The Lowy Institute has said that that the sanctions against Russia might actually escalate the conflict, as might the calls for a no-fly zone over Ukraine. We need to be aware that Putin regards a war with the U.S. as inevitable anyway.

Sanctions don't work if some nations allow themselves to be pipelines that allow the sanctions to be effectively avoided!

What would concentrate the mind of Mr Putin would be, if the world found other more reliable and vastly cheaper sources of (oil/gas) fuel Such as easily made almost free, biogas (methane) or oil sources from farmed algae, some of which is up to 60% ready to use as is, oil! And costing around 44 cents per litre at the bowser.

Then there are a range of alternative hydrocarbons/fuels produced from seawater! Using proven and dated technology made possible via nuclear energy and the (waste) heat generated via that technology!

All of which would be available, if the usual energy barons are excluded from (cooperative capitalism) production and marketing, at less than half current retail!

Now, if that was our combined international response, where China could please itself? Be with us or against us?

Then it would not take too long for Mr Putin would run out of the money he is using to fund his expansionist military adventures, with the accompanying mind boggling genocide!?

What prevents any of this?

Arguably conflicted pollies with quite massive investments in current fossil fuel provision!?

And not too different from those prewar UK industrialists who had huge investments in German steel production and argued loud and long against going to war with Mr Hitler for fear of the personal financial reprecussions!
Alan B.

Applying sanctions is basically the mentality of bullies that "if you do not behave how we want, you will suffer." If those targeted do not see good reason to change their behaviour for reasons other than stopping or reducing punishment suffered, the first things they look for is ways around sanctions and ways to reduce adverse effects from them. Also, ways to reduce susceptability to possible future sanctions. Seems plenty of examples of each of the above. Then also bullies may not properly consider how in both short and long term sanctions they impose may also hurt themselves and/or their friends in significant ways. Also sometimes is possibility of target imposing stronger retaliatory sanctions. eg If Need to carefully consider possibilities re "Laws of unintended consequences." Sometimes simplistic measures intended to address complex perceived problems can have largely the opposite long term effects to those intended.

Mox. Given sanctions don't work and are easily gotten around/have unintended consequences? What would stop the unprovoked attack on a peaceful non aggressive neighbour? Ramping up the nuclear option?

Right up to code red and the launch countdown started? Putin (the madman) seems quite ready for a nuclear war with the US and mutual assured destruction? And will go on claiming more and more of the old imperial Russian empire?

Until the world as it must, goes to war with, by then, a much stronger and better resourced Russia! And the conflict far more destructive for the world? However it ends or starts?

Can't see a good ending for anyone from this unprovoked and entirely unnecessary attack on a peaceful and much smaller non threatening neighbour!?

And shows the folly of disarming the law abiding civilian population! Where the cost of an unprovoked attack would extract too high a price on the aggressor!

I can't see how anyone can defend the indefensible! With a, because the moon is made of green cheese, type rational? Or something even less rational, as in this instance!
Alan B.

The author is correct in his reasoning. He could have also added that the winner in this war will be - like in all wars - the one who cares more about the outcome.

The fact that the Appeaser in Chief dozing off in the Oval Office cares little for US assurances made to the Soviet Union (upon its demise) and cares even less for a large nation desperately wanting to join the EU/NATO, shows that he and the NATO pygmies have long ago sown the seeds for Western decline.

They have started to harvest their crop.
Today Ukraine, tomorrow Transnistria, Moldova on Monday and Lithuania on Tuesday.

Russia is only opposing NATO's advance into Ukrainian territory.
The consequences of this expansion were clear and NATO decided to ignore them.
This war was foreseeable and avoidable.

