Additionally, NATO countries are providing large amounts of military equipment to the Ukrainian armed forces. Undoubtedly, these weapons will prolong the war, increase civilian causalities on both sides. Not to mention the risk implicit in delivering arms while bombs blast virtually a few tens of kilometres eastwards. And, incidentally, they ‘won’t make any difference to Ukraine’.
Economic sanction: A test of corporations’ power in the woke West
At the same time, the US and, to a lesser extent, NATO allies are pushing massive economic sanctions against Russia. Namely, while most of these measures ‘are not unique […] the application of all of them together is unprecedented.’ First, the US revealed the full extent to which it can weaponize the dollar. However, banning several Russian banks from using the SWIFT system to process international payments will not devastate Russia’s economy. Rather it will just make life harder for the ‘Westernised’ Rus – sians travelling or living abroad who usually oppose Putin. Further, it makes it nearly impossible for civil society organisations advocating peace and democracy to receive already-scarce funds from abroad. Relatedly, the West’s censorship of RT, Sputnik and other media companies created the perfect alibi for Russia’s umpteenth crackdown. So, after more than 20 years, the Echo of Moscow, Russian liberals’ State-funded radio, went off the air. Likewise, as the Kremlin exploits to big-tech companies’ censorship to further limit the flow of ideas by banning social media. If anything, the West has renounced to end civilians’ suffering by winning ordinary Russians’ hearts and minds.
Read: The beauty of a wary foreign policy
Really, companies’ spontaneous banning of trading in Russia or with Russian partners is the most interesting aspect of these sanctions. As the University of Chicago’s Professor Zingales recently argued, this ‘privatization of sanctions’ is extremely dangerous. In fact, US corporations pretend to act on the basis of moral imperatives and values, but actually simply chase profits. Indeed, corporate America’s muted reaction to the enslavement of Muslim Uighurs in China shows that values are irrelevant per se.Practically, liberty and democracy only matter when supporting them will improve shareholders’ returns by boosting reputation and increasing sales. Thus, the effectiveness of US sanctions is really beyond the scope of the federal government’s control. Rather, it rests on a hateful alliance between proft-seeking media companies executing their share holders’ partisan agenda and radical opinion-makers.