There're countless studies conducted during the Ukraine-Russia war pointing out what sectors to hit with full export ban to grind Russian military capability to a halt (e.g Austrian GFM manufacturing equipment for artillery barrels production). But this is very politicized discussion. Obviously companies will want to protect their interests and politicians prefer to make strong and visible statements in place of the working ones (like, freezing Russian assets outside of Russia does very little damage to Russia itself right now, compared to, say, decimating their heavy equipment supply chain)
Business is separate from war (see Sweden's metallurgy industry during WW2).
I think you’ll find that even the neutral countries are providing support to Ukraine via the backdoor (eg Swiss with their armour going via DE).
I believe the strategy that the powers at be are attempting is to keep Russia occupied in Ukraine for as long as possible without major escalation. Without assigning morality, it seems like a tough balancing act to achieve.
There isn't much more we can do. NATO could end Russia with more weapons and making a defence deal with Saudis in exchange for price dumping of oil and gas[1].
But no one wants a nuclear state to fail. Moscow must be terrified of another coup d'etat, hence Navalny's death.
[1]extracting, insurance and delivery cost for Saudis are about $17 and for Russia it maybe as high as $40 now.
When Russia invades Poland to create a land connection to Kaliningrad, just as they invaded Ukraine to create a land connection to Crimea, Europe will wish it had done 10x as much as it did.
Western countries could deliver planes, Germany could deliver Taurus cruise missles, countries could give submarines in the atlantic to target Russian oil rigs etc.
Exactly this. They're slow-walking this thing when they should be decisive. Kick Orban and Hungary out of the EU if they keep playing silly games, make a real stand and stay the course. This dumb half-assed stretching the line is going to end up in misery.
> When Russia invades Poland to create a land connection to Kaliningrad, just as they invaded Ukraine to create a land connection to Crimea, Europe will wish it had done 10x as much as it did.
If it invades Poland. Finland joining NATO makes such an invasion less likely, because (I'm told) that membership gives NATO enough logistics to encircle Kaliningrad without going through the Suwałki Gap, and this in turn changes Kaliningrad itself from an asset into a liability. No, I'm not sure why Latvia/Lithuania/Estonia were not already sufficient for this.
> Western countries could deliver planes, Germany could deliver Taurus cruise missles, countries could give submarines in the atlantic to target Russian oil rigs etc.
Yes, though I've heard convincing arguments that part of the current Russian strategy is to keep NATO sufficiently worried about escalation that they focus on building up their own forces instead of donating those same resources to Ukraine.
To be fair, a nuclear state did fail. The US launched a program to help secure nuclear material and it more or less worked out.
You could argue that if the Russian state failed then a group of nations could literally just buy their nukes from whatever gangsters ever up in charge.
I'd argue USSR collapse was a messy dissolution. A failure would be: Tatarstan declares independence, regular fighting in the streets of Moscow for months.
Why would Saudi go against Russia for doing something they do themselves, i.e murdering opposition(Khashogi)?
Similarly, why would this be the trigger when the Saudi experience shows US is fine with it?
In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter. The number one problem for SA is security. The state is fragile. Wahabi, Muslim Brotherhood, tribes that hate House of Saud. Secondly, Iran possess a direct threat, Houthi could destroy critical infrastructure. $$$$ spent on military doesn't help - they lost the war in Yemen.
SA is on a lookout for allies: Defence partnership with Pakistan which probably end up in a nuclear technology transfer or purchase of atomic weapons.
If USA would give better security guarantees to SA (similar to Jordan) with some tech transfer, SA would increase the output by 2x, which would result in $45 per barrel.
Wahhabism isn't an internal threat to Saudi, like at all. It's their export ideology and it is not at all appealing to the citizens of one of the best welfare states in the world. Wahhabism in actual Saudi is completely different to what gets exported.
As for Iran, seems like recently there has been a rapprochement(mediated by China), will need to see where it leads. It's pretty clear to me SA is on the lookout for allies, but US is low on their list, as they realised(correctly) that all the human rights issues in Russia exist there as well and might get tackled by the West in a decarbonised future.