Alan B especially: The claim that action by Russia was an "unprovoked attack on a peaceful non aggressive neighbour" is a BLATANT LIE which is lately being peddled by Western governments and mainstream media which deliberately try to draw attention away from the background story. Which many who have kept an eye on alternative news sources are well aware of. In Ukraine in 2014, there was a US sponsored coup which replaced an arguably bad but democratically elected government with a worse one that was more obedient to Washington. In Eastern Ukraine, where population has stronger ethnic ties to Russians, this did not go down well. Quick action by Russia stopped what Yanks obviously hoped to achieve in taking over Russian military installations in Crimea. Then Crimeans voted very strongly to rejoin Russia. In the Donbass area, Donetsk and Luhansk declared themselves republics independent from Ukraine Since then the government in Kiev has waged a low level war against them, largely ignored peace agreements and around 14,000 people have been killed by their terrorist type activities. Then recently when there ware several indications Kiev was planning a full scale invasion to retake the so called "rebel areas" their Presidents ASKED Russia for help, The Russian Parliament then recognised these governments and authorised Vladimir Putin to initiate appropriate action. It remains to be seen how far Russians will have to go before what seems to be reasonable demands are conceded by Ukrainian government obviously under strong influence of Washington. ie Recognition of independence of Donetsk and Luhansk, permanent cessation of hostilities against them and guarantees - probably in Constitution that Ukraine will not join NATO. Remember NATO was originally a defence pact which should have been disbanded when the Soviet Union was broken up. Since then it is basically served to keep the US in Europe, Russia out and Germany down. And also effectively sponsored several wars which should not have happened.

So, Mox. Explain if you can without lying through your teeth? What did the Ukraine do that provoked The Russian attack? Nothing at all!

And how would its entry into NATO or the EU do anything but curtail Putin's ambitions for more territory.

The answer is, the Ukraine did nothing other than seek shelter inside NATO and the EU! And however you bend and twist the truth. No reason for the unprovoked attack on a free nation which like any other sovereign nation, has the right to apply for membership into any alliance, as a deterrent against the very thing that has happened.

And the murder of hundreds of thousands of non armed, non combatant boys, girls, women and babies. By the Butcher of babies! And a fitting epitaph!

And for what? The remake of the old imperial Russia under the new czar. Mr mad man dictator, evil incarnate, Putin?

Hitler had the same lies and other ethnic minorities as his scapegoat! And a civilian population that believed his blatant BS.

As for me, I'll allow other readers to judge for themselves who is the blatant liar and who is the straight shooter and tells it like it is without fear or favour or sucking up to a Russian madman?
Alan B.

The Crimean vote was a sham with Russian thugs at every polling station! And looking over shoulders as the people filled out their ballot papers.

You can claim a U.S. sponsored coup? Without providing a single shed of factual evidence! Neither you nor the butcher of babies has anything more than a litany of lies to justify the unjustifiable! And every other poster can see through all of (garbage in, garbage out) them!
Alan B.

What will stop Mr Putin is the west finding and using, as outlined above, alternative sources of vastly cheap energy! And that will almost certainly hurt the average Russian and the creation a decades long Great Depression in Russia! Given how much of their economy relies exclusively on energy sales to the west! Slavey a very poor substitute!

And not an answer if the fruits of that enslavement are also boycotted by the west! And time that was also applied to China and the products of slave labour! Which in the latter, funds their massive military build up!?

All of which will be laid at the dictator's (power addicted) feet and see both thrust out of office by one means or another. And so sad and unnecessary! As is a global economy destroying nuclear winter!

One can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but not all of the people all of the time!
Alan B.

Just ignoring the ravings of MOX clearly infected with Russian propaganda, the issue of sanctions working depends on what you want to achieve.

Russia has a small economy and a huge military. However, nearly every piece of equipment that the military has dated back to the USSR. All the tanks are variants of the T72 which dates back to the early 70s the planes and helicopters are no better. The new Armata tank that has come out is a dud and Russia only has a few of them. The vast amount of money spent on developing the new "stealth" SU57 has delivered only one combat-ready plane that is nowhere near as stealthy as the F35.

The steady stream of equipment being destroyed costs vast sums to replace as well as the huge cost of maintaining a huge invasion force. To top this intelligence is coming in that the Russians are beginning to run out of ammunition not just because of logistics problems, but because the stockpiles are emptying and the factories can't keep up.

The war is estimated at costing $20bn per day and with the Russian economy floundering Russia's ability to finance this war is shrinking every day.

Even if Russia captures the major cities the fighting will continue bleeding Russia dry of money, materiel and men until Russia retreats with its tail between its legs.

