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The problem with this type of sanctions is that they are only going to work once, no country on the periphery of "polite society" is going to put their faith on

The problem with this type of sanctions is that they are only going to work once, no country on the periphery of "polite society" is going to put their faith on any of these institutions going forward. The strength of these types of global payments systems is that they are global and neutral. If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global.

ipython 5y ago
So you’re saying that Russia has the choice to invade a sovereign nation but the coalition of banks have no right to kick out the aggressor nation? If I punch you in the nose, I don’t care what institution you represent. You won’t remain “neutral” for long.
JamesBarney 5y ago
I don't necessarily think this is true. There are a ton of disadvantages to closing yourself off to the world, and unless you're planning an invasion it doesn't make sense to pay that cost.
- Ambolia 5y ago
  I'm not saying countries will leave SWIFT in mass, but they will prioritize joining and developing alternatives. There's a lot of hunger to absorb natural resources and fertilizers [1] [2] from Russia and Belarus, so countries will find a way to do it, and once it's in place it will be user for other transactions and be a permanent alternative. [1] https://blog.nationalbulkbag.com/produce-packaging/how-is-the-fertilizer-shortage-impacting-the-agriculture-industry https://blog.nationalbulkbag.com/produce-packaging/how-is-th... [2] https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/agriculture-investing/potash-investing/top-potash-countries-by-production/ https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/agricultu...
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Negotiations are won by those with the least to lose. Russia's economy is predominately oil and gas based, which the world is rapidly transitioning away from, so their remaining economic activity requires the rest of the world more than the rest of the world requires Russia.
    - withinboredom 5y ago
      Maybe in a few decades. But for today, we still need it to make tiny booms in little metal boxes to move big boxes with rubber tubes.
      - toomuchtodo 5y ago
        The more painful it is in the short term, the faster we get to an oil free (realistically, a greatly reduced oil future) future. No one is getting off of cheap oil. It should be as painful as possible to use petroleum.
        throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Society doesn't work like that especially when you're talking about a commodity (energy) that fairly directly affects the quality of life of everyone on the planet. Make it too painful and you'll get a "people who want an oil free future" free future. History is littered with stories of autocrats who tried to push society too far forward too fast. Society is an amorphous blob that simply responds to inputs. It doesn't care that you have good intentions. Hand waving about a sticks based policy makes for a great circle jerk but in the real world you need carrots, political will, consensus, etc. to go with the sticks or you are doomed to failure.
        withinboredom 5y ago
        Don’t forget about plastic!
        llampx 5y ago
        I would like you to do a thought exercise about how many petroleum-based products you use and how your life would be affected if the supply of oil was severely limited or the price went up even more than it already has since 2020.
        toomuchtodo 5y ago
  - 14u2c 5y ago
    The actual mechanism (SWIFT) used to enforce the sanctions does not really matter. The damage comes from being cut off from western markets and capital. If alternatives are adopted then countries wishing to impose sanctions could simply prohibit their institutions from using the system.
  - cmurf 5y ago
    Anyone buying most anything from Belarus or Russia is funding Russia's war effort. Saudi Arabia refusing to release more oil into global supply keeps prices high and indirectly results in Russia profiting more from each petrol sale. Europeans buying energy from Russia are helping Russia pay to bomb Ukrainians. It doesn't matter what is intended. The effect is it helps Russia fund this and future operations.
    - sfe22 5y ago
      Lets not forget about the fed that is printing trillions that are being used to bid up oil prices. It is easy to blame saudis here but in this case the fed is doing more damage.
      - bendbro 5y ago
        What is the process by which this happens?
        sfe22 5y ago
