll be cheaper for China to take Russian resources such as oil, nickel. Russia will rely on Chinese manufacturing and technology. On the finance side, Russia need China for gov't debt and corporate debt and payments system. All this allows China more power to control Russia (e.g., sanction Russia when they fall out of line).
More broadly, I think what's happening vindicates China's strategy and will be a watershed moment.
We're seeing that most key global infrastructures for telecoms, internet, finance, etc. and pretty much all global tech companies are controlled by the USA and that they will weaponise everything against you as they see fit.
The logical conclusion is that, if you can, you should build your own alternatives, which is what China has been doing. Things are going to become more fragmented from now on.
The West is “weaponizing everything” as you put it against Russia “as they see fit” in response to the actual aggression against another sovereign country using actual weapons.
There is also another alternative you forgot to add to the list that Russia could consider - don’t invade neighboring countries, don’t murder people. It seems to work fine for, I don’t know, let’s say Iceland - much smaller, much weaker country. Wonder why is that?
This is an emotional view based on the narrative we are being flooded with.
What's happening to Russia is because they are not the West and are acting against the West, not because "an actual aggression against another sovereign country using actual weapons", which something the West and allies routinely do as well (and with no less horrible consequences to populations but without any sanctions).
No, it’s happening exactly because it invaded and is killing people in Ukraine. Why invent an alternative and much more complicated reason?
Russia was a mess, weak and poor for 20 of the last 30 years. All the West did during this time was invest and assist trying to integrate a former adversary into the world economy.
> ...This is an emotional view based on the narrative we are being flooded with.
Over 2mil refugee exodus from Ukraine in a mere 2week span is the flood of lives, not the emotional narrative.
Any practical ideas to halting the still ongoing Russian effort to demolish Ukraine? Asking the Russian state to "just stop" does not seem to work for now.
I don’t in general have too much fondness for US military adventures or alliances, though I think in fairness they fall on a spectrum from pretty sketchy to at least well intentioned.
But that doesn’t make me unable to judge other events on their merits. Two wrongs don’t make a right, false equivocation and all that.
That is completely orthogonal to what I am saying. I am saying that these sanctions and restrictions are only applied to US adversaries. So they do not serve at all, whatsoever, in any shape or form, to dissuade wrongs. They solely serve to create an unequal cost to the use of force, which creates a geopolitical advantage.
It has nothing to do with the moral content of anything, really. It's clear that the main criterion for whether this happens or not isn't morality, it's just whether the US approves.
Yes, there are many. The Saudis, the Israelis, Turkey, the French and British (Libya), the US itself (Iraq, Vietnam), etc...
Any single of these countries in the last 20 years have engaged in wars of aggression that have done more damage than Russia has and is likely to inflict on Ukraine, and thus deserve a similar magnitude of response.
Ethnic minority suppressed by majority. Declares independence. Fights back. The US/NATO intervenes with military force against targets in Serbia, offers a path for accession into EU and NATO.
Ukraine and Donbass(very bad):
Ethnic minority suppressed by majority. Declares independence. Fights back. The EAEU/CSTO intervenes with military force against targets in Ukraine, offers a path for accession to EAEU/CSTO.
I struggle to find the difference. How is Kosovo different from Donbass?
Russia committed mass murder in the region (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor) and sent Russians to take the land from historically Ukrainian regions. This all happened in the last 100 years.
Slobodan Milošević was committing genocide against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, protecting them was the right thing to do. Nothing similar is happening in Donbas. In Donbas Putin funded rebellion and backed it with his soldiers to create the tension that existed prior to the invasion.
The point is the Ukrainian government isn't the cause - the cause there is Putin as well, as he instigated the rebellion and is backing it. There is no movement for Donbas to join Russia beyond the one Russia itself created.
And the reason the area has many folks who identify with Russia is due to mass killing of Ukrainians in the area and sending Russian families to take their land: https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor
Keep in mind, the 3000 dead you claim are, best as we can tell, fabricated by Putin. Please look into it further before repeating it. Here's a good rundown of Donbas:
> Keep in mind, the 3000 dead you claim are, best as we can tell, fabricated by Putin.
It's impossible to have a rational conversation about this topic when data about civilian casualties provided by the UN[1] is framed as fabricated by Putin without providing even the smallest piece of evidence.
Also, the second article you linked to is arguing about the semantics of the word "genocide". If you want we can argue semantics, but even that seems quite difficult when since 2014 the neo-Nazi Azov battalion has been officially integrated into the Ukranian army. Of course, the article conveniently skips mentioning both the word "Azov" and "nazi".
