So, and I realize all answers will be pure conjecture, what happens if the sanctions work? What's the end game? Can the proverbial tiger be put back in the cage?
Russia has invaded Ukraine and Europe has responded in a unified manor. China gave muted support, but largely stayed out of it (at least vocally - but still traded with them). China is, of course, watching very closely, as they have their own expansionist interests. How does/can Russia get out of this and save face? Where will this go with social/cyber warfare - it has to ramp-up dramatically, no? Now that western Europe has increased its military spending, what does that mean for the "World Police" American stance that has been so prevalent since the late 40's? Does this, in fact push forward clean technology, or will it hinder it as now America and Canada sit in a prime spot to export fuel and make record profits for decades - environment be damned?
I know, a lot of questions and I apologize =) Some I have my own "answers" to, but, like I said, all conjecture.
Sanctions have never worked against Russia and they're now in a better position to resist them than ever before. So in the spirit of pure conjecture, some of my own: likely outcome is a reworking of the global economy. There will be the NATO bloc and the China-Russia bloc. It isn't impossible that there will be targetted trade deals between the two superblocs in 5-10 years. On a tech related note any country not making plans to repatriate all critical internet infrastructure ala China is basically trolling themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw peering agreements between China and Russia, sort of an expansion of the great firewall, especially if sanctions persist. As for clean technology.. lol. In my opinion the US and Canada are not serious about it. Germany has been making the wrong moves when it comes to renewables, and they're the largest EU economy.. So the chance of this affecting that seems small, but who knows. The energy crisis that is coming soon to the EU may change that.
I think there will be a new Cold War, this time Russia/China vs the West. This may not be a bad outcome. I think it will be good for the average citizen of developed countries in a lot of countries if globalization gets slowed a little. We traded cheap crap for a big increase in job insecurity and rising inequality.
All of these questions are what global policy analysts and advisors debate for years and write entire books about. There is really nothing people can write in this thread which would even start to make sense of all this.
global policy analysts and advisors are the ones who influenced the policies that led to the current state of things. in comparison to that, wild conjecture on hacker news is pretty much gold imo
It's not about cutting citizens off from the world. It's about minimizing financial capabilities of an aggressor. So, even when they are not disposed, they can do less harm.
Eg. Their technological advancement will be crippled for decades to come, because they will still want to maintain their existing fleet.
Even now, Russia sells their tech advancement in military tech to others ( eg. India) and doesn't use it much for themselves because of cost. Even while they are investing 6% of their GDP into military.
That 6% in military that they invest now, will become much less in absolute value in the future. So it will be easier to outcompete them with a 1% investment of richer economies and concentrate on things besides military.
This is why China and India need to get on board with sanctions. We know what's coming should Russia continue with this attack, let alone escalation... the Russian oil and gas spigot gets turned off. At a certain point, anyone still buying from them, is aiding their war effort.
If the sanctions work it's the end of Putin (both literally and figuratively).
Personally, I think every country is looking at how much it relies on other countries to get by. Europe is too reliant on Russia for gas, and most of the world is too reliant on China for pretty much everything except food. I don't see this lasting another 10 years.
If this all ends well then it could be a case study in promoting economic investment / economic warfare with adversaries.
The idea is that they get dependent on that foreign investment and the threat of it being taken away and are much more amenable than an adversary that is completely disconnected economically and has nothing to lose.
What probably do you assign to that? I assign non-trivial probability to “ousting” but practically 0% chance of “peacefully” - more like “go out with a bang”.
The best case is if the current inner circle "convince" him to step down. A new regime could come to some compromise and blame the fiasco on Putin drinking too much vodka. Popular uprisings against Putin would be a bloodbath and could turn into a civil war.
I am not so sure if the average Russian citizen thinks Putin is that bad. From the outside it looks like life has massively improved during Putin’s reign. We shouldn’t forget how things were in Russia before Putin.
Maybe the Ukrainian situation is the turning point. If the sanctions cause pain in Russia people’s view of Putin may change.
There's an opinion that Russian conservative people like Strelkov[0] are more radical than Putin. And they feel that Putin should done these things at 2014, for 2022 it's already a little bit late. If Putin cannot achieve his goal, these neo-imperialist people will overthrow him and continue this war.
Dreamland. Putin is a deranged murderer and he has so far good support (or they are just scared shitless) in duma and enforcement. Right now they're putting protesters in jail because there are relatively few. If protesters follow former US ambassador's Michael McFaul's advise (I think dumb one) and show up in hundreds of thousands the shooting will start and it might provoke him to press that red button.
The only hope I really have that the close circle and the enforcement part would render Putin out of the picture. But for that they have to have a way out. As it stands now they're all booked for ICC and have no reason to do anything like that.
