4 ms·

What will EU get for this?

jonathanstrange 5y ago
In the short term, sanctioning an action in a civilized manner that used to be a casus belli. In the long run, not allowing Russia to further modernize their military and likely preventing a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction.
- Friday_ 5y ago
  Wait did you understand the question, what will EU get? EU is not afraid of russians or nukes.
  - jonathanstrange 5y ago
    You don't see how sanctioning an action that in the past used to be reason for war and likely preventing nuclear war in the future is something positive? Geopolitics is not your strength, is it? Well, to make it simple for you, EU gets a weak Russian military in the future, which is very desirable. Edit: Oh, I see. I've replied to another 4 day old account. What a coincidence!
    - Friday_ 5y ago
      As i said EU is not worried about Russians. What else?
      - jonathanstrange 5y ago
        The EU is not worried about Russia? From where on earth did you get this bizarre and obviously false view? Every Eastern EU country is extremely worried about Russia right now and NATO has sent reinforcements to them.
        Friday_ 5y ago
        Russia has no power for full invasion of Ukrain let alone EU, so your view is false.
        jonathanstrange 5y ago
        Whether you're trolling or not, you also genuinely don't understand the current situation. So I'll explain it in more detail to you. Putin and other key members of the Russian government have just proven to be unreliable persons who cannot be trusted and negotiated with. This makes future ways to deal with Russia extremely difficult. It is also unrealistic to expect that this is going to get better, the older Putin gets. On the contrary, if he stays in power indefinitely we can expect his revisionary pseudo-historic views and his disrespect for national sovereignty to increase. His successor might even be worse, given the poisoned political climate in Russia today. However, Russia is a major nuclear power. There is a realistic worry within the EU and NATO that Russia would get emboldened by past lackluster responses and risk a calculation that attacking a smaller NATO country might not invariably activate nuclear defense plans. All of this taken together makes imposing heavy sanctions on Russia essentially inevitable. They are the only civilized response available, and not doing anything could have fatal consequences far beyond the EU. Governments across the world rightly realized now - unfortunately, too late - that the comparatively weak response to the 2014 annexation of Crimea has emboldened Putin to order a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They will not repeat this mistake. Edit: Looks like a consensus has been reached and Russia is about to get excluded from SWIFT.
- tablespoon 5y ago
  >> What will EU get for this? > In the short term, sanctioning an action in a civilized manner that used to be a casus belli. In the long run, not allowing Russia to further modernize their military and likely preventing a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction. The EU nomenklatura gets to pat themselves on the back, and that's about it. How will sanctions prevent Russia from "further moderniz[ing] their military"? They can probably get whatever tech they need from China now, if they were previously getting it from the West. How will sanctions prevent "a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction"? If Putin attacks another country, there won't be any more sanctions to enact, and these actions have demonstrated a fundamental unwillingness to engage militarily (e.g. Germany wouldn't even send Ukraine even small guns, so instead they promised * 5000 hats*, which they also apparently failed to deliver).
  - jonathanstrange 5y ago
    > How will sanctions prevent Russia from "further moderniz[ing] their military"? They can probably get whatever tech they need from China now Modernizing a military is extremely expensive and Russia will not be able to afford it. This is crucial, given that Russia is waging aggressive wars within Europe.
    - tablespoon 5y ago
      > Modernizing a military is extremely expensive and Russia will not be able to afford it. This is crucial, given that Russia is waging aggressive wars within Europe. IIRC, Russia gets most of its money from selling gas and oil. If Europe won't buy it, China will. I don't think this will really affect what the Russian government can afford.
      - jonathanstrange 5y ago
        It will substantially affect what the Russian government can afford. There is no doubt about it.
Smaug123 5y ago
Not sure what your question means. One presumes that the EU's goal here is the obvious one, namely to make trade increasingly harder for Russia until they stop invading other countries. To "impose a sanction" in this context is to apply a costly restriction to yourself, using the negative effect your self-restriction has on other parties to punish those parties, usually hoping that the negative effect is worse for them than it is for you. Any given trade happens because both parties want it; artificially making trade harder makes both parties worse off. The EU does not have to benefit from the intervention at all; they are apparently willing to pay that cost to make trade harder for Russia.

