Diplomatic and Economic Isolation of Russia Is Impossible

The diplomatic and economic isolation of Russia is impossible in principle because it will deal a blow to the EU economies. Europe will lose to China a giant share of the market for selling its goods. As for sanctions against individual companies, Russia won’t even notice them.

Many days have passed since Barack Obama and Angela Merkel made their statements about sanctions, but nothing has happened. According to an expert of the Valdai International Discussion Club, politician and economist Mikhail Delyagin, these statements are merely an instrument of the information war.

The diplomatic and economic isolation of Russia is impossible in principle because it will deal a blow to the EU economies. Europe will lose to China a giant share of the market for selling its goods. It will also face problems with gas supplies. It is important to understand that the United States is forcing Europe to introduce economic sanctions against Russia not only to exert pressure on Moscow. They will deal a heavy blow to the EU economies, thereby weakening the positions of Europe as America’s strategic competitor.

As for sanctions against individual companies, Russia won’t even notice them. If a ban is imposed on the delivery of certain goods, like tasers for Russian law-enforcement bodies, this measure will harm relevant agencies but won’t reflect on the economy as a whole.

What is really harming us is a tacit ban on the supplies of high-tech equipment, expendable materials and spare parts for enterprises. These supplies have been delayed for over two months for technical reasons, so to speak. American suppliers are making all kinds of excuses, from lost documents to transport setbacks. Since these supplies are critical for many European producers on Russian territory (primarily German), I hope they will soon be resumed. If not, we, as well as Europeans, will sustain tangible losses, because we’ll have to buy certain spare parts that we used to produce, via third parties. However, we’ll cope with this problem as well.

In the 1980s and 1990s Europeans got out of the habit of being responsible for their actions. They are now used to all decisions being made by Big Brother, namely the United States. Sitting pretty, they are shifting all responsibility to Washington and are not at all ready to assume it again. They will put the brakes on its decisions and procrastinate, but that's all.

Indeed, Washington has many political and economic levers of pressure on the EU countries, and the German political elite are servile to America. However if Chancellor Merkel announced her readiness to destroy the German economy by imposing sanctions upon Russia, this doesn’t mean she is going to do this. Her political survival and the preservation of the German current political structure depend on this issue. So, she won’t risk too much.

As for US President Obama’s hysterical statements about new sanctions, they only demonstrate his absolute political impotence once again. This information campaign has shown that the America that we used to know has ceased to exist. The America we knew in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan’s America, is no more. The United States is turning before our eyes into a huge empty space equipped with aircraft carriers and drones.

We shouldn’t forget that Russia can take a broad range of reciprocal economic moves. Although US-Russian trade is not big, Russia may start replacing American goods and services in its market. Thus, the government could channel several million dollars into accelerated completion of the Linux system and transfer all its institutions to this platform. In this case the demand for Microsoft software in Russia will dive. I think this move alone would be enough to bring about an abrupt change in the conduct of the Democratic Party and Obama, a close friend of Microsoft.

Moscow can also shut down American fast food establishments, such as KFC and McDonald’s, that offer unhealthy meals. Next it would seem logical to shut down Pepsi and Coca-Cola and replace them with less harmful beverages in Russia.

Finally, if the United States and the EU shut down subsidiaries of Russian banks, why couldn't we close theirs on our territory? Or sell our raw materials for rubles or other currencies instead of US dollars? We have many options to counter economic sanctions and it's unclear to me why we are not using them.

Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.