5 ms·

Stop Putin, Block Russia from Swift

60 points by cn007b 5y ago

rcpt 5y ago
Personally I'm very happy that we don't do international policy and sanctions via direct democracy.
- Gortal278 5y ago
  +1
- xiphias2 5y ago
  A petition or a Tweet poll is very far from direct democracy. I have spoken to a person in Switzerland, where direct democracy exists, and she told me that people vote stupid things, but then as they feel the consequences, they start to vote more responsibly. Of course you don't start it by something as serious as what is happening now.
  - IdontRememberIt 5y ago
    (Swiss speaking) What is important is that the vote/referendum process must be slow. Very slow. We often see a trendy referendum being launched because of an event. Years later when we finally have to vote about it, we realize that it was only an historical parenthesis.
- IdontRememberIt 5y ago
  On the contrary. If you cannot trust the people being informed properly in an efficient political system, it means that you have an issue somewhere. Not trusting the people because we think that most are too dumb means that we praise a census suffrage or indirect form of it. I am Swiss. I am often disappointed by vote results. The system is not perfect. But at least we decided.
Reichhardt 5y ago
Economic sanctions will do nothing for the Ukrainian men and women fighting for their homes on the ground. Western nations need to begin running air missions over Ukraine directly. With control of the air, the local Ukrainian troops can easily triumph on the ground.
- jlcoff 5y ago
- dragontamer 5y ago
  World leaders are scared to give more weapons to Ukraine, let alone actually fight in that space. Germany is having issues delivering the 5,000 promised helmets, let alone any arms deal to Ukrainians. Lets start with a more reasonable goal, like NATO countries standing together and actually arming the Ukrainians? ------ Ukrainians need more missiles to keep up their defenses. Politically speaking, that's where the discussion lies for now. Its unreasonable to expect the various world powers to give more than that right now... and seems like a political battle to even ask for this much.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  Sanctions work and have worked against Russia[0]. Anyone telling you otherwise is wrong. What's important here is to maintain the moral upper ground. China won't be able to withstand public opinion swaying to the side of the Ukrainians as more and more video evidence surfaces of massacres. If we offer real military support to the Ukrainians, China would use any video of our success as justification to begin helping the Russian side. Protip: If you want to research the effects of sanctions, go to Google News search and set the time period to exclude articles from after 2020ish. You'll get higher-quality articles. [0]https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-sanctions-stop-putin/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-sanctions-stop-putin/
  - tetromino_ 5y ago
    The Brookings article you linked to directly contradicts your point. It argues (correctly) that sanctions will hurt Russia's people but are extremely unlikely to change Putin's policies, and in fact, will only entrench Putin's control over what remains of the Russian economy. I suspect you might have stopped reading the article at the first paragraph - which presents a thesis that the rest of the article then proceeds to analyze and disprove.
nostromo 5y ago
This would weaken the US and strengthen China, as China would prefer more countries use their alternative to SWIFT, CIPS.
optimalsolver 5y ago
How many people complaining about the weaksauce sanctions proposed against Russia would be prepared to deal with the effects of more stringent measures? I'm thinking especially of people in Europe castigating politicians for not wanting to clamp down hard on the Russian energy sector. The way I see it, the europols are in a no-win situation. If they go easy on Russia and keep the gas and oil flowing, they look like weak and waffling appeasers, which yes, they are. If they cut off the Russian gas supply, will the people posting Ukrainian flags on Twitter remember or care about the noble root causes when faced with unprecedented energy prices? I.e. the politicians know their people better than they know themselves, and they're well aware that showing support on social media is one thing, but being asked to make drastic sacrifices is quite another. These politicians will not survive if they do what their voters are clamoring for them to do. Of course, they probably wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken energy strategy advice from Greta Thunberg, but that's neither here nor there.
- ginko 5y ago
  >Of course, they probably wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken energy strategy advice from Greta Thunberg, but that's neither here nor there. How does this make sense? If anything getting rid of the dependence on fossil fuels would have helped immensely now.
  - dmarcos 5y ago
    My superficial understanding is that Germany divested on Nuclear and other tech and focused on Solar + Wind + Natural Gas. They’re now over -relying on Russian gas to cover energy needs. There are no gas lines from southern to central Europe due to several political interests / disagreements (Spain imports Gas from Northern Africa) Don’t claim deep knowledge and happy to be educated.
    - ginko 5y ago
      Germany phasing out nuclear was announced after the Fukushima nuclear desaster in 2011. Thunberg was 8 at that time. Also nuclear energy is mostly CO2 neutral so I don't see how this is related.
belter 5y ago
Watched Jens Stoltenberg press conference that finished minutes ago. During the conference, three times, the Secretary General of NATO, stated Russia rhetoric changed. He mentioned several times, Russia stated they want NATO to withdraw troops from half their NATO members or there could be "technical military consequences". Both Europe and US leaders are still asleep. There is a different dynamic going on and many are still in denial.
- krono 5y ago
  Did it ever cross your mind this might have been on purpose? Grand strategy is kind of their thing. Also, consider for a moment where NATO gets its intelligence from, and then compare that to whatever sources your views are based on.
throwaway_4ever 5y ago
It was just a month ago we lived in a world where IBM was scathed for working with Nazi Germany. Now something tells me people will come up with excuses too…
dpweb 5y ago
NATO is adversarial to Russia, so it shouldn't be NATO, but some entity should be brokering a deal here, not seeing much upside in escalating militarily or even banning Swift. There's ultimately no war to be won against Russia, Putin knows this unfortunately, but that's what it is.
patlucky 5y ago
It is a game of who blinks first. Block SWIFT maybe take effect only in long term, maybe helping China and hurts Russian people. But if keep on adding weight to the sanctions, show the solidarity of the world, guess who will blink first?
CodeGlitch 5y ago
Russia is playing a game of chess. They have several moves ahead mapped out and an overall strategy. The West came to the game thinking it was tic tac toe... I don't think blocking swift will achieve the expected result, Putin will have a move against this.
_kix 5y ago
Hey, Russia has people who have been and are fighting against this shitstorm. Block Putin's money, not the people's. Russia ≠ Putin

