More Sanctions on Russia? Dangerous!

The European Union and Washington recently announced that they would impose additional sanctions on Vladimir Putin´s government. These sanctions will affect Russian bank transactions, establish an embargo on certain items and on oil companies, freeze major companies´ bank accounts and deny European and American visas to relatives of the Moscow regime.

All of this will provoke heightened international tension.

These actions by the European Union and the United States are a response to the disfavor into which Putin has fallen in the West due to the continued provision of military and logistical support to the Russian rebels in Eastern Ukraine and the alleged distribution of weapons to those rebels. It is suspected that Malaysian Airlines Flight 370 was downed by a Russian missile, causing the deaths of 298 innocent people.

But even if Putin did supply the missile, that doesn´t make him guilty of shooting down the airplane. There is still no solid evidence. And what if, in the West, we are wrong, and the United States and the European Union are simply taking advantage of the situation to put pressure on Putin?

If Russia is found guilty, the Ural Mountains will be the new Berlin Wall.

However, other things could happen: 1) a reversal of the Russian policy in Ukraine; 2) a treaty between the Russian nationalists in Crimea and Petro Poroshenko´s government; 3) a tactical withdrawal of the nationalists; or 4) more uprisings and increased destabilization in Ukraine.

In politics, there are always unexpected scenarios.

But I believe that these western measures, although comprehensible, could turn out to be very provocative.

There will be those that say Washington and Brussels should be tougher on Putin. Or perhaps that their actions should be military. But a more sensible middle road would be to negotiate with Putin and search for some agreement.

And even though we believe that the truth gives us the right to seek justice, in reality, this mindset can make us impulsive and reckless and cause us to wield our beliefs like a sword. The truth is an argument, not a weapon. Using it inappropriately can make those who feel threatened react violently.

After all, Washington and European Union strategists know that Russia is not a baby cub.

Additionally, it´s important to remember that although Putin appears icy and has been condescending in response to much of the western agenda, this does not mean he is foolish. To the contrary, it´s impossible for him to have reached the position he holds now (after a career in the KGB) unaware of the place in history that he could occupy if he puts Russia on a historical-political pedestal.

And as the leader of a superpower, Putin cannot refrain from inciting [Pan-]Slavism or rallying the nationalist emotions of Russian glory and greatness.

Meanwhile, in some ways Beijing must be pleased, surmising that any possible friction between two rival powers implies that at the end of any skirmish, China will face just one rather battered rival.

Is humanity passing through a crisis of greed, intolerance and arrogance? In Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe, there are already enough conflicts to believe that at any moment, a conflagration of great proportions could occur due to such narcissistic impulses of racial pride and cultural arrogance.

If we look at the first years of the last century, when World War I was beginning to take shape, we see events similar to those that are taking place in this century: 1) Various empires were beginning to crack (the Turkish, the Austro-Hungarian); 2) Eastern Europe simmered with conflicts in Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Montenegro and Crete, and in Kiev in 1911, the Chairman of the Russian Council of Ministers, [Pyotr] Stolypin, had been killed; and 3) The Industrial Revolution had facilitated a greater search for raw materials in poor countries, England was building dual institutions in its Asian and African colonies, the Japanese empire was falling out of favor in China, Korea and the Philippines, and the United States was boasting about its skyscrapers, industries and threatening cannons in the Caribbean. There was no global organism; the League of Nations did not exist. And today, the United Nations comes across as an anodyne forum, without the power to restrain governments or terrorists.

It´s been said that history is lineal or cyclical. Could it be zigzag or retrograde?

Why set leadership up to search for war heroes if pacifist examples bear more fruit? Why keep believing that from this side of the world we are capable of bending whomever to our will, ignorant of our adversary´s wisdom or age?

It would be a grave mistake to believe that we will always be able to impose our reason on others. Or that our adversaries are not capable of resisting western institutions and judgments, as civilized as they may appear.