The document you linked proves my point. Included in the number of civilian casualties are those killed by Russia shooting down a civilian airliner. Putin's fabricated claim is that Ukraine is responsible for these deaths - when in fact, he is, since he started the fighting - not Ukraine. Your earlier comment was "I guess the 3000 dead civilians just bombed themselves" which implied Ukraine killed them.
It isn't semantics to suggest terms should be used correctly. People dying because Putin's ruthless ambition is not the same as genocide. Attempting to eradicate a people is. That is not something Ukraine was doing in Donbas - they were protecting their own territory, and yes civilians die in combat. Again I point out, combat started by Russia.
Bringing this back to the earlier topic, this is different from Kosovo because Russia (Putin) are the ones causing the conflict and getting people killed. There was no ethnic cleansing that Putin stopped with his invasions into Ukraine.
There have been massive pro-Russia protests in the eastern part of Ukraine after the 2014 Maidan revolution, which often have been brutally suppressed by Ukrainian authorities. It's a fact that most people in that area feels closer to Russia than Europe. You are disregarding their right to self determination just because they are favorable and, of course, backed militarily and financially, by Russian.
Seeing as the US has funded opposition movements for years, sent military aid and trained neo-Nazi militias which took on a promiment role during the Maidan revolution, I don't see how it can be a problem that Russia interevenes to support ethnic-Russians in the region. This kind of double standard is mind boggling.
Keep in mind, the only reason there are large Russian populations there are due to the USSR killing ethnic Ukrainians purposefully and sending Russians there to take their homes. Read more about it here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
Beyond that, even if you take Putin's propaganda that eastern Ukraine wants to be part of Russia you must reconcile his statement that Lenin made a mistake allowing Ukraine to exist and the fact that he has invaded all of Ukraine and is trying to decapitate the government. He even has kill lists of Ukrainians to exterminate: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/21/1082096026/russia-kill-list-u...
> No, in those regions the will to stay Ukraine outnumbers the will to become a Russian vassal or part of Russia:
From the IRI report:
> The sample consisted of 2,400 permanent residents of Ukraine aged 18 and older and eligible to vote, and is representative of the general population by gender, age, region and size of settlement. An additional 1,378 respondents were also surveyed in the Ukrainian-controlled territories of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.
So basically they only surveyed people from Ukraininan controlled areas and the result is they want to stay with Ukraine, what a surprise.
I understand the argument about the Holodomor, but the fact is that at the moment the majority of the population in those area are pro-Russian. If you look at history then, Crimea was historically Russian and only given to Ukraine in 1954 as part of a deal. According to your reasoning you must've been favorable to its annexation then, otherwise this is another example of applying double standards only when convenient.
In respect to Iran US has poor history as it relates to the Iranian Revolution, but with things as they currently are - do you believe Iran should be unopposed?
By the way, it’s not that I think people should ignore what happened 80 years ago, but at the same time I think it’s a long time, politics change and old conflicts are not as relevant as some like to argue. UK is not the colonial Britain, modern Germany and Japan are not the Axis of WW2.
Though Russia appears to be good ol’ scarecrow Russia, so I guess some things change and some stay the same…
And call me naive, but I am of the opinion that US of the last 30 years honestly tries to be on the right side of history and it’s not the hegemon real despots of the world try to paint it as.
And lastly Afghanistan - I mean you can argue with me I guess, but I think the 20 years and trillions spent can serve as an evidence that there US really tried to do something at least well intentioned.
I guess what I am trying to say that these days I hear a lot of “but look over there!” kind of argument, and they often even contain some truth to them, but I think they also contain a lot of differences that are overlooked to better serve the argument.
But even if they were exactly the same - you don’t justify an atrocity by pointing at another atrocity.
You stated that the west, in scare quotations, was only weaponizing commerce because of the exceptional circumstance being that the target was engaged in an invasion of a country. Contradicting the assertion of the parent comment that the imperial core countries will weaponize everything that they have against countries that don't align with their interests.
I brought up an example of three countries that have been similarly condemned and were not invading anybody.
Regarding The Iran comment. Why are you even thinking about a far-away country needing to be "opposed"? This is a very weird world police mindset to me. Do you think NATO shouldn't be opposed?
America spent 2 trillion on it's own military budget in Afghanistan. Half of which were interest payments. The US didn't spend trillions to sponsor Afghanistan's infrastructure.