60 points by cn007b 5y ago

rcpt 5y ago

Personally I'm very happy that we don't do international policy and sanctions via direct democracy.

Gortal278 5y ago
+1
xiphias2 5y ago
A petition or a Tweet poll is very far from direct democracy. I have spoken to a person in Switzerland, where direct democracy exists, and she told me that people vote stupid things, but then as they feel the consequences, they start to vote more responsibly. Of course you don't start it by something as serious as what is happening now.
- IdontRememberIt 5y ago
  (Swiss speaking) What is important is that the vote/referendum process must be slow. Very slow. We often see a trendy referendum being launched because of an event. Years later when we finally have to vote about it, we realize that it was only an historical parenthesis.
IdontRememberIt 5y ago
On the contrary. If you cannot trust the people being informed properly in an efficient political system, it means that you have an issue somewhere. Not trusting the people because we think that most are too dumb means that we praise a census suffrage or indirect form of it. I am Swiss. I am often disappointed by vote results. The system is not perfect. But at least we decided.

Reichhardt 5y ago

Economic sanctions will do nothing for the Ukrainian men and women fighting for their homes on the ground. Western nations need to begin running air missions over Ukraine directly. With control of the air, the local Ukrainian troops can easily triumph on the ground.

jlcoff 5y ago
dragontamer 5y ago
World leaders are scared to give more weapons to Ukraine, let alone actually fight in that space. Germany is having issues delivering the 5,000 promised helmets, let alone any arms deal to Ukrainians. Lets start with a more reasonable goal, like NATO countries standing together and actually arming the Ukrainians? ------ Ukrainians need more missiles to keep up their defenses. Politically speaking, that's where the discussion lies for now. Its unreasonable to expect the various world powers to give more than that right now... and seems like a political battle to even ask for this much.
jimbob45 5y ago
Sanctions work and have worked against Russia[0]. Anyone telling you otherwise is wrong. What's important here is to maintain the moral upper ground. China won't be able to withstand public opinion swaying to the side of the Ukrainians as more and more video evidence surfaces of massacres. If we offer real military support to the Ukrainians, China would use any video of our success as justification to begin helping the Russian side. Protip: If you want to research the effects of sanctions, go to Google News search and set the time period to exclude articles from after 2020ish. You'll get higher-quality articles. [0]https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-sanctions-stop-putin/ https://www.brookings.edu/articles/can-sanctions-stop-putin/
- tetromino_ 5y ago
  The Brookings article you linked to directly contradicts your point. It argues (correctly) that sanctions will hurt Russia's people but are extremely unlikely to change Putin's policies, and in fact, will only entrench Putin's control over what remains of the Russian economy. I suspect you might have stopped reading the article at the first paragraph - which presents a thesis that the rest of the article then proceeds to analyze and disprove.