While Ukraine felt it had the right to apply to join NATO, and many agree, that is what provoked Putin. No matter what we think of Putin or Russia, the attack on Ukraine is perfectly logical. The whys and whatfors are not in doubt. How to stop the war is the only problem, and that will not be achieved by sanctions that are jacking up costs and making it harder for people in the West - particularly in America, where the idiot Biden dismantled that country's oil independence.

The whole shooting match is a sidebar (vile and tragic though it is) to Putin's war against America. So busy was the Yankee Left denigrating Donald Trump and suggesting that he was getting help from Russia that they missed the real Russian interference in their election and domestic politics: the Russian bankrolling of the anti-frackers and all the whiteants leftists working to move America to the left. Putin got what he wanted: a weak enabler of his plans in the Whitehouse. Biden and his leftist Democrats have given Putin (and Xi) the shot they have been patiently waiting for. Xi has already warned the West not to try the same stunt (sanctions and weapons) when China takes back Taiwan.

It can even be said that a weak US, and an equally weak Western society, started the horror against Ukraine.

Sounds like controlled opposition ttbn- what do you think?

Alan B.

<< What did the Ukraine do that provoked The Russian attack? Nothing at all! And how would its entry into NATO or the EU do anything but curtail Putin's ambitions for more territory. >>

Putin’s military operation is confined to Ukraine and is not part of a broader expansionist ambition. Putin is not aiming to topple the current government or to occupy Ukraine. Russia is defending the people in Donetsk and Lugansk from neo-Nazi attack and very specifically for its own safety aiming to denazify and demilitarise its Ukrainian neighbour.

Russia has been trying to negotiate with US-led NATO for at least fifteen years and its diplomatic efforts have been ignored or rejected. Despite its promises to Russia in 1990 that there'd be no eastward expansion of NATO, the US has deliberately and inexorably engineered NATO's expansion eastward since 1999. It has done this with the sole purpose of threatening and containing Russia. It has no interest in the people of Ukraine. It wants Ukraine in NATO so it can patrol Russia’s south west border and advance (and almost complete) its military containment of Russia.

It’s a completely unacceptable position. Just imagine if Russia used an alliance and brought in Canada or Mexico in order to patrol US borders. Russia is perfectly within its rights to resist the threat of NATO’s military encirclement. It’s tried everything it could to resolve the situation peaceably. And has only now resorted to military action. I don’t agree with it, but like millions of others around the world, I understand what has pushed Russia to employ force.

Alan B.

<< The Crimean vote was a sham with Russian thugs at every polling station! And looking over shoulders as the people filled out their ballot papers. >>

When Khrushchev handed Crimea to Ukraine in 1954, the people of Crimea had no say in it. Sixty years later, after the 2014 coup in Ukraine, the Crimean parliament voted independently to hold a people's referendum to democratically establish the level of support for rejoining Russia. 82% of voters participated and more than 96% of those voted for reunification with Russia. The vote was open, transparent and legal. 135 independent observers from 23 countries monitored the referendum. Yes, Russian armed forces already present in Crimea did assist in enabling the vote which is perfectly fair and reasonable. That there were 'Russian thugs looking over people’s shoulders' is pure fiction. There was no forcible annexation. The people of Crimea voted freely and fairly to rejoin Russia.

<< You can claim a U.S. sponsored coup? Without providing a single shed of factual evidence! >>

There is evidence to suggest that the US was up to its neck in the 2014 coup. US government official, Victoria Nuland, stated unambiguously, 'We have invested over $5 billion to assist Ukraine’. The breakdown of this funding is deliberately opaque but it follows the same pattern of many other US-instigated coups the world over. Nuland and John McCain were photographed handing out cookies to protestors and Nuland is famously on record as stating ‘F--- the EU' in well-documented discussions about who was to be the new Ukrainian president. There's lots of other evidence implicating Obama and Biden in this coup, including documentation revealing Hunter Biden’s shady financial dealings with wealthy Ukrainians. Like many others around the world, this coup would never have occurred if it hadn't been deliberately fomented by the US government.

ttbn

I agree.
The West "led" (a poor choice of word, I know) by Biden could have ensured that no invasion would transpire by telling Vladiymir Putin that Ukraine will not join NATO.

