(...) "Meanwhile, the west and its peoples have been plunged into recession. Leadership has been shaken and insecurity spread in Britain, France, Italy and the US. Gas-starved Germany and Hungary are close to dancing to Putin’s tune. Living costs are escalating everywhere. Yet still no one dares question sanctions. It is sacrilege to admit their failure or conceive retreat. The west has been enticed into the timeless irony of aggression. Eventually its most conspicuous victim is the aggressor. Perhaps, after all, we should stick to war."
Simon Jenkins
The rouble is soaring and Putin is stronger than
ever - our sanctions have backfired
Simon
Jenkins
Energy prices are rocketing, inflation is soaring and
millions are being starved of grain. Surely Johnson knew this would happen?
Fri 29 Jul
2022 07.00 BST
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/29/putin-ruble-west-sanctions-russia-europe
Western
sanctions against Russia are the most ill-conceived and counterproductive
policy in recent international history. Military aid to Ukraine is justified,
but the economic war is ineffective against the regime in Moscow, and
devastating for its unintended targets. World energy prices are rocketing,
inflation is soaring, supply chains are chaotic and millions are being starved
of gas, grain and fertiliser. Yet Vladimir Putin’s barbarity only escalates –
as does his hold over his own people.
To
criticise western sanctions is close to anathema. Defence analysts are dumb on
the subject. Strategy thinktanks are silent. Britain’s putative leaders, Liz
Truss and Rishi Sunak, compete in belligerent rhetoric, promising ever tougher
sanctions without a word of purpose. Yet, hint at scepticism on the subject and
you will be excoriated as “pro-Putin” and anti-Ukraine. Sanctions are the war
cry of the west’s crusade.
The reality
of sanctions on Russia is that they invite retaliation. Putin is free to freeze
Europe this winter. He has slashed supply from major pipelines such as Nord
Stream 1 by up to 80%. World oil prices have surged and eastern Europe’s flow
of wheat and other foodstuffs to Africa and Asia has been all but suspended.
Britain’s
domestic gas bills face tripling inside a year. The chief beneficiary is none
other than Russia, whose energy exports to Asia have soared, driving its
balance of payments into unprecedented surplus. The rouble is one of the
world’s strongest currencies this year, having strengthened since January by
nearly 50%. Moscow’s overseas assets have been frozen and its oligarchs have
relocated their yachts, but there is no sign that Putin cares. He has no
electorate to worry him.
The
interdependence of the world’s economies, so long seen as an instrument of
peace, has been made a weapon of war. Politicians around the Nato table have
been wisely cautious about escalating military aid to Ukraine. They understand
military deterrence. Yet they appear total ingenues on economics. Here they all
parrot Dr Strangelove. They want to bomb Russia’s economy “back to the stone
age”.
I would be
intrigued to know if any paper was ever submitted to Boris Johnson’s cabinet
forecasting the likely outcome for Britain of Russian sanctions. The assumption
seems to be that if trade embargos hurt they are working. As they do not directly
kill people, they are somehow an acceptable form of aggression. They are based
on a neo-imperial assumption that western countries are entitled to order the
world as they wish. They are enforced, if not through gunboats, then through
capitalist muscle in a globalised economy. Since they are mostly imposed on
small, weak states soon out of the headlines, their purpose has largely been of
“feelgood” symbolism.
A rare
student of this subject is the American economic historian Nicholas Mulder, who
points out that more than 30 sanctions “wars” in the past 50 years have had
minimal if not counterproductive impact. They are meant to “intimidate peoples
into restraining their princes”. If anything they have had the opposite effect.
From Cuba to Korea, Myanmar to Iran, Venezuela to Russia, autocratic regimes
have been entrenched, elites strengthened and freedoms crushed. Sanctions seem
to instil stability and self-reliance on even their weakest victim. Almost all
the world’s oldest dictatorships have benefited from western sanctions.
Moscow is
neither small nor weak. Another observer, the Royal United Services Institute’s
Russia expert Richard Connolly, has charted Putin’s response to the sanctions
imposed on him since his 2014 seizure of Crimea and Donbas. Their objective was
to change Russia’s course in those regions and deter further aggression. Their
failure could hardly be more glaring. Apologists excuse this as due to the
embargos being too weak. The present ones, perhaps the toughest ever imposed on
a major world power, may not be working yet, but will apparently work in time.
They are said to be starving Russia of microchips and drone spares. They will
soon have Putin begging for peace.
If Putin
begs, it will be on the battlefield. At home, Connolly illustrates how Russia
is “slowly adjusting to its new circumstances”. Sanctions have promoted trade
with China, Iran and India. They have benefited “insiders connected to Putin
and the ruling entourage, making huge profits from import substitution”.
McDonald’s locations across the country have been replaced by a Russian-owned
chain called Vkusno & tochka (“Tasty and that’s it”). Of course the economy
is weaker, but Putin is, if anything, stronger while sanctions are cohering a
new economic realm across Asia, embracing an ever enhanced role for China. Was
this forecast?
Meanwhile,
the west and its peoples have been plunged into recession. Leadership has been
shaken and insecurity spread in Britain, France, Italy and the US. Gas-starved
Germany and Hungary are close to dancing to Putin’s tune. Living costs are escalating
everywhere. Yet still no one dares question sanctions. It is sacrilege to admit
their failure or conceive retreat. The west has been enticed into the timeless
irony of aggression. Eventually its most conspicuous victim is the aggressor.
Perhaps, after all, we should stick to war.
Simon
Jenkins is a Guardian columnist
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