        1. Print money 2. Use said money to bid oil prices up
        bendbro 5y ago
        Heh, I hear ya, I thought there might be a nasty oil specific mechanism I didn't know of.
      - ahtihn 5y ago
        That makes 0 sense. Why would the printed money cause specifically oil to go up and not everything else along with it? And if everything else goes up, then it doesn't matter.
        sfe22 5y ago
        You found something that did not go up?
  - gls2ro 5y ago
    As other people were writing here: it does not matter the name of the system they cut off Russia or any other aggressor. Russia and Belarus can develop their own SWIFT like system. What it matters is EU/USA saying to their economies: do not trade* with Russia. The name of the system where this is implemented is irrelevant!
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    Countries aren't going to leave swift because I bet 99% of them don't have any aims to be doing invasions anytime soon.
jacquesm 5y ago
There is no free pass for money in wartime. That's one of the first things that gets curbed. Even the Russians do this, they just restricted the amount of money you can take out of Russia.
raxxorrax 5y ago
I think the message was received. Will take a few years, but I bet we see other channels being conceived. Swift has to comply, because they get threatened with sanctions themselves. But countries outside the western sphere of influence very likely noticed the problem.
- jacquesm 5y ago
  I think it will be a good indicator of which countries are secretly harboring imperialist ideas.
  - andreilys 5y ago
    Or any country seeking to displace the US dollar as the global reserve currency, this’ll be the perfect wedge to do so. I expect the federal reserve won’t be able to print trillions of dollars with ease anymore once USD loses its global reserve status.
    - adventured 5y ago
      > I expect the federal reserve won’t be able to print trillions of dollars with ease anymore once USD loses its global reserve status. That's not how central banking works at all, of course the Fed will find it trivially easy to print trillions of dollars without the global reserve currency. See: Japan (BoJ) and the EU / Eurozone (ECB). They both printed more per GDP or per national assets than the Fed has, and they didn't spark a gigantic wave of consumer inflation doing so either. Neither had anything remotely close to the global reserve currency. China pours manufactured credit into its system whenever it feels like it to juice their economy, and is one of the most indebted nations (at this point it's drowning in debt). They did it all without the global reserve currency, they do not find it difficult to print at will (while leaning on a currency with far less global exposure than the Yen). Fortunately the USD as global reserve currency is only strengthened by what Russia is doing, and what China will do next in Taiwan, rather than the opposite being the case. The USD as global reserve currency is going nowhere in the next several decades at a minimum.
    - 5y ago
wesleywt 5y ago
Good. That is the idea.
morelisp 5y ago
Conversely, the reason "we" want these to be global is so they can be used to apply such pressure. If they remained "neutral" no matter what, they are weak and pointless.
esics6A 5y ago
Creating a parallel financial system will take decades if it's even feasible at all. The entire global economy relies on the US/UK/EU based financial system and has evolved around it for over 75 years. It's not something that can be simply torn out and have a drop in replacement like a software system. Any alternative system would likely be based in China and that would mean that currencies would be backed by China's debt. China would need to take on debt levels that would leave China in an impossible situation. It would mean crushing levels of taxation that would drain China's wealth to the benefit of nations like Russia. There would be a major imbalance in payments. Russia and other nations would make net gains and China would have net losses. Even seizing assets in these nations China would need to sell the assets internationally using the same US/UK/EU system that provides the liquidity and access to markets. It would require China to become even more reliant on business with Western nations to fund this system making the whole thing illogical and circular in structure. If the Western nations pulled out of Chinese manufacturing it would mean the US/UK/EU could collapse the whole parallel system over time and make it insolvent.
- jl6 5y ago
  Can you explain why “owning” the financial system is such a burden? US/UK/EU do not seem to suffer for it.