nostromo 5y ago

This would weaken the US and strengthen China, as China would prefer more countries use their alternative to SWIFT, CIPS.

optimalsolver 5y ago

How many people complaining about the weaksauce sanctions proposed against Russia would be prepared to deal with the effects of more stringent measures? I'm thinking especially of people in Europe castigating politicians for not wanting to clamp down hard on the Russian energy sector. The way I see it, the europols are in a no-win situation. If they go easy on Russia and keep the gas and oil flowing, they look like weak and waffling appeasers, which yes, they are. If they cut off the Russian gas supply, will the people posting Ukrainian flags on Twitter remember or care about the noble root causes when faced with unprecedented energy prices? I.e. the politicians know their people better than they know themselves, and they're well aware that showing support on social media is one thing, but being asked to make drastic sacrifices is quite another. These politicians will not survive if they do what their voters are clamoring for them to do. Of course, they probably wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken energy strategy advice from Greta Thunberg, but that's neither here nor there.

ginko 5y ago
>Of course, they probably wouldn't be in this position if they hadn't taken energy strategy advice from Greta Thunberg, but that's neither here nor there. How does this make sense? If anything getting rid of the dependence on fossil fuels would have helped immensely now.
- dmarcos 5y ago
  My superficial understanding is that Germany divested on Nuclear and other tech and focused on Solar + Wind + Natural Gas. They’re now over -relying on Russian gas to cover energy needs. There are no gas lines from southern to central Europe due to several political interests / disagreements (Spain imports Gas from Northern Africa) Don’t claim deep knowledge and happy to be educated.
  - ginko 5y ago
    Germany phasing out nuclear was announced after the Fukushima nuclear desaster in 2011. Thunberg was 8 at that time. Also nuclear energy is mostly CO2 neutral so I don't see how this is related.

belter 5y ago

Watched Jens Stoltenberg press conference that finished minutes ago. During the conference, three times, the Secretary General of NATO, stated Russia rhetoric changed. He mentioned several times, Russia stated they want NATO to withdraw troops from half their NATO members or there could be "technical military consequences". Both Europe and US leaders are still asleep. There is a different dynamic going on and many are still in denial.

krono 5y ago
Did it ever cross your mind this might have been on purpose? Grand strategy is kind of their thing. Also, consider for a moment where NATO gets its intelligence from, and then compare that to whatever sources your views are based on.

throwaway_4ever 5y ago

It was just a month ago we lived in a world where IBM was scathed for working with Nazi Germany. Now something tells me people will come up with excuses too…

dpweb 5y ago

NATO is adversarial to Russia, so it shouldn't be NATO, but some entity should be brokering a deal here, not seeing much upside in escalating militarily or even banning Swift. There's ultimately no war to be won against Russia, Putin knows this unfortunately, but that's what it is.

patlucky 5y ago

It is a game of who blinks first. Block SWIFT maybe take effect only in long term, maybe helping China and hurts Russian people. But if keep on adding weight to the sanctions, show the solidarity of the world, guess who will blink first?

CodeGlitch 5y ago

Russia is playing a game of chess. They have several moves ahead mapped out and an overall strategy. The West came to the game thinking it was tic tac toe... I don't think blocking swift will achieve the expected result, Putin will have a move against this.

_kix 5y ago

Hey, Russia has people who have been and are fighting against this shitstorm. Block Putin's money, not the people's. Russia ≠ Putin