Western sanctions will eventually impair Russia’s economy | Hacker News Reader

Western sanctions will eventually impair Russia’s economy

economist.com

14 pointsacqbu35 comments

An obvious consequence of the war is that Russia is going to lose ground as an arms vendor.

(1) As Russia rebuilds its military, production capacity will be diverted from exports

(2) Russian arms contain western sourced chips. For instance the microprocessor used in the S-400 missile system is made in Taiwan. Sanctions will disrupt the supply chain for military systems.

(3) Russian weapons have underperformed in the war. You'd have to be crazy to buy any of the T-72 derivatives (T-80, T-90, ...) On the other hand the Javelin looks good, HIMARS looks good.

The S-300/S-400 missile system is the wildcard in that it has been basically effective but is fantastically expensive so that it is a prime target for the enemy. Ukraine inherited them from the Soviet Union but now they are largely depleted and are being replaced with NASMAS

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASAMS

which is a very low-cost weapon in comparison. On paper NASAMS underperforms the S-300 in terms of range, altitude, and capability against ballistic missile. On the other hand NASAMS terminal guidance is better against cruise missile and other airbreathing targets so it has a very high hit rate.

NATO member Turkey bought the S-400 because the Patriot sucks, India is another major "non-aligned" S-400 buyer. That is an export business endangered by this war.

I feel like this suffers status quo bias.

1. production capacity is degraded by marketing goes up, their products which have now show real benefit will be higher in demand. Whether it can compensate fully for the reduced capacity, only time will tell.

2. Russia can try (and focus) on building weapons without western chips. They will obviously not as advanced, but then they weren't really known for advanced high tech weaponry to begin with.

3. Existing machinery underperfomed, but now investment in tested weaponry will be made.

I am not trying to make a really hard case for Russian perseverance, but to me your argument sounds like someone saying "you messed with the son of the farmer, lets see how you celebrate your birthday without eggs to make the cake".

You make good, pragmatic points, but I think international military procurement is often drive more by geopolitics than pragmatism. There will be nations who buy Russian garbage at unreasonable price and unreasonable delivery schedule.

I don't think supply of silicon chips is likely to be an issue. China has domestically designed and produced chips that should be sufficient for the requirements of being embedded in weapons systems, which they will happily export to Russia.

It's sad to see a lot of people have moved on from the Ukraine war, just as Russia hoped would happen. No doubt their propaganda arm is busy stirring the pot on social media attempting to provoke outrage elsewhere.

I’m able (and interested) in keeping up on daily basis because the news I follow has done a decent job keeping it accessible. Also blogs like the war zone have had interesting-to-me analysis. Biden’s done a decent job keeping the stories in the spotlight and trying to keep people engaged too.

The news the past 6 weeks with HIMARS etc and some Ukraine progress on slowing Russia’s advance has made it more interesting and while this is not a war that ends soon, morally I feel somewhat better Russia never achieved its original goals (and can barely archive the new ones)

How does it benefit the common person? Also the Afghan rout cooled people off.

https://archive.ph/jqiXz

And Russian sanctions will eventually impair the EU economy.

The question is which side will give in earlier. The EU has a disadvantage there in that it regularly holds elections, and when they happen the ballooning energy prices may cause large swings. It will be interesting to see what happens a month from now in Italy, for example (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Italian_general_election)

I’m not sure what will happen.

I've read about the Irish and French governments recently claiming that 5-10 years of economic "difficulties" can be expected and that the era of prosperity is likely over. I guess we'll know more come this and next winter.

But there's also Ukraine's economy: they are currently wholly dependent on the IMF and Western backers in order to keep the lights on. In the war they are completely dependent on Western weapons deliveries. Ukraine has essentially ceased to exist as an independent country except on paper.

The likely more significant effect (in terms of human lives saved and large scale famines, droughts, wars, opulation displacements etc avoided) of the sanctions is to accelerate the fossil fuels rampdown. But not surprising that Economist ignores this.

People who remember all the grey-market Cisco gear they could buy that came from China, might well be skeptical that Russia has been truly prevented from buying chips that are made in China...

They aren't fully fleshed out, but alternative import networks are already set up at least for some products, for example German cars are slowly coming back. You simply import to Azerbaijan(became even more popular as gas deal makes it less likely to be shut off) or Turkey(don't listen to Erdogan rhetoric on Crimea IMO, he is playing both sides really well as usual), and from there on out reship it to Russia with no problems. I don't know about chips, but European products will basically come back, but be more expensive as they now have to take detours of varying lengths.

What's up with that western obsession to "impair Russia's economy"?

Because it beats the hell out of escalation and the specter of nuclear exchange.

Nuclear exchange? Ukraine doesn't have nuclear weapons

And it is Russia's neighbor, i doubt Russians want a radioactive cloud above them

If Russia is left unchecked, the next targets after Ukraine are even more obviously European, and many of those have nukes or are closer to countries that have nukes than Ukraine is/was.

Reverse the role, open a map and look at the NATO expansion and US military bases that spread everywhere, full of long range missiles

Now, how would you react? specially when they enter in an economy war with you, forcing everyone to comply with their sanctions

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-nato-putin-idUSKBN...

> Reverse the role, open a map and look at the NATO expansion and US military bases that spread everywhere, full of long range missiles

NATO is a defensive compact, not a country that's expanding.

> full of long range missiles

These being long range means it really doesn't matter, right?

Russia's government could try not being such shitheads if they want to be left alone. Their current war is just expanding NATO more than anything in decades. Invading your neighbors has a way of driving people away, funny that.

If Russia has more difficulty attacking countries around them, because they can't afford it economically, it would make many non-Western countries happy, too.

Well, evil should not stay unpunished for everyone to see, for starters.