  - mooreds 5y ago
    This may be a useful link: https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/56856 https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/56856 tl;dr: If you want to "own" the financial system, you need to be willing to be an importer of last resort, follow the rule of law, have deep financial markets, a freely exchangable currency, and freely tradeable debt. You also have to be willing to accept either rising debt or unemployment. These can cause pain to countries who have them. Here's a quote from the piece: "The one thing both sides agreed on, however, was that the US enjoyed an advantage because of the reserve currency status of the US dollar, with some people even assuming that the US was somehow repressing the ability of Europe, China and Japan to gain the advantage for themselves. No matter how many times the US engaged in policies that tried to shift the benefits to those countries, or these countries engaged in policies that prevented them from receiving the benefits, it was somehow clear to both sides that reserve currency status is a wonderful thing that everyone wants but only the US is allowed to have." (Emphasis mine.)
glogla 5y ago
If SWIFT "is not neutral", sanctions are applied and work once, the sanctions work once. If SWIFT "is neutral" and sanction aren't applied, the sanctions are applied zero times. Once is better than zero.
- ravar 5y ago
  How short sighted.
blunte 5y ago
They only need to work once. Then the deterrent value is clear. It's frankly the closest thing to a nuclear scenario you could get - in fact it's worse from the perspective that you enemies continue to live on while you wither. "At least" in a nuclear scenario both sides die. Global systems don't need everyone to participate; they just need the key players to participate. It's really a special club, and if you're not allowed in the club then you'll probably never be able to climb to that level from outside.
ckastner 5y ago
> The strength of these types of global payments systems is that they are global and neutral. If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global. Being global is far more important than being neutral, and countries will gladly sacrifice the latter if that is the cost to get the former. Any meaningful global payments system requires access to the U.S. as European financial markets, either because of direct dealing with banks situated in these countries, or because of indirect dealings (virtually any other bank needs to deal with major U.S. or European banks eventually, and one can impose restrictions on the latter). As a simple example: U.S. regulators can easily force the hands of major European banks, because every one of those banks needs access to the U.S. financial market, if only so their clients can deal there. Want to buy Apple, Google, or Microsoft stock? Then neutrality is not an option.
tablespoon 5y ago
> The problem with this type of sanctions is that they are only going to work once, no country on the periphery of "polite society" is going to put their faith on any of these institutions going forward. The strength of these types of global payments systems is that they are global and neutral. If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global. The problem with your type of thinking is that it can lead someone to sit on its tools until they're rusty and useless, out of fear of "using them up." It's probably an inevitability that these "global payment systems" stop being global, because globalization never brought the political unity it promised. Countries will inevitably recognize the vulnerabilities created by dependence on rival's systems, and if they're big enough, they'll eventually build alternatives to solve that. Honestly, I think the main problem with sanctions is they let political leaders delude themselves into thinking they're doing something to solve a problem, when they really aren't. Sanctions aren't going to get Putin to leave Ukraine: that's an immediate military problem that requires an immediate military solution. There's a small chance they'll destabilize the Russian regime over the long term, but I think the more likely outcome is they'll push Russia deeper into Chinese orbit, solidifying an alliance of rivals. Just look what happened to Belarus very recently.
grouchomarx 5y ago
tyrants and warlords can no longer expect to use western (financial) infrastructure once they start shelling civilians... OK?
mullen 5y ago