The US occupied that country for 20 years and destroyed not only it's infrastructure but the fabric of that society as well as the mental well-being of several generations of Afganis. The toll is incalculable. How you spun 20 years to be evidence of benevolence, I'll never know. So I assume Russia occupying civilized Ukraine for the next two decades, despite violent, traumatic and desperate resistance will also be seen as benevolence?
In ~May 2020 when US and Colombian mercenaries sponsored by the CIA attacked the country in military speed boats near the capital Caracas with the aim of killing/capturing the President and linking with dissident groups inside Venezuela and do a coup
I mean to say that I am sure Maduro will claim that he foiled a CIA plot there, but I haven’t seen any evidence that US government has anything to do with that action.
Sorry, 60 of them. This is what wikipedia has to say about that:
“ Commentators and observers, including Guaidó officials who initially contacted Silvercorp, described the operation as amateurish, underfunded, poorly-planned, having little or no chance of success, and a suicide mission.”
Just some randos out for a little assassination fun. Happens all the time in the world that a bunch of foreigners attempt a stupid but audacious assassination attempt right in the middle of a concerted effort by an adversary to overthrow a government. You know the CIA wasn't involved because American movies depicts them as superhuman secret agents and these guys were the opposite of that.
I am sort of running out of steam keeping this up here.
I was honestly keeping an open mind to hearing some convincing evidence or even some mainstream reporting sources that this wasn’t a poorly put together private mercenary action.
China have done it because they have superpower ambition, and because they can. There are areas where they still haven’t been able to do the same such as jet engine.
Also, not everyone can build their own. Most of the world will continue to use the current one. Some other like Russia will use China’s one. Do you think China will be less aggressive than the US in weaponizing everything against you as they see fit? Russia will be a lesser partner to China. The dream of Russia Empire glory will still be a dream only.
This is such an American/Anglo point of view, who can only think in terms of empire, master/slave, etc.
As an American, it's clear we're making increasingly poor and erratic decisions because we simply refuse to understand that there isn't one universal culture (Western) that everyone should have, and if they don't, they're evil.
We've done a lot of feel-good things in response to Russia's military operation in Ukraine, but I don't think it works out well in the end. America is significantly weaker because of the actions we've already taken, and I'm confident we'll double down a few dozen more times before things stabilize again.
BRICS countries can sense the opportunity Russia's isolation by the West has given them.
> This is such an American/Anglo point of view, who can only think in terms of empire, master/slave, etc.
No, this is a human point of view. China has been consistently engaged in this exact practice since before the idea of 'China' even really existed. Strong groups will ultimately culturally / economically / militarily subsume weaker ones. It's how families grow into tribes grow into federations grow into city-states grow into nations grow into empires. China well and truly understands how this works. Pretending that everyone on the continent is actually Han Chinese is practically the state religion, for good reason - it helps to expand the in-group and galvanize the tribe against the out-group for the purpose of perpetuating the above cycle.
It's fashionable to pretend that western imperialism is the only imperialism. It's only because the west is so good at cultural and economic imperialism (and rarely actual military imperialism) that people make this point. The west is generally successful at spreading it's values because people want to adopt those values. The same is not true of more autocratic systems.
What? It's entirely military imperialism. It's what everything else built upon.
> The west is generally successful at spreading it's values because people want to adopt those values.
No. It's because we forcefeed foreign populations with propaganda.
> The same is not true of more autocratic systems.
Yes, the autocrats are more honest about it. We do it in a very insidious and sneaky way.
You are just repeating the "white man's burden" propaganda. The white man needs to christianize and civilize the world. Now, it's the white man needs to spread "western values". I guess african, muslim, chinese, indian, etc values don't matter. Africans, asians, native americans, aborigines, etc didn't want to adopt christianity. It was forced upon them. Just like "western values" will be forced upon them in due time unless the world free itself from western domination.
I agree with you that imperialism isn't a solely a western tradition. The arabs, persians, chinese, indians, etc all have dabbled in it. I'm against all of it. If it was arabs, chinese, persians, indians, etc doing what you are advocating, you'd call it genocide. But somehow you twist "genocide" as something these people want done to them by us.
You don’t need propaganda to realise that then west is unfathomably rich compared to the rest of the world, and to want to be unfathomably rich yourself. The reason it is so rich is that it has developed inclusive liberal democratic institutions that have enabled it to rather consistently make better choices than the rest of the world. People like you are unable to believe this, and choose to misguide yourselves that it’s “military imperialism” or “propaganda”. The Soviets had both of those things and what happened to them?
