Last night, as the awful scenes from Ukraine were relayed on CNN, the experts began gathering on social media. I listened in on one discussion featuring members of The Atlantic Council. They had many very intelligent observations and tidbits of knowledge to share to help those listening in guess what may or may not happen next.
But if I could pick one theme from the conversation, it was: We are living in a new age now. This invasion changes everything, especially for Europe. One intelligent contributor opined that many European nations would have to break the sclerosis in their political systems and take on big collective projects. The example provided was how France responded to the energy crisis of the 1970s by energetically nuclearizing its power grid. The suggestions on hand were that most European countries would need to re-arm and quickly, spending far more than 2 percent of GDP on defense, the NATO target that few of them are hitting. The city of London would have to “give up its economic model” — which relies partly on Russian money and the listing of Russian firms. The U.K. and the EU must immediately and generously settle their remaining disputes. Perhaps the continent would have to give up on its green-energy policies to pursue energy diversification. Taxes will go up, energy prices will go up, Etc, etc.
Some of these ideas are already reflected in prestigious op-eds.
I don’t want to spoil the party, but here’s what we’re seeing so far:
(Reuters) – The Biden administration is not expected to target Russia's crude oil and refined fuel sector with sanctions cutting off trade, due to concerns about inflation and the harm it could do to its European allies, global oil markets and U.S. consumers, officials say.
— Phil Stewart (@phildstewart) February 23, 2022
Italy, Germany and Cyprus are pushing for a dilution of EU sanctions
There is a general EU consensus for energy and financial sanctions on Russia, but their severity could be weakened by these countries
— Samuel Ramani (@SamRamani2) February 24, 2022
Former U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on BBC Arabic: The Ukraine Crisis Could Distract the World from the Climate Crisis While Having Massive Emissions Consequences #RussiaUkraineConflict #UkraineRussie #UkraineRussiaCrisis #ClimateCrisis @JohnKerry @ClimateEnvoy pic.twitter.com/nsOC1iZeGm
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) February 24, 2022
Given their historical performance, I’m extremely skeptical that sanctions compel states in the way we hope they would. But, it seems that our commitment to even using these is very low.
I don’t think Europe or America will make large, generational alterations to their society or way of life on Ukraine’s behalf. The threat would have to be much more real.