This is an important point, we have not cut off Russia completely because Europe is heavily dependent on it's oil and gas. What we have done is shut down almost everything except that critical oil and gas (and probably wheat).
Since 2014 Europe has invested a fair bit in diversifying it's potential energy sources by building gas shipping terminals and increasing integration between national pipeline infrastructure, and this will need to be put into overdrive.
Word is a lot of folks in Europe are happy that Biden has stepped up to bring things together but don't think the same would happen if Trump was still around. So, they're planning on ensuring they can move forward if the US's leadership weakens in another couple years.
There's somebody who perceives Biden as a strong leader?? In the US, divided as it is, polling would suggest that even his supporters don't feel that way.
Optimally Putin is deposed in some fashion or another by one or all of the high powered individuals in Russia because he is killing everything they worked their lives to build up. Worst case nuclear war and it doesn't matter any more.
>So, and I realize all answers will be pure conjecture, what happens if the sanctions work? What's the end game? Can the proverbial tiger be put back in the cage?
Literally everyone in the world is hoping the sanctions work. If it does, it tells the world even a nuclear power can't attack sovereign nations and get away with it. If it doesn't... then humanity is not post-war and we're about to get into a nuclear world war.
>Russia has invaded Ukraine and Europe has responded in a unified manor. China gave muted support, but largely stayed out of it (at least vocally - but still traded with them).
No they didn't. China picked up the phone with Putin on day 1 and said peace talks immediately and made comment they respect Ukraines sovereignty as well as the security needs for all involved. China appears to have been sideswipped and used as as shield by putin.
>China is, of course, watching very closely, as they have their own expansionist interests.
This is seeming more and more like Russian propaganda. China has 75 years of foreign policy showing no expansion. They have all the factories and a gigantic standing army. They could expand and take quite alot. Yet they dont because they know war isn't the way. Invest the war money back in yourself and grow taller.
>How does/can Russia get out of this and save face?
Every good negotiator makes it possible for their opponent to save face. Russia has a huge and simple one they provided themselves. "Nazi government was toppled, we are guaranteeing the new republics. White Peace out." Though to get sanctions lifted im sure there will be reparations to be paid.
>Where will this go with social/cyber warfare - it has to ramp-up dramatically, no? Now that western Europe has increased its military spending, what does that mean for the "World Police" American stance that has been so prevalent since the late 40's?
Everyone is making this about the USA... the Russian propaganda was running all these 'USA imperialism' which hey... they have to get in line... the commonwealth is up first... but the USA didn't do anything. Didnt get involved other than showing unity with the EU. Russia probably predicted the USA would act. In fact, it looks like an awful lot of effort is being done to curb the ongoing russian propaganda internally for most countries.
> Does this, in fact push forward clean technology, or will it hinder it as now America and Canada sit in a prime spot to export fuel and make record profits for decades - environment be damned?
Usa and Canada are leading the way with clean tech in many ways. We have 10,000 trees per person. Canadian solar is top notch. Our automotive industry has pivoted in an instant to manufacturing EVs. Coal plants are gone or going? The only thing I think Canada is missing out on is nuclear fusion.
The world needs oil still. Oil rich countries are switching over. Lets not exclude awesome scandanavian countries. This hasn't been some sort of Canadian conspiracy to convince Russia to attack a sovereign neighbour. This is Canada being a good ally and offering conflict-free oil.
> China has 75 years of foreign policy showing no expansion.
Err..you might want to check your history there a bit more stringently. And say hello to the invasion and annexation of Tibet. The Sino-India War. The several Sino-Vietnam Wars.
(Vietnamese were probably the most battle-hardened folks in the 1950-1990's era - a half-dozen big foreign powers came for them and they sent every single one packing - though they did loose some territory permanently to China)
Can you give examples, because from my limited view all Canada has in terms of renewables is hyrdo.
All of our automotive industry is owned by foreign manufacturers and relationships with Detroit are strained [1]. Plants have been shut down [2]. Canada has only just started to adopt EV, Europe is way ahead [3]. I will concede that both Europe and Canada aim to phase out IC engines by 2035.
In my opinion the stupid investment in that pipeline the government bought from the Americans after they backed out was a huge mis-step. That money could have been spent investing in solar.
> China picked up the phone with Putin on day 1 and said peace talks immediately and made comment they respect Ukraines sovereignty as well as the security needs for all involved. China appears to have been sideswipped and used as as shield by putin.
