Western Sanctions Against Russia: Just Empty Threats

The referendum on Crimea was held on March 16, when it was decided that Russia would annex Crimea. The White House issued a statement for the first time, emphasizing the rejection of the Crimea referendum by not recognizing the referendum’s results — instead continuing to “increase the cost on Russia.”

Previously, the United States and Europe took a “full range” of diplomatic, military and economic measures in an attempt to force Russia to annul the Crimean referendum. President Obama warned Russia that it would face consequences by not changing course. German Chancellor Angela Merkel even threatened Russia and claimed that it would face serious political and economic harm.

Between the United States and Russia, much has been said but little has been done; if it is not that too little follow-up has occurred, then it is that not enough effort has been put in. The United States took the lead by suspending “all cooperation” with Russia in the military field as well as with trade and investment negotiations. Then, the U.S. announced the expansion of military cooperation with Baltic countries and efforts to increase airspace inspections; Poland, Bulgaria, Romania and other countries held military drills in an effort to “flex their muscles” toward Russia. Certainly, NATO has also taken action and stepped up their patrols by sending reconnaissance aircrafts to neighboring Ukraine, Bulgaria and Romania. Russia has not been responding to U.S. and European intimidation, instead choosing a tit-for-tat strategy by launching military drills on the Russia-Ukraine border and in the Mediterranean, proceeding on schedule with the Crimea referendum.

So how will the U.S. and Europe proceed? What kind of “consequences,” and what type of political and economic harm, will Russia face? Yesterday, Obama announced the imposition of sanctions against seven Russian officials, also implementing a visa ban, the freezing of assets and other measures. Russian officials subject to such U.S. sanctions include Putin’s two consultants Surkov and Graziano Aliyev, and Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitri Rogozin. On the same day, European Union foreign ministers are to finalize their list of sanctions against Russia. The sanctions will focus on travel restrictions and asset freezing, among others. The final 21 people on the sanctions list are Crimean politicians and some Russian officials who called for the referendum. The sanctions called for by the West are difficult to see. The so-called “consequences” and “political and economic harm” were announced for the sake of criticism and may not actually cause serious damage to Russia.

Comparing the sanctions list to the past 30 years in both the East and the West, one thinks to the Cuban missile crisis, the Berlin Wall crisis, or the Soviet invasions of Hungary and Czechoslovakia; where has Western and American aggression gone? The answer is that times have changed. In the current situation of economic globalization and political polarization, it is not that the United States and the European Union do not want aggression — rather it is that they cannot be aggressive. America and its allies’ “careful consideration” about what to do, in the end, only produced a list of sanctions.

In the first place, military intervention would be impossible. After Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States’ dominant policy is to avoid war due to weariness and tight finances, especially considering slashed defense budgets. The United States has completely lost its political will and financial resolve, so military intervention was likely the first to be ruled out.

Second, economic sanctions would not work. The world economy now consists of countries dependent on one another, creating a high degree of worldwide interdependency. Germany and other European Union countries, for example, get 30 percent of their energy from Russia. If Russian economic sanctions were imposed, the one doing so would hurt themselves more than the enemy, and the first countries to take a hit would be Germany and the other EU countries.

Finally, the lack of cooperation with Russia should not and must not shut the door to further dialogue. During the third nuclear security summit held in The Hague this month, Russia was revealed to have an indispensable role. As the country has the world’s largest number of nuclear weapons, global nuclear security would be impossible without the United States’ and Russia’s cooperation. In addition, on hot issues like the nuclear situation in Iran, the Korean Peninsula, Syria and more, the United States also needs Russia’s cooperation. Although the U.S. secretary of state made no progress in talks with Lavrov in London on the Ukraine issue after over six hours, the two sides did agree to continue their dialogue. This is why Putin and Lavrov were not included on the list of U.S. and European sanctions.

The issue of Ukraine has caused a fierce collision between the major powers, the result of which may be a significant indicator of the ebb and flow of future relations between the world’s biggest powers.