> The strength of these types of global payments systems is that they are global and neutral. If you think Russia, China and Belarus are going to be neutral, then you are being a bit naive. The West may not be neutral but it is rules based, so you know what you are getting before you start working with it. Russia, China and Belarus are not rules based and they will retaliate against you for a whole list of things that are not written down anywhere.
VincentEvans 5y ago
Isn’t it what one would want anyway? I think that most countries on the periphery of “polite society” as you put it - are not there by choice and would like to join the club and enjoy the benefits (example Ukraine) as soon as possible. And the global actors of disorder and chaos do whatever it is they do with predictable consequences to their own prosperity.
kentonv 5y ago
I think all those countries "on the periphery of polite society" should be capable of asking themselves: "Will we ever invade another sovereign country completely unprovoked with the goal of annexing them?" If the answer is "no", they have nothing to worry about. Russia has already shown that anything less than this results in little more than a slap on the wrist. If the answer is "yes", or even "maybe", then yeah, they're going to have to stay out of international institutions. As it should be.
- FpUser 5y ago
  >""Will we ever invade another sovereign country" Saudis have a perfect answer to that
- watwut 5y ago
  I dont even think that is the issue. These did not happened merely because invasion, it is not like it would be first invasion happening since WWII. I think that these happen, because Russia is seen as threat to Europe and America. Had this been about who rules Ukraine in the abstract, there would be much much weaker response. The worry is that easy conquest of Ukraine would be followed by similar contest to former USSR states in NATO, then to satelite countries and then maybe Easter Germany and so on. At some point response would be forced anyway.
- londgine 5y ago
  Punching a Nazi seemed like a nice policy. It was a popular meme of 2017 [1] . Of course, then the definition of Nazi was widened to include many people who where unliked (on the periphery of polite society) such as Jewish conservative commentators [2] and even Ukraine with a Jewish president [3] . If it was clear that the only time neutral banks will deplatform you was if they "ever invade another sovereign country completely unprovoked with the goal of annexing them" then that may be fine. However, if the principle is to be neutral until someone does whatever polite society has deemed unacceptable, it is riskier for those countries to use. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/01/23/a-step-by-step-guide-to-a-meme-about-punching-a-nazi-in-the-face/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/01... [2] https://www.thewrap.com/vox-media-co-founder-ben-shapiro-is-the-jew-who-helps-other-jews-onto-the-train/ https://www.thewrap.com/vox-media-co-founder-ben-shapiro-is-... [3] https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083677765/putin-denazify-ukraine-russia-history https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083677765/putin-denazify-ukr...
vanusa 5y ago
If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global. Right, but then situations emerge when it is no longer possible to be neutral.
jdrc 5y ago
they can always trace in some kind of mathematically-supported ledger, which is neutral, but also globally transparent
kvathupo 5y ago
This was echoed in a recent interview with Ken Griffin [1]. Even for Democrats such as myself, when Griffin speaks, people listen. [1] - https://youtu.be/AyEORjgaaNc https://youtu.be/AyEORjgaaNc
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
paxys 5y ago
If that was the case then Russia would already be fully self sufficient by now since the first western sanctions on them showed up almost a decade ago. And the concept of modern economic sanctions has existed and has been implemented routinely since well before that. So why is every country still on board with the current system? The truth is that the global economy is simply too interconnected for a single country (or even group of countries) to break away and do their own thing. Trade is good. Unprovoked wars are bad. This is something literally the entire planet agrees on.
stjohnswarts 5y ago
Not really, there is a reason we have a Geneva convention and treaties. They aren't really that hard to follow. Don't vacuum bomb, gas, and invade your neighbors and you're basically going to be okay. Look at China, currently committing a genocide on the Uighurs and nothing is happening to them. You have to be a gigantic dick (read Putin) to get kicked out of the financial institutions.