Not anymore after MBS came to power. Wahabhi missionary worm was a King Fahd policy (and why so many foreign mosques are named after him).
> it is not at all appealing to the citizens of one of the best welfare states in the world
Not to most, but it's definetly appealing to a small subset similar to how White Nationalism is appealing to a small subset of Americans.
The religious reforms post-2017 have been massive [0], and the fact that shows like Masameer or Bait Tahrir are being openly produced is a testament to that fact
> As for Iran, seems like recently there has been a rapprochement(mediated by China)
Only limited to Yemen. The relationship post-rapprochement was still fairly shaky and went down the gutter once 10/7 happened [1]
> pretty clear to me SA is on the lookout for allies, but US is low on their list
Yea no. Saudi is still continuing with US lead Israel-Saudi normalization [2] along with pushing for a US Defense Pact similar to what Japan has [3]
I think the notion that US Defense Pact is a sign of the countries being true allies needs to be examined. It's clear what the benefit for Saudi is, but it isn't so clear what the benefit for the US is/what the cost for Saudi is(beyond spending money on US arms which they wanted to do anyway).
The reason why I say this: Around the time of the price cap on Russian oil US was already asking Saudi to pump supply so that Russian budget would suffer, and of course Saudis didn't do anything. I think MBS is going fully down the Erdogan/Orban route where he is nominally "West aligned" but is going to be playing both sides as much as he can. When I said allies I meant someone who they would have reciprocal relationships with(which IMO isn't really the case with US atm).
I didn't say anything about who was or wasn't to blame. My point is just that it's weird to say "there's not much more we can do" when that funding package is still in limbo.
You didn't say it, but it is the Republicans that are to blame. They seem to believe that obstruction is a form of government. And the weirdest thing is that their supporters seem to believe this is true.
I agree, but the person I was responding to seemed to think that I was somehow blaming Congress in general rather than the Republicans, which is reading something into my comment that simply wasn't there.
<< They seem to believe that obstruction is a form of government.
It may come as something of a shock to some, but US constitution effectively guarantees gridlock if the various blocks are unable to agree. It is a feature and not a bug.
In other words, obstruction, such as it is -- last time I checked there were still talks about aid package slowly making it through house with pieces being cut out -- is a valid form of political expression.
The question that kicked off this discussion was "What do you want [the] world to do?" In that context it's pretty obvious what it means to say that the US Congress could approve more aid to Ukraine. Of course some people don't want to do that. That's why it remains something that we could do rather than something that we're doing.
Russia has already failed. The mob controls the nukes, that's the only reason why they managed to get as far as they did in Ukraine. If not for that it would have been long over.
Russia is a nuclear kleptocracy, it is ruled by a mob that seized power in a country that was already very fragile but that still had a massive arsenal. If you think about Russia in terms of a large gang run empire it starts to make a lot more sense. I know plenty of absolutely great Russian people, the country however is giving me the creeps and I don't see any of it ending well.
You can attack a country with nuclear weapons, provided you use only conventional ones, then threaten to escalate to nuclear if they do that. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate threat which would ensure mutual severe damage if not destruction if used, therefore nobody uses them first unless they're completely nuts, or they're cornered. Putin is a criminal but he's far from being crazy, and as for now is surely also far from being cornered. Surgical attacks in
Russia with conventional weapons would undermine his powers and create enough public disapproval to facilitate a coup from within, but should be done with extreme care and up to a certain point in order not to trigger a nuclear response.
Sadly, even using conventional weapons, the number of deaths would be huge; it is entirely possible that Putin would sacrifice millions of innocents sending them to the front line before giving up, also because when dictators give up they usually die shortly after.
Black/Azov Sea aside, they're not touching the area where the power resides, which is usually needed to weaken the leader image. Last bombing in Belgorod is probably just an error, but in any case it accomplishes nothing aside giving more fuel for Russian propaganda.
I should clarify that I'm not defending Russian actions or trying to be a useful idiot here, there just are red lines that if crossed, a nuclear power will respond with nuclear force. The same is true for China, the US, and even smaller powers like Pakistan.
I support sending Ukraine more ammo to defend its sovereignty. Appeasement is also bad.