This is just public display. Actions matter: will they continue buying Russian gas and oil?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Now it appears the only Russian bank left operating in the EU is, predictably, Gazprombank which as the name suggests is owned by Gazprom, the Russian corporation the EU purchases energy supplies from. With Sberbank abandoning activities in the EU, now I believe there's no more room for maneuver for further similar sanctions. In theory they could block Gazprombank too, although it is an extreme measure that would result in immediate retaliation from the Russian govt (which controls Gazprom) in the form of no more or further overpriced supplies.
"China leapfrogged Russia to become Ukraine's biggest single trading partner in 2019, with overall trade totalling $18.98 billion last year, a nearly 80% jump from 2013, according to data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. [...] China became the largest importer of Ukrainian barley in the 2020-21 marketing year. About 30% of China's corn imports last year, more than 8 million tonnes, came from Ukraine, Chinese customs data showed."
> The bank said it was no longer able to supply liquidity to European subsidiaries following an order from Russia's central bank, which is seeking to preserve foreign currency. But it said capital and assets were sufficient to pay all depositors.
I wonder if customers of their European subsidiaries are protected by an EU-equivalent of FDIC, guaranteeing their deposits? (I accidentally wrote "despots", haha..)
That's correct. Sberbank Europe is registered as an Austrian bank, so the Austrian equivalent of the FDIC has to cover deposits of up to 100K per client.
Dreadful bank, a default one for russian pensions and salaries (for state-owned organisations). Almost a monopoly. But will cause lots struggle for people abroads...
Arguably, a large motivation for this war isn't about economics. The Russian government seems to have determined that the economic pain and pariah status is worth it if autocracy makes gains against democracy, the Western alliance is destabilized (that may have backfired), and the Soviet sphere of influence is restored. However deplorable, the invasion has historical motivations.
There are a lot of noises. But probably not really felt in Russia for every day lives. At least for food and staple goods, the prices are not changed from what I can gather.
Given time though, not sure. Especially China / India.
Readit News
Russia has invaded Ukraine and Europe has responded in a unified manor. China gave muted support, but largely stayed out of it (at least vocally - but still traded with them). China is, of course, watching very closely, as they have their own expansionist interests. How does/can Russia get out of this and save face? Where will this go with social/cyber warfare - it has to ramp-up dramatically, no? Now that western Europe has increased its military spending, what does that mean for the "World Police" American stance that has been so prevalent since the late 40's? Does this, in fact push forward clean technology, or will it hinder it as now America and Canada sit in a prime spot to export fuel and make record profits for decades - environment be damned?
I know, a lot of questions and I apologize =) Some I have my own "answers" to, but, like I said, all conjecture.
Eg. Their technological advancement will be crippled for decades to come, because they will still want to maintain their existing fleet.
Even now, Russia sells their tech advancement in military tech to others ( eg. India) and doesn't use it much for themselves because of cost. Even while they are investing 6% of their GDP into military.
That 6% in military that they invest now, will become much less in absolute value in the future. So it will be easier to outcompete them with a 1% investment of richer economies and concentrate on things besides military.
Just my 2 cents.
Personally, I think every country is looking at how much it relies on other countries to get by. Europe is too reliant on Russia for gas, and most of the world is too reliant on China for pretty much everything except food. I don't see this lasting another 10 years.
The idea is that they get dependent on that foreign investment and the threat of it being taken away and are much more amenable than an adversary that is completely disconnected economically and has nothing to lose.
Maybe the Ukrainian situation is the turning point. If the sanctions cause pain in Russia people’s view of Putin may change.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Girkin
The only hope I really have that the close circle and the enforcement part would render Putin out of the picture. But for that they have to have a way out. As it stands now they're all booked for ICC and have no reason to do anything like that.
Since 2014 Europe has invested a fair bit in diversifying it's potential energy sources by building gas shipping terminals and increasing integration between national pipeline infrastructure, and this will need to be put into overdrive.
Literally everyone in the world is hoping the sanctions work. If it does, it tells the world even a nuclear power can't attack sovereign nations and get away with it. If it doesn't... then humanity is not post-war and we're about to get into a nuclear world war.
>Russia has invaded Ukraine and Europe has responded in a unified manor. China gave muted support, but largely stayed out of it (at least vocally - but still traded with them).
No they didn't. China picked up the phone with Putin on day 1 and said peace talks immediately and made comment they respect Ukraines sovereignty as well as the security needs for all involved. China appears to have been sideswipped and used as as shield by putin.
>China is, of course, watching very closely, as they have their own expansionist interests.
This is seeming more and more like Russian propaganda. China has 75 years of foreign policy showing no expansion. They have all the factories and a gigantic standing army. They could expand and take quite alot. Yet they dont because they know war isn't the way. Invest the war money back in yourself and grow taller.
>How does/can Russia get out of this and save face?