ipython 5y ago

So you’re saying that Russia has the choice to invade a sovereign nation but the coalition of banks have no right to kick out the aggressor nation? If I punch you in the nose, I don’t care what institution you represent. You won’t remain “neutral” for long.

JamesBarney 5y ago

I don't necessarily think this is true. There are a ton of disadvantages to closing yourself off to the world, and unless you're planning an invasion it doesn't make sense to pay that cost.

Ambolia 5y ago
I'm not saying countries will leave SWIFT in mass, but they will prioritize joining and developing alternatives. There's a lot of hunger to absorb natural resources and fertilizers [1] [2] from Russia and Belarus, so countries will find a way to do it, and once it's in place it will be user for other transactions and be a permanent alternative. [1] https://blog.nationalbulkbag.com/produce-packaging/how-is-the-fertilizer-shortage-impacting-the-agriculture-industry https://blog.nationalbulkbag.com/produce-packaging/how-is-th... [2] https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/agriculture-investing/potash-investing/top-potash-countries-by-production/ https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/agricultu...
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  Negotiations are won by those with the least to lose. Russia's economy is predominately oil and gas based, which the world is rapidly transitioning away from, so their remaining economic activity requires the rest of the world more than the rest of the world requires Russia.
  - withinboredom 5y ago
    Maybe in a few decades. But for today, we still need it to make tiny booms in little metal boxes to move big boxes with rubber tubes.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      The more painful it is in the short term, the faster we get to an oil free (realistically, a greatly reduced oil future) future. No one is getting off of cheap oil. It should be as painful as possible to use petroleum.
      - throwaway0a5e 5y ago
        Society doesn't work like that especially when you're talking about a commodity (energy) that fairly directly affects the quality of life of everyone on the planet. Make it too painful and you'll get a "people who want an oil free future" free future. History is littered with stories of autocrats who tried to push society too far forward too fast. Society is an amorphous blob that simply responds to inputs. It doesn't care that you have good intentions. Hand waving about a sticks based policy makes for a great circle jerk but in the real world you need carrots, political will, consensus, etc. to go with the sticks or you are doomed to failure.
        withinboredom 5y ago
        Don’t forget about plastic!
      - llampx 5y ago
        I would like you to do a thought exercise about how many petroleum-based products you use and how your life would be affected if the supply of oil was severely limited or the price went up even more than it already has since 2020.
        toomuchtodo 5y ago
- 14u2c 5y ago
  The actual mechanism (SWIFT) used to enforce the sanctions does not really matter. The damage comes from being cut off from western markets and capital. If alternatives are adopted then countries wishing to impose sanctions could simply prohibit their institutions from using the system.
- cmurf 5y ago
  Anyone buying most anything from Belarus or Russia is funding Russia's war effort. Saudi Arabia refusing to release more oil into global supply keeps prices high and indirectly results in Russia profiting more from each petrol sale. Europeans buying energy from Russia are helping Russia pay to bomb Ukrainians. It doesn't matter what is intended. The effect is it helps Russia fund this and future operations.
  - sfe22 5y ago
    Lets not forget about the fed that is printing trillions that are being used to bid up oil prices. It is easy to blame saudis here but in this case the fed is doing more damage.
    - bendbro 5y ago
      What is the process by which this happens?
      - sfe22 5y ago
        1. Print money 2. Use said money to bid oil prices up
        bendbro 5y ago
        Heh, I hear ya, I thought there might be a nasty oil specific mechanism I didn't know of.
    - ahtihn 5y ago
      That makes 0 sense. Why would the printed money cause specifically oil to go up and not everything else along with it? And if everything else goes up, then it doesn't matter.
      - sfe22 5y ago
        You found something that did not go up?
- gls2ro 5y ago
  As other people were writing here: it does not matter the name of the system they cut off Russia or any other aggressor. Russia and Belarus can develop their own SWIFT like system. What it matters is EU/USA saying to their economies: do not trade* with Russia. The name of the system where this is implemented is irrelevant!
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  Countries aren't going to leave swift because I bet 99% of them don't have any aims to be doing invasions anytime soon.

jacquesm 5y ago

There is no free pass for money in wartime. That's one of the first things that gets curbed. Even the Russians do this, they just restricted the amount of money you can take out of Russia.

raxxorrax 5y ago

I think the message was received. Will take a few years, but I bet we see other channels being conceived. Swift has to comply, because they get threatened with sanctions themselves. But countries outside the western sphere of influence very likely noticed the problem.

jacquesm 5y ago
I think it will be a good indicator of which countries are secretly harboring imperialist ideas.
- andreilys 5y ago
  Or any country seeking to displace the US dollar as the global reserve currency, this’ll be the perfect wedge to do so. I expect the federal reserve won’t be able to print trillions of dollars with ease anymore once USD loses its global reserve status.
  - adventured 5y ago
    > I expect the federal reserve won’t be able to print trillions of dollars with ease anymore once USD loses its global reserve status. That's not how central banking works at all, of course the Fed will find it trivially easy to print trillions of dollars without the global reserve currency. See: Japan (BoJ) and the EU / Eurozone (ECB). They both printed more per GDP or per national assets than the Fed has, and they didn't spark a gigantic wave of consumer inflation doing so either. Neither had anything remotely close to the global reserve currency. China pours manufactured credit into its system whenever it feels like it to juice their economy, and is one of the most indebted nations (at this point it's drowning in debt). They did it all without the global reserve currency, they do not find it difficult to print at will (while leaning on a currency with far less global exposure than the Yen). Fortunately the USD as global reserve currency is only strengthened by what Russia is doing, and what China will do next in Taiwan, rather than the opposite being the case. The USD as global reserve currency is going nowhere in the next several decades at a minimum.
  - 5y ago

wesleywt 5y ago

Good. That is the idea.

morelisp 5y ago

Conversely, the reason "we" want these to be global is so they can be used to apply such pressure. If they remained "neutral" no matter what, they are weak and pointless.

