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Comment by causi | Hacker News Reader

EU and US will use every diplomatic and financial weapon against Russia, but they've long since decided Ukraine and the Ukrainian people aren't worth actual war over. That call was made in 2014 and stopping Russia then would've been easier than it would be now.

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It's not clear whether every financial weapon will be used. For example,

> The foreign ministers of the Baltic states called for Russia to be cut off from SWIFT, the global intermediary for banks' financial transactions. However, other EU member states were reluctant, both because European lenders held most of the nearly $30 billion in foreign bank's exposure to Russia and because China has developed an alternative to SWIFT called CIPS; a weaponisation of SWIFT would provide greater impetus to the development of CIPS which in turn would weaken SWIFT as well as the West's control over international finance.[262][263] Other leaders calling for Russia to be stopped from accessing SWIFT include Czech President Miloš Zeman[264] and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.[265]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukrai...

This is where diplomacy should shine. It's clear that Russia has been hardening against western sanctions for years now, and CIPS is a big piece of that. If NATO can convince China to also shut them out of CIPS at the same time we turn off SWIFT the Russian Oligarchs will start applying pressure to Putin.

They won't. They want Russian support when they invade Taiwan.

They don't need Russian support to attack Taiwan and Russian economic support is meaningless. They won't do it because there is no incentive to. The US has to bribe them. Think of China like an evil corporation. They won't do anything except for their own best interests. Like Facebook with nukes.

I don't think adding the tag of "evil" in front of corporation is necessary or helpful. Corporations are selfish and aggressive enough already. Nothing about China's geopolitical plotting is anymore evil than the US or Russia, regardless of what ideological non-sense you use to justify any corner.

Russian support won't come in the form of money or weapons. It'll come in the form of shutting off gas lines to the EU or invading the next set of non NATO countries in the EU, forcing the major military powers of the EU and NA to decide between protecting Europe or protecting Taiwan.

China can't invade Taiwan without Taiwan blowing up the Three Gorges Dam and wiping out 1/4th of China's population

I doubt that's going to happen. China has refused to even call this an invasion, and has said that it's the West's fault.

Source?

All over the news if you do a search. First hits:

https://www.reuters.com/world/china/china-rejects-calling-ru...

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/24/china-refuses-to-call-attack...

Thanks.

In fairness to nojs, I tried to search for it to back up my claim, and couldn't find it again.

Russian oligarchs will not apply pressure to Putin. They are all accomplices now.

All this politics theater of the past few days was to make everyone of notice show support for invasion, in public form. Lawmakers, Security council, oligarchs, senators, everyone. So they would know they won't be able to betray him and escape. They are all forced to make their bones.

You need to convince Europeans before China.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/24/kyiv-furious-a...

Why would China shut off Russia when it also faces the same adversaries from across the ocean? This is their moment prove CIPS.

You need to finish that sentence: "...prove CIPS enables imperialist expansion."

Yeah imperialism sure sounds like weaponizing international systems nominally neutral.

Russia and China have developed their own equivalent of SWIFT, so again this is a sanction which will benefit Russia just like the oil price going up will benefit them because Russia has the largest oil reserves in the world.

Plus with Chernobyl, some of the fuel rods may well be weapons grade still, and Chernobyl almost bankrupted Russia, it certainly helped break up the Soviet Union according to Gorbachev, its also on the border with Belarus who are aligned with Russia, and uranium fuel rods are not cheap to make, it takes tonnes of Uranium, so grabbing Chernobyl would seem sensible.

So at this stage, I'm now thinking Russia is the next country to get a massive improvement in quality of life and infrastructure, a bit like we have seen with China over the last decade or so, whilst all the while the West is kept in the slow lane for other less developed countries to catch up.

CIPS is not an "equivalent of SWIFT" by a long shot. It definitely helps soften the blow of any potential SWIFT sanctions but that doesn't mean losing SWIFT access would be a non-issue.

> I'm now thinking Russia is the next country to get a massive improvement in quality of life and infrastructure

That's practically impossible. They could have done in in last 30 years, but almost all the profit went to pockets of Kremlin's pyramid of power and tunneled to tax havens across the world. Corruption, laziness, incompetence of key people, and in some form also in the rest of nation will effectively prevent that.

But during the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian govt gave shares in all the state assets, as the rouble collapsed, but the shelves were bare, everyone with anything decent only wanted dollar, like you see in African countries, and so the rich with international financial connections offered to buy the shares awarded to the Russian public in exchange for dollars in order to buy food.

Do this en masse and you have your present day Russian oligarchs.