That's it. Five words: "Ukraine will never join NATO".

The West could have got Putin to go agree with Ukraine one day MAYBE joining the EU but joining NATO would be as far as Washington and Bruxelles are concerned "a no go zone" for Kyiv.

After all this is what the West promised the Soviet Union in 1991 and for years Putin made clear that the slow but sure move towards NATO by Kyiv will never be accepted.

The West created this catastrophe and has shown itself to be shameless liars and in the face of Ukranian please for help, the West has failed in that respect too.

Given Biden could have alone averted this catastrophe, a good question is: why isn't ScoMo expelling the US ambassador?

Also, clowns in Berlin, Paris, Copenhagen etc think that removing Putin is a "great idea" as though any replacement will be better.

The same jokers thought they could sweep into Baghdad and Kabul and install democracy.

It's interesting that both Victoria Nuland and her husband Robert Kagan both have Hebrew connections. Kagan who worked for the Republican's until 2016- has Lithuanian Jewish descent. I remember Armchair Critic some time ago referring to material from George Webb and others highlighting the complex relationship that Nuland has with Hillary Clinton, The CIA, Jeff Bezos from Washington Post and Amazon, The Ukraine Euromaiden Coup, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Nuland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Kagan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillary_Clinton
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos

Kagans a Neoconservative
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/robert-kagan-great-power-rivalries-2016-12?

Sanctions do work. Even if (suppose the author's claims are accurate) they fail to convince the tyrant, they strengthen the unity and resolve among allies who together fight against evil, ensuring no conflict of interest exists where some of the allies still trade with the enemy thus depend on it to some extent.

Also, they send a clear message to other tyrants who should review their sums before embarking on destructive operations where they wouldn't then be able to retract their aggression without losing face.

Thanks Armchair Critic for the article- interesting.

You said that Kagan's a NeoCon not sure how that works with Victoria Nuland working for the Democrats from memory- sounds like potential "controlled opposition" to me. But I guess NeoCon's are by definition disillusioned Democrats- perhaps there's a bit of Ayn Rand Libertarianism in there somewhere. Hebrew's seem to vote Democrat but are philosophically more Libertarian and WASPy in a sense- perhaps Jewish people saw the greatness in WASPiness as Ayn Rand seems to have or perhaps they just felt that they had a kindred spirit- in a sense- maybe it's opportunism- self deception under the auspices of creationism or "objectivist productionism or objectivism". Rand said that she was inspired when she first saw New York in 1925- I tend to believe that she had what she felt were honest intentions- but were they- in their full context.

The article talks about Kagan's view of Trump.

Obviously both of their backgrounds and personal lives influence their worldviews- which is probably why Trump believes in MAGA and isolationism- conservation of the ancestral roots of America from a time when travel was more difficult and cultures were more separated.

Trump has some Hebrew connections too living in New York and having a Hebrew son in law. In a sense you could say that Kagan and Trump have very similar views- but perhaps Kagan is a little more subtle- which is one of the reasons why they perhaps don't agree. Every sentence in this article seems to contain subtle complexity.

Trump is very- perhaps extremely- decisive and doesn't suffer fools.

Interesting that Kagan comes from Brown.

Trump appears to be of the view that if other members of NATO (and the UN and other international institutions which sometimes attack and subvert the US) don't pull their weight why should the US support it- he seems to be trying to browbeat the other parties into action- "hostile negotiations"- against obfuscation tactics. The US has been talking of its disproportionate support for the international order for some years.

Trump perhaps sees patience and soft tactics forms of avoidance and vacillation- similar to Neville Chamberlain. Not that Chamberlain was necessarily wrong- it's just not the way Trump gets things done.

Armchair Critic- I'd be interested to read your view of the article.

ttbn and Johnathan,

Your belief that Putin wouldn't have attacked Ukraine if they had just promised never to join NATO is more than a little naive.

NATO wasn't on the table when he invaded Crimea and the two Eastern regions and given that he has lied continuously so far about his motives I don't that he had any intention other than invading Ukraine.

I believe that Putin is now begging China for weapons...