Every good negotiator makes it possible for their opponent to save face. Russia has a huge and simple one they provided themselves. "Nazi government was toppled, we are guaranteeing the new republics. White Peace out." Though to get sanctions lifted im sure there will be reparations to be paid.
>Where will this go with social/cyber warfare - it has to ramp-up dramatically, no? Now that western Europe has increased its military spending, what does that mean for the "World Police" American stance that has been so prevalent since the late 40's?
Everyone is making this about the USA... the Russian propaganda was running all these 'USA imperialism' which hey... they have to get in line... the commonwealth is up first... but the USA didn't do anything. Didnt get involved other than showing unity with the EU. Russia probably predicted the USA would act. In fact, it looks like an awful lot of effort is being done to curb the ongoing russian propaganda internally for most countries.
> Does this, in fact push forward clean technology, or will it hinder it as now America and Canada sit in a prime spot to export fuel and make record profits for decades - environment be damned?
Usa and Canada are leading the way with clean tech in many ways. We have 10,000 trees per person. Canadian solar is top notch. Our automotive industry has pivoted in an instant to manufacturing EVs. Coal plants are gone or going? The only thing I think Canada is missing out on is nuclear fusion.
The world needs oil still. Oil rich countries are switching over. Lets not exclude awesome scandanavian countries. This hasn't been some sort of Canadian conspiracy to convince Russia to attack a sovereign neighbour. This is Canada being a good ally and offering conflict-free oil.
Err..you might want to check your history there a bit more stringently. And say hello to the invasion and annexation of Tibet. The Sino-India War. The several Sino-Vietnam Wars.
(Vietnamese were probably the most battle-hardened folks in the 1950-1990's era - a half-dozen big foreign powers came for them and they sent every single one packing - though they did loose some territory permanently to China)
How could you type this with a straight face?
Can you give examples, because from my limited view all Canada has in terms of renewables is hyrdo.
All of our automotive industry is owned by foreign manufacturers and relationships with Detroit are strained [1]. Plants have been shut down [2]. Canada has only just started to adopt EV, Europe is way ahead [3]. I will concede that both Europe and Canada aim to phase out IC engines by 2035.
In my opinion the stupid investment in that pipeline the government bought from the Americans after they backed out was a huge mis-step. That money could have been spent investing in solar.
[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/car-plants-bridge-1.6346556 [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gm-closing-oshawa-fac... [3] https://www.canadianmetalworking.com/canadianmetalworking/ar...
This is just public display. Actions matter: will they continue buying Russian gas and oil?
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.
At some point response would be forced anyway.
Saudis have a perfect answer to that
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2017/01...
[2] https://www.thewrap.com/vox-media-co-founder-ben-shapiro-is-...
[3] https://www.npr.org/2022/03/01/1083677765/putin-denazify-ukr...
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.
[1] https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3168684/w...
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.
[1] https://blog.nationalbulkbag.com/produce-packaging/how-is-th...
[2] https://investingnews.com/daily/resource-investing/agricultu...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
If I punch you in the nose, I don’t care what institution you represent. You won’t remain “neutral” for long.
If SWIFT "is neutral" and sanction aren't applied, the sanctions are applied zero times.
Once is better than zero.
Deleted Comment
[1] - https://youtu.be/AyEORjgaaNc
Right, but then situations emerge when it is no longer possible to be neutral.
Here are some numbers just to give an idea of how much this situation affects our heating/energy bills here in the EU: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/eu-natural-gas
Then there's wheat (read: food), of which Ukraine is one of the biggest producers and top exporters to the EU: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/wheat
I guess the farms aren’t in cities but is it realistic that Ukraine will be in any shape to export much wheat this year at this point.
Had this happened during harvest time likely large amounts of wheat would have been lost.
"China leapfrogged Russia to become Ukraine's biggest single trading partner in 2019, with overall trade totalling $18.98 billion last year, a nearly 80% jump from 2013, according to data from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. [...] China became the largest importer of Ukrainian barley in the 2020-21 marketing year. About 30% of China's corn imports last year, more than 8 million tonnes, came from Ukraine, Chinese customs data showed."
https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinas...
If the war starts impacting the price of staples in China, that's going to strain Russia's relations with its only significant remaining ally.
I wonder if customers of their European subsidiaries are protected by an EU-equivalent of FDIC, guaranteeing their deposits? (I accidentally wrote "despots", haha..)
EDIT: I suppose it's the European Banking Union. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Banking_union
> The exit does not affect Sberbank's business in Switzerland
Let's hope that changes. This is one the Swiss won't be able to sit out.
We all know dirty money go there eventually
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Given time though, not sure. Especially China / India.