Don’t Knock The US/EU/NATO Sanctions. Here’s Why

Tomorrow, in response to the war atrocities in Bucha, the US, presumably followed by the EU are announcing a new tranche of sanctions. And already the pissing and moaning is starting. What?! More sanctions? For Crissakes what’s left to sanction? Ohhh, oodles, Grasshopper. If you were desperate enough you could sanction the company that makes the laundry soap that Putin uses for his Trotsky signature boxers. There’s always more to sanction.

Don’t get me wrong. I get the drift here. The biggest bitch about sanctions since day one is that they are not a quick fix, they take months, if not years to ripen enough to have any real effect on the russian people, which is what you’re after, popular pressure on the regime. But things are different this time, for a couple of reasons.

For starters, the sanctions themselves. Usually, sanctions are aimed at oligarchs, government owned or operated businesses like banks and petroleum industries, and so forth. And they did that. But then they went further. They went on to sanction the import of things such as microchips, which Russia desperately needs. But they also shut off the access for the Russian banking system, both state run as well as private from access to the global banking and trading markets. This meant that most Russian money was frozen, and Russian businesses couldn’t buy, sell, or trade on international stock markets.

But more importantly, a host of multinational companies piled on. Nike, John Deere, Visa, Mastercard, American Express, McDonalds, and Apple, along with a host of others, shuttered their Russian operations. This had an immediate impact on Russian citizens. These are goods and services that everyday Russians have become used to, and relied on for the last 30 years, and now they’re gone.

And we already know that the sanctions are having the desired effect. How? The tens of thousands of young, upwardly mobile Russians that have already voted with their feet, and fled the country. Many of them going to Mexico, buying cars to drive across the border into the US on their passports, and then ditching the cars and disappearing into the wind.

But there’s plenty more. I would never have said this three weeks ago, but I recently wrote that if the US and NATO just sit back and give Zelensky what he asks for, the Ukrainians can finish this job on their own. And there are rumbles that they may now get it. MSNBC reported today that the Pentagon is considering deleting the lines between offensive and defensive weapons.

A brief aside here for clarity. In the lead up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US and NATO, not wanting to give Putin a reason to claim that the west was escalating tensions, this meant that they only supplied Ukraine with defensive weapons, anti tank and anti aircraft defensive systems, small arms and ammunition, things that allowed the Ukrainians to defend themselves, but to wage aggressive war.

But now, Russia has invaded, and the Ukrainians have used the defensive aid brilliantly to defend themselves. But now the Russians are running like a bunch of bunnies in a hutch. What the Ukrainians need are offensive weapons to allow them to continue to drive the Russians back off of Ukrainian soil. Tanks, armored personnel carriers, long range artillery,  even aircraft. And the indications are that the Pentagon may be about to give them to them to allow them to complete the job. I begged for this in my article, and it’s music to my ears.

But here’s the real reason to continue to support these sanctions. The US has embargoes the import of Russian natural gas and oil. Germany has admitted that it was a mistake to hold out for the Nordsteam 2 pipeline to be completed. Lithuania announced an embargo on Russian natural gas and oil, and other EU nations are expected to follow suit, and feel the same pain at the pump as Americans. This is critical.

Because the simple fact is that people are right, sanctions only work over time. But the US and EU slapped sanctions on that were felt immediately. More importantly, they got the global economic community to basically shut Russia off from not only the global economy, but from their own money! And that is critical.

Because, take it from me, it takes a shitload of money to wage a war. As long as Ukraine has the US, EU, and NATO providing them with funding and armaments, they can stay in the battle. When Switzerland froze Putin and Russia’s assets, that included his war chest slush fund, the money he would use to wage his war. If EU countries continue to shut off the import of Russian oil and natural gas, they shut off the single driving engine of the Russian economy. John McCain had it right when he opined that Russia was A gas station with nukes.

So there is absolutely no reason for the US or NATO to slip up and give Putin an excuse to proclaim a provocation, and expand the war. We can afford to support the Ukraine into the next millennium. But if Putin’s oil and natural gas revenue dries up, he can’t even afford to pay the power bill for the Kremlin, much less than wage war. And once the Russian soldiers stop getting paid, they’ll stop fighting, just as sure as God made little green apples. Don’t touch that dial.