esics6A 5y ago

Creating a parallel financial system will take decades if it's even feasible at all. The entire global economy relies on the US/UK/EU based financial system and has evolved around it for over 75 years. It's not something that can be simply torn out and have a drop in replacement like a software system. Any alternative system would likely be based in China and that would mean that currencies would be backed by China's debt. China would need to take on debt levels that would leave China in an impossible situation. It would mean crushing levels of taxation that would drain China's wealth to the benefit of nations like Russia. There would be a major imbalance in payments. Russia and other nations would make net gains and China would have net losses. Even seizing assets in these nations China would need to sell the assets internationally using the same US/UK/EU system that provides the liquidity and access to markets. It would require China to become even more reliant on business with Western nations to fund this system making the whole thing illogical and circular in structure. If the Western nations pulled out of Chinese manufacturing it would mean the US/UK/EU could collapse the whole parallel system over time and make it insolvent.

jl6 5y ago
Can you explain why “owning” the financial system is such a burden? US/UK/EU do not seem to suffer for it.
- mooreds 5y ago
  This may be a useful link: https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/56856 https://carnegieendowment.org/chinafinancialmarkets/56856 tl;dr: If you want to "own" the financial system, you need to be willing to be an importer of last resort, follow the rule of law, have deep financial markets, a freely exchangable currency, and freely tradeable debt. You also have to be willing to accept either rising debt or unemployment. These can cause pain to countries who have them. Here's a quote from the piece: "The one thing both sides agreed on, however, was that the US enjoyed an advantage because of the reserve currency status of the US dollar, with some people even assuming that the US was somehow repressing the ability of Europe, China and Japan to gain the advantage for themselves. No matter how many times the US engaged in policies that tried to shift the benefits to those countries, or these countries engaged in policies that prevented them from receiving the benefits, it was somehow clear to both sides that reserve currency status is a wonderful thing that everyone wants but only the US is allowed to have." (Emphasis mine.)

glogla 5y ago

If SWIFT "is not neutral", sanctions are applied and work once, the sanctions work once. If SWIFT "is neutral" and sanction aren't applied, the sanctions are applied zero times. Once is better than zero.

ravar 5y ago
How short sighted.

blunte 5y ago

They only need to work once. Then the deterrent value is clear. It's frankly the closest thing to a nuclear scenario you could get - in fact it's worse from the perspective that you enemies continue to live on while you wither. "At least" in a nuclear scenario both sides die. Global systems don't need everyone to participate; they just need the key players to participate. It's really a special club, and if you're not allowed in the club then you'll probably never be able to climb to that level from outside.

ckastner 5y ago

> The strength of these types of global payments systems is that they are global and neutral. If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global. Being global is far more important than being neutral, and countries will gladly sacrifice the latter if that is the cost to get the former. Any meaningful global payments system requires access to the U.S. as European financial markets, either because of direct dealing with banks situated in these countries, or because of indirect dealings (virtually any other bank needs to deal with major U.S. or European banks eventually, and one can impose restrictions on the latter). As a simple example: U.S. regulators can easily force the hands of major European banks, because every one of those banks needs access to the U.S. financial market, if only so their clients can deal there. Want to buy Apple, Google, or Microsoft stock? Then neutrality is not an option.

tablespoon 5y ago

> The problem with this type of sanctions is that they are only going to work once, no country on the periphery of "polite society" is going to put their faith on any of these institutions going forward. The strength of these types of global payments systems is that they are global and neutral. If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global. The problem with your type of thinking is that it can lead someone to sit on its tools until they're rusty and useless, out of fear of "using them up." It's probably an inevitability that these "global payment systems" stop being global, because globalization never brought the political unity it promised. Countries will inevitably recognize the vulnerabilities created by dependence on rival's systems, and if they're big enough, they'll eventually build alternatives to solve that. Honestly, I think the main problem with sanctions is they let political leaders delude themselves into thinking they're doing something to solve a problem, when they really aren't. Sanctions aren't going to get Putin to leave Ukraine: that's an immediate military problem that requires an immediate military solution. There's a small chance they'll destabilize the Russian regime over the long term, but I think the more likely outcome is they'll push Russia deeper into Chinese orbit, solidifying an alliance of rivals. Just look what happened to Belarus very recently.

grouchomarx 5y ago

tyrants and warlords can no longer expect to use western (financial) infrastructure once they start shelling civilians... OK?

mullen 5y ago

> The strength of these types of global payments systems is that they are global and neutral. If you think Russia, China and Belarus are going to be neutral, then you are being a bit naive. The West may not be neutral but it is rules based, so you know what you are getting before you start working with it. Russia, China and Belarus are not rules based and they will retaliate against you for a whole list of things that are not written down anywhere.

