Tag Archives: Sanctions against Russia

The End of Western Domination, by Thierry Meyssan

The United States is not isolating Russia so much as it is isolating the West. From Thierry Meyssan at lewrockwell.com:

The Western sanctions against Russia, decided unilaterally by Washington, are presented as a just punishment for the aggression against Ukraine. But, without mentioning their illegality under international law, everyone can see that they do not reach their target. In practice, the United States is isolating the West in the hope of maintaining its hegemony over its allies.

The United States, which was a late participant in the World Wars and suffered no losses on its territory, emerged victorious from the world conflicts. Inheriting the European empires, it developed a system of domination that made it the “world’s policeman. However, their hegemony was fragile and could not resist the development of large nations. As early as 2012, political scientists began to describe the “Thucydides trap” by analogy with the Greek strategist’s explanation of the wars between Sparta and Athens. According to them, China’s rise to power also made a confrontation with the United States inevitable. Noting that, if China had become the first world economic power, Russia had become the first military power, Washington decided to fight them one after the other.

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Is Russia the REAL target of Western sanctions? By Kit Knightly

Are the sanctions ostensibly aimed at Russia really aimed at the U.S. and Europe to bring down their economies? From Kit Knightly at off-guardian.org:

Soaring oil prices, energy and food crises on the horizon…is it possible the REAL target of this economic war is us?

The first tweet I saw when I checked my timeline this morning was from foreign policy analyst Clint Ehlirch, pointing out that the Russian ruble has already started recovering from the dip created by Western sanctions, and is almost at pre-war levels:

Ehrlich states, “sanctions were designed to collapse the value of the Ruble, they have failed”.

…to which I can only respond, well “were they?”

…and perhaps more importantly, “have they?”

Because it doesn’t really look like it, does it?

If anything, the sanctions seem to be at best rather impotent, and at worst amazingly counterproductive.

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Will Biden Sanction Half the World to Isolate Russia? By Ryan McMaken

If only half the world is sanctioned, how is Russia isolated? From Ryan McMaken at mises.org:

It is becoming increasingly apparent that isolating Russia and totally cutting it off from the global economy is not going to be easy.

As I discussed last week, from Mexico to Brazil to China to India and much of Africa, the world is resisting Washington’s call to treat Russia as a pariah nation. In the words of James Pindell, “Most of three huge continents—Asia, Africa, and South America—are either still working with Russia or trying to project the image of neutrality.”

Yes, the US will certainly inflict a lot of damage on the Russian economy with its sanctions, but it’s unlikely to be enough damage to incapacitate the Moscow regime. This is because much of the world has shown it plans to continue having relations with the Russians, albeit while taking some efforts to avoid any direct policy confrontation with Washington.

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