The US remains unpunished for what they did in the middle east

Same for South Africa, same for Qatar, Israel and Saudi Arabia

Again, why this obsession with punishing Russia? must be something else since the UN doesn't seems to care about supposed invasions

Everyone and their dog are talking about that, too. And the UN doesn’t care, they are just a place for opposing forces to come and talk.

Also, Saddam Hussein and Taliban were (and Taliban are) quite evil in their own regard; there were nearly no opposition in the world for US operations against them. Ukraine wasn’t and isn’t evil.

Thanks for admitting that US-backed mujahedins[1] ended up as the evil the west was supposed to prevent from emerging. Try to guess how the history is going to rhyme with Ukraine this time.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/1993-independent-article-abo...

Yes, that wasn’t a good idea perhaps. But, well, it has created more than enough problems and punishments.

The US has not added to its territory. Russia is invading for purposes of expansion.

Russia started the military operation to prevent NATO from expansion, open the map, and look at how big Russia is, they already struggle to exploit their entire country, expanding doesn't make sense, they can't afford protecting bigger land

These are sovereign countries who can join NATO whenever they desire so. Russia has no say, except to start an illegal aggressive war, which per a Soviet jurist at the Nuremberg trials argued is the supreme international crime.

Russia is a signatory to the U.N. Charter, in no possible reading of either the U.N. or NATO Charters is Russia threatened by NATO countries unless it attacks one of them first. That's a precondition of NATO responding. If you might attack first, NATO might be viewed as a threat, and therefore an even more legitimate reason to join NATO.

Russia is also a signatory to the Budapest Memorandium in which it recognized Ukrainian independence. It's also a signatory to the Geneva Conventions. They said they wouldn't do exactly what they have done. Russia is a genocidal antagonistic ideological social group. The Kremlin published it's plan for a genocide, openly: What Russia should do with Ukraine? (Что Россия должна сделать с Украиной). This is not ambiguous language.

It doesn't surprise me that, also in 1994, Poland insisted on NATO membership or else it would develop its own nuclear program. Why? Because they didn't trust Russia.

Also, Putin said before 2014 that Ukraine joining NATO wasn't a concern of Russia's, so claiming it is now is absurd Russian propaganda.

Russia has "Fatal Attraction" complex. It demands that Ukraine love them, or else Ukraine must die. All of them. It is a completely brain washed and demented culture now. This is what happens when tyranny is allowed to persist without a revolution. Now, an entire nation subservient to tyranny, demanding its neighbors must like it too under penalty of extermination for having the courage to tell Russia to fuck off.

How do you think the Russia got so big in the first place. Because there was no point where they said "ok, that's enough territory".

It's like thinking that billionaires don't actually want more money or politicians more power.

My perspective from the southern hemisphere is that the West is making an example out of Russia by "fighting to the last Ukrainian" to attempt to push China's time-table on Taiwan.

I don't think it has anything to do with Ukraine, Russia, human rights, etc.

> I don't think it has anything to do with Ukraine, Russia, human rights, etc.

How do you rationalize Russia threatening to invade neighboring countries, such as Poland and Romania and all Baltic states, not to mention all the threats directed at Germany and the UK, and still claim that Russia is whimsically being made an example because of China?

I think about the way the West reacted to the decades of post-Soviet Russian threats and warnings such as after Malaysia Air Flight 17, Gazprom's conduct around the Yamal pipelne, and the way they use Moldovan nationality to interfere with domestic Polish politics. Or even the difference between the reaction to Russia's conduct in Ukraine in 2014 as opposed to 2022.

I think that Russia has been making threats for decades, yet the West's response has changed dramatically. Why now?

The Guardian: "Fury as Russia presents 'evidence' Poland sided with Nazis before war" (2009)

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/01/russia-poland-...

Polityka: "Polish-Russian Relations: Bones of Contention Piling Up" (2012)

https://web.archive.org/web/20120224013051/http://www.ziggi....

The Moscow Times: "Poland Cancels Year of Bilateral Celebration With Russia Over Ukraine" (2014)

https://old.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/poland-cancels-y...

The Telegraph: "Ukraine crisis: Poland asks Nato to station 10,000 troops on its territory" (2014)

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/ukraine/10...

BBC: "Russia bans Polish fruit and veg amid sanctions war" (2014)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28603140

Nine O'Clock (of Bucharest): "Russia Warns Romania" (2015)

http://www.nineoclock.ro/russia-warns-romania/

BBC: "Russia warns Poland not to touch Soviet WW2 memorials" (2017)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-40775355

The NYT: "Burned by Russia, Poland Turns to U.S. for Natural Gas and Energy Security" (2019)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/26/business/poland-gas-lng-r...

In March 2020, the British government declared Russia the most "acute" threat to UK security in the Integrated Review.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

In June 2021, a confrontation occurred between HMS Defender (D36) and the Russian Armed Forces in the 2021 Black Sea incident.

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/p3Ibq

> I think about the way the West reacted to the decades (...)

Your take reads like a terribly far fetched non-sequitur.

You have right now Russia, a regime which has been invested in multiple invasion and annexation episodes in the present and recent past, invading and trying to annex Ukraine as we speak, and as we speak the ruling regime posts threats dedicated to all its neighboring countries, and the best argument you managed to put together to support your baseless assertion is a bunch of cherry-picked news clippings from years ago?

Pray tell, how do you expect countries like Poland and Germany and the Baltic states and even Ukraine to Russia's violent, imperialistic and expansionist political agenda?

Sorry about that, I'm a poor writer. Thank you for taking the time to respond.

I expect they'd react the way they did in the past.

As opposed to the record-high energy prices and inflation in the eurozone? This article is lying by omission.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/commodities/europe-...

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