In the short term, sanctioning an action in a civilized manner that used to be a casus belli. In the long run, not allowing Russia to further modernize their military and likely preventing a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction.

Friday_ 5y ago
Wait did you understand the question, what will EU get? EU is not afraid of russians or nukes.
- jonathanstrange 5y ago
  You don't see how sanctioning an action that in the past used to be reason for war and likely preventing nuclear war in the future is something positive? Geopolitics is not your strength, is it? Well, to make it simple for you, EU gets a weak Russian military in the future, which is very desirable. Edit: Oh, I see. I've replied to another 4 day old account. What a coincidence!
  - Friday_ 5y ago
    As i said EU is not worried about Russians. What else?
    - jonathanstrange 5y ago
      The EU is not worried about Russia? From where on earth did you get this bizarre and obviously false view? Every Eastern EU country is extremely worried about Russia right now and NATO has sent reinforcements to them.
      - Friday_ 5y ago
        Russia has no power for full invasion of Ukrain let alone EU, so your view is false.
        jonathanstrange 5y ago
        Whether you're trolling or not, you also genuinely don't understand the current situation. So I'll explain it in more detail to you. Putin and other key members of the Russian government have just proven to be unreliable persons who cannot be trusted and negotiated with. This makes future ways to deal with Russia extremely difficult. It is also unrealistic to expect that this is going to get better, the older Putin gets. On the contrary, if he stays in power indefinitely we can expect his revisionary pseudo-historic views and his disrespect for national sovereignty to increase. His successor might even be worse, given the poisoned political climate in Russia today. However, Russia is a major nuclear power. There is a realistic worry within the EU and NATO that Russia would get emboldened by past lackluster responses and risk a calculation that attacking a smaller NATO country might not invariably activate nuclear defense plans. All of this taken together makes imposing heavy sanctions on Russia essentially inevitable. They are the only civilized response available, and not doing anything could have fatal consequences far beyond the EU. Governments across the world rightly realized now - unfortunately, too late - that the comparatively weak response to the 2014 annexation of Crimea has emboldened Putin to order a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They will not repeat this mistake. Edit: Looks like a consensus has been reached and Russia is about to get excluded from SWIFT.
tablespoon 5y ago
>> What will EU get for this? > In the short term, sanctioning an action in a civilized manner that used to be a casus belli. In the long run, not allowing Russia to further modernize their military and likely preventing a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction. The EU nomenklatura gets to pat themselves on the back, and that's about it. How will sanctions prevent Russia from "further moderniz[ing] their military"? They can probably get whatever tech they need from China now, if they were previously getting it from the West. How will sanctions prevent "a nuclear war by not emboldening Putin to attack Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland or Poland at some point in the future because of previous inaction"? If Putin attacks another country, there won't be any more sanctions to enact, and these actions have demonstrated a fundamental unwillingness to engage militarily (e.g. Germany wouldn't even send Ukraine even small guns, so instead they promised * 5000 hats*, which they also apparently failed to deliver).
- jonathanstrange 5y ago
  > How will sanctions prevent Russia from "further moderniz[ing] their military"? They can probably get whatever tech they need from China now Modernizing a military is extremely expensive and Russia will not be able to afford it. This is crucial, given that Russia is waging aggressive wars within Europe.
  - tablespoon 5y ago
    > Modernizing a military is extremely expensive and Russia will not be able to afford it. This is crucial, given that Russia is waging aggressive wars within Europe. IIRC, Russia gets most of its money from selling gas and oil. If Europe won't buy it, China will. I don't think this will really affect what the Russian government can afford.
    - jonathanstrange 5y ago
      It will substantially affect what the Russian government can afford. There is no doubt about it.

Smaug123 5y ago

Not sure what your question means. One presumes that the EU's goal here is the obvious one, namely to make trade increasingly harder for Russia until they stop invading other countries. To "impose a sanction" in this context is to apply a costly restriction to yourself, using the negative effect your self-restriction has on other parties to punish those parties, usually hoping that the negative effect is worse for them than it is for you. Any given trade happens because both parties want it; artificially making trade harder makes both parties worse off. The EU does not have to benefit from the intervention at all; they are apparently willing to pay that cost to make trade harder for Russia.