📅 Thought for today:
‘Sanctions and negotiations can be very ineffective, and indeed foolish unless the people you are talking with and negotiating with and trying to reach agreements with are people who can be trusted to keep their word.’
— Caspar Weinberger
#thoughtfortoday #sanctions #ineffective #negotiation #foolish #trust #aggression #fear
Today I am wondering about the effectiveness of “sanctions” against two of the top people in Russia.
I don’t think anybody “in the West” wants an escalating military conflict.
However, it is notable that Russia (of course), India and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution seeking to end the military offensive by Russia in Ukraine. The UAE abstained – an odd fence-sitting choice. China and India each have 10 times the population of Russia. Collectively, these three nations account for (“represent”) the views of 2.9 billion people, of a global population of just shy of 8 billion. So, one-third of the population of the world is refusing to sanction Russia. Not that their populations have any say in the matter.
Ukraine’s representative is quoted as saying, “Your words have less value than a hole in a New York pretzel”.
Vladimir Putin is many things, but I doubt he is lacking in intelligence, and most surely expected the “sanctions” that froze his assets. He is not short of assets and probably won’t notice.
Sanctions against the Russian state, such as cutting their access to the SWIFT banking system would harm the Russian people far more than anyone at the top.
Sadly, I have no answers, I keep carrying on, in an oddly Churchillian way (if you know the quote).
I feel the need to quote Yoda: “Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering.”