> The reason it is so rich is that it has developed inclusive liberal democratic institutions that have enabled it to rather consistently make better choices than the rest of the world.
Simply false. It's because the west was able to steal continents from native and aboriginal peoples and colonize indians, africans, etc. The west became rich before much of the west became a "liberal democracy".
> People like you are unable to believe this, and choose to misguide yourselves that it’s “military imperialism” or “propaganda”.
I'm from the wealthiest country in the world. I know how we became rich. Not sure where you are from and what "liberal democracy" has to do with anything. It wasn't "liberal democracy" which allowed us to expand from 13 states to 50 states. It wasn't "liberal democracy" that allowed Rockefeller to become the wealthiest man in the world via Standard Oil. Britain didn't become wealthy via liberal democracy. Neither did france and the rest of "the west".
> The Soviets had both of those things and what happened to them?
They lost the cold war. That's what happened. If you lose a war, you suffer. Applies just as much as to a liberal democracy as it does to a communist state.
Which country became wealthy from liberal democracy? Not a single one. Not taiwan, not south korea, not japan, not the US, not any country in europe. The trick is you become rich and then you can play around with liberal democracy. I used to believe the liberal democracy nonsense too. Then I started to think and like most propaganda, it turns out it is nonsense.
I would encourage you to remove the tinfoil hat and improve your understanding of economics, and I think you’ll realise that distribution of power and decision making played an incredibly outsized role in the rise of the European continent and later the United States.
If you want somewhere to start, I can recommend the work of Daron Acemoglu.
I gave you historical and economic facts. All you have done is respond with childish ad hominems.
> and I think you’ll realise that distribution of power and decision making played an incredibly outsized role in the rise of the European continent and later the United States.
The british empire, french empire, etc became wealthy as monarchies. And the US became wealthy while 75% of the population weren't allowed to vote.
Unless you are saying the US, britain, france, etc became wealthy after ww2.
You say liberal democracy is why the west is rich. I proved to you its false. The US, britain, france, etc were all wealthy before liberal democracy. When facts disprove your premise, you don't attack the facts, you dismiss the premise. It's basic logic and reasoning.
No, the west has been monomaniacal and there is no reason to expect succeeding world orders to crusade the same way. Indeed, preceding hegemonies did not behave this way.
Sure, well do we need to do business with countries that don't respect international borders and regularly commit war crimes? You're blaming the USA and the west on the invasion of the Ukraine and Russia trying to genocide the Ukrainian people.
Thankfully we're not seeing a total fuck-off-world axis forming here, a 100% antagonist alliance-versus-world relationship forming. China has recently refused to resupply parts for the Russian air transport systems[1] (so claims Russia).
I don't think you are wrong at all. But I don't think this intertwining will be as mutually desired & reinforcing as Russia might perhaps have hoped.
the USSR didn't do too bad. NK just didn't start with much. Russia has a lot of tech. but look at NK: they have internet, developed nuclear weapons, trying to launch satellites, surviving covid (I assume), did not get invaded by US, still chugging along
Oh yeah, NK isn’t that bad. USSR didn’t do too badly…
USSR in 90ies was equivalent technologically to the West in 60ies-70ies. I was born in USSR. And when I got to travel Europe in the 90ies - the difference was astounding.
And one other thing… That was me comparing capital cities of USSRs western republics. If you take your average outskirt towns on the periphery away from Moscow influence and power - the difference was more like 30-40 years of development.
considering USSR got the brunt of WW2, it's not that bad. peak of USSR was in the 60s anyway, so you should compare at that time. in the 90s, USSR didn't exist anymore
My wife who grew up poor hispanic in Brooklyn is humored that we didn’t have a washing machine in the 90ies while living in the capital, drying clothes on the balcony (or bathroom in the winter).
North Korea started with the "better" part of Korea by most measures, having far more natural resources than the southern portion of the peninsula as well as more arable land. All things being equal, they "ought" to be the richer country.
If the goal was to interrupt commerce - I guess it was interrupted for a day or two.
But now:
- Russia is pushed to double efforts to achieve independence from Western infrastructure
- Freedom advocates in the West now have very clear example, that even SSL certs can be used to silence (to cancel) anyone
- The next logical step for Russia (I think they are doing it already) is to build it's own SSL infrastructure. And probably DNS, too. West probably not going to trust it, so it will result that people in the West and in Russia & East will have limited means of communication (China scenario), which is net negative for both Russia, but negative for the West, too.