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by schappim 859 days ago
What is left on the table?
4 comments

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).

- Europe is still consuming lots of gas that finances Russia's "defense" budget.

- There's also a lot of other business with Russia that is not sanctioned.

- Ukraine does not have enough ammunition.

- There are so called neutral countries that should not be neutral.

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 are so called neutral countries that should not be neutral.

Why?

The US could stop Taiwan from selling ammunition manufacturing machinery to Russia
And Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Japan. Siemens CNC machines are making cruise missles instead of train parts.
And the US
> What is left on the table?

Arming Ukraine, tighten sanctions.

The world has been treating Russia with kids gloves while it should be treating it as the drunken nuisance it is.

Not so sure. I remember that pulling the plug on SWIFT was seen and talk about, as "the nuclear option" that no one thought would be used.
It wasn't done to the full extent (Raiffeisenbank for starters) and does look petty.

"We are not confiscating your money from the bank but when you call to withdraw them, we will pretend we can't hear you on the phone".