VincentEvans 5y ago

Isn’t it what one would want anyway? I think that most countries on the periphery of “polite society” as you put it - are not there by choice and would like to join the club and enjoy the benefits (example Ukraine) as soon as possible. And the global actors of disorder and chaos do whatever it is they do with predictable consequences to their own prosperity.

kentonv 5y ago

I think all those countries "on the periphery of polite society" should be capable of asking themselves: "Will we ever invade another sovereign country completely unprovoked with the goal of annexing them?" If the answer is "no", they have nothing to worry about. Russia has already shown that anything less than this results in little more than a slap on the wrist. If the answer is "yes", or even "maybe", then yeah, they're going to have to stay out of international institutions. As it should be.

FpUser 5y ago
>""Will we ever invade another sovereign country" Saudis have a perfect answer to that
watwut 5y ago
I dont even think that is the issue. These did not happened merely because invasion, it is not like it would be first invasion happening since WWII. I think that these happen, because Russia is seen as threat to Europe and America. Had this been about who rules Ukraine in the abstract, there would be much much weaker response. The worry is that easy conquest of Ukraine would be followed by similar contest to former USSR states in NATO, then to satelite countries and then maybe Easter Germany and so on. At some point response would be forced anyway.
londgine 5y ago
Punching a Nazi seemed like a nice policy. It was a popular meme of 2017 [1] . Of course, then the definition of Nazi was widened to include many people who where unliked (on the periphery of polite society) such as Jewish conservative commentators [2] and even Ukraine with a Jewish president [3] . If it was clear that the only time neutral banks will deplatform you was if they "ever invade another sovereign country completely unprovoked with the goal of annexing them" then that may be fine. However, if the principle is to be neutral until someone does whatever polite society has deemed unacceptable, it is riskier for those countries to use. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/01/23/a-step-by-step-guide-to-a-meme-about-punching-a-nazi-in-the-face/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/01... [2] https://www.thewrap.com/vox-media-co-founder-ben-shapiro-is-the-jew-who-helps-other-jews-onto-the-train/ https://www.thewrap.com/vox-media-co-founder-ben-shapiro-is-... [3] https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083677765/putin-denazify-ukraine-russia-history https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083677765/putin-denazify-ukr...

vanusa 5y ago

If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global. Right, but then situations emerge when it is no longer possible to be neutral.

jdrc 5y ago

they can always trace in some kind of mathematically-supported ledger, which is neutral, but also globally transparent

kvathupo 5y ago

This was echoed in a recent interview with Ken Griffin [1]. Even for Democrats such as myself, when Griffin speaks, people listen. [1] - https://youtu.be/AyEORjgaaNc https://youtu.be/AyEORjgaaNc

deleted 5y ago

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paxys 5y ago

If that was the case then Russia would already be fully self sufficient by now since the first western sanctions on them showed up almost a decade ago. And the concept of modern economic sanctions has existed and has been implemented routinely since well before that. So why is every country still on board with the current system? The truth is that the global economy is simply too interconnected for a single country (or even group of countries) to break away and do their own thing. Trade is good. Unprovoked wars are bad. This is something literally the entire planet agrees on.

stjohnswarts 5y ago

Not really, there is a reason we have a Geneva convention and treaties. They aren't really that hard to follow. Don't vacuum bomb, gas, and invade your neighbors and you're basically going to be okay. Look at China, currently committing a genocide on the Uighurs and nothing is happening to them. You have to be a gigantic dick (read Putin) to get kicked out of the financial institutions.