All Putin & the KGB have been trying to do since is rebuild Russia whilst getting people adjusted to capitalism. Many people in remote rural areas still wish for the old communist days where there was much more state support like with better infrastructure thats now crumbling away.

Communism started in Russia in 1917, its an ideology just like there is a new AI ideology in play right now, but these ideologies are/were designed to further human advancement, and even the Chinese recognise, Capitalism has so far one out, at least the illusion of Capitalism if you ignore how search engines can control a countries economy.

All ideologies have their faults, but some are also dependent on technology, so I dont know if an AI communism/capitalism mix could be seen in the future?

So look at teh buildings that are being destroyed, are these happening to make way for a new supermarket, shopping mall, road interchange once the building starts?

Just look at what happened in Iraq, private companies stormed in there and capitalism was in full flow because of Uncle Sam, however I suspect its Mother Russia now looking to splash the cash which means likely many Russian firms getting a govt handout disguised as war disguises these things.

Revisit this comment in ten years time and see if your opinion changes!

Not even every financial weapon. EU isn't united on kicking Russia out of SWIFT.

That was yesterday. Today, the situation is evolving quickly.

That was swift :P https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/t0epur/boris_joh...

No it's not, Biden confirmed it now.

Not sure why Germany has such a weak stance against Russia now. It can't be just because of oil and gas imports for sure. It must look supremely weak to any strongman like Putin, encouraging him to push for more since nobody ever gave a fuck about some political condemnations or blocking few bureaucrats, you don't store billions you stole on your name in the banks.

Basically Germany and Italy don't want it. Cause of big financial investment in Russian businesses.

Germany especially should really do some soul-searching. They are enabling Putin for the last few decades.

And they have been stupidly playing politics and investing in "green energy" while buying ever more gas from Russia and shutting down their own energy independence.

In the middle of the winter, economic sanctions have their hands basically tied. What is Europe going to do? Turn off the gas? I don't think so.

Maybe at least France will stop D%#$ing around and finish their reactor. The only question is can Putin put down the insurrections in Ukraine faster than the rest of Europe can untangle their energy dependence, or will it just be another Crimea where everyone forgets about it in a year or two, and Putin can pull it off somewhere else in another 5 years.

Green energy is fine, it actually reduces the total amount bought from Putin (and thus invested into Russian army). The problem was disabling the non-fossil-fuel baseload (meaning nuclear powerplants). It was criminally idiotic. I hope Germany finally wakes up because this is making the whole EU project look less and less feasible.

> Cause of big financial investment in Russian businesses

And because blocking them from some technology that the West has monopoly over will invite a strong(er) drive from the likes of China and Russia to create a competitor and weaken the West's power in that field.

Like high-quality solar panels, which was Germany's #1 innovation until they let the Chinese have it?

Until the US puts sanctions on Russia's oil/gas and doesn't buy it, then no not every financial or diplomatic weapon is being used. Right now it seems the US is reluctant to do this: https://twitter.com/business/status/1496861082907906048

Same for UK – sanctions on russian companies but we keep the gas and thus money flowing back to Russia.

It's good that Iraq and Afghanistan was worth a war, just Ukraine not so much

It is a bit easier fighting caveman jihadist and third class dictators with outdated military, than a nuclear superpower.

> superpower.

Yup. Because when I think of superpower I think of an economy that is barely passing Italy's.

Power comes in many shapes. Russia does not have a good economy, but a strong military and nukes.

and more importantly, the willingness to sacrifice millions of their own people if they need to. They have done it before, and if needed, I have no doubt they will do it again.

They have 2 million men under arms and the world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

This is sarcasm, right? (the part about Iraq and Afghanistan)

> EU and US will use every diplomatic and financial weapon against Russia

[Citation needed]

The softening of sanctions has arrived already.

The EU and US have made serious mistakes in the process but it's hard to disagree with that conclusion. Either you have a fairly short(By necessity, since Ukraine is going to remain crossable with armor for maybe a couple more weeks before the entire country turns into a giant bog in spring) proxy war in Ukraine that kills a few thousand and transfers the territory from one bickering cabal of oligarchs to another or you risk global nuclear war with boots-on-the-ground intervention. Putin has been pretty clear that he'll use nukes in the event of a full NATO intervention.

I would treat threats of nuclear weapons as bluffs. He doesn’t want to perish in an inferno and a first strike is hard to justify over a mere military humiliation on foreign soil. Rather more likely are cyber attacks on infrastructure here in the US and attacks on US bases in Europe or abroad.

And if he is not bluffing? :)

That's not an option to consider. If you do that, they'll be able to do anything they want. Which is exactly what they're counting on.

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