.
And so, it has all come down to this: ‘this’ being an economic and financial war in all-but-name with the West on one side, and Russia and its tiny handful of allies on the other. The conundrum of sanctions is that the principal weapon of such a war, western sanctions on Russia, will hurt mostly the Russian people, and not the intended target of the leading Putin regime, and there’s little that anyone will do about it.
In geo-political bureaucratic procedure, the process of the West-Russia-West ping-pong match is destined to continue, and there’s little hope for restraint. On Wednesday, August 8, 2018, the administration of President Donald Trump announced that new sanctions would be imposed on Russia owing to the Russian Vladimir Putin regime’s proven use of a high-grade chemical weapon on British soil to attempt to kill former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Investigators, up to and including the American intelligence community, have satisfactorily proven that the weapon, Novichok they call it, most likely originated in Russia and was, again most likely, used by the Putin regime’s foreign-operating thugs to poison the Skripals. Weeks later, the leftovers of that attack found its way into the hands of an innocent couple ending in the death of a British woman who almost certainly had no connection to the original attack to begin with.
Last week’s American sanctions are a continuation of previous ones, which started with the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014. In practice, this round of sanctions has two levels, but that has little importance for the lay person as both levels at near-future increments almost certainly will be imposed on Russia. Of course, further potential sanctions float around the corridors of the U.S. Congress, and there is more than a fair chance that they will be duly imposed on Russia as well.
So where is all of this going? What’s happens to the Russian people?
Having spent nearly two decades of my life studying Russian political culture and society, these have always been the big questions for me.
Ostensibly, the sanctions are meant to “hit Putin where it hurts,” as Misha Glenny put it in a New York Times op-ed referencing, among other things, the issue of Russian money in London. Hitting the Putin regime is, after all, the point of sanctions; that of ending the Putin regime in favor of a government more amenable to helping the Russian people. The bigger issue though is whether hurting Russian trade, reducing technology transfers to Russia, stopping state-airline Aeroflot from flying to the U.S., and limiting Russian oligarchs’ money transfers really does “hit Putin where it hurts.”
The answer is: it does, but it doesn’t. It does hurt Putin’s inner circle somewhat. Putin’s closest friends, his oligarchs, cannot travel; they cannot buy that (fifth) home in Cyprus; they cannot buy that (third) dacha in Sochi; they cannot buy that next office building in London; yes, these represent damage to Putin’s inner circle. The Putin regime will also have trouble getting newly-sanctioned technologies, and so on. If sanctions continue to heighten, as they inevitably will, Russia indeed will suffer when its debt is sanctioned, and the Russian banking and oil-and-gas sectors—the bread-and-butter of the Russian economy—will be hurt tremendously.
They don’t hit Putin where it hurts in that they are not a danger to his regime, which is the far more important target. Far more dangerous to Putin, I would argue, are large-scale domestic protests to pension reform, which a great many ordinary Russians depend on, though still not a ‘mortal’ danger to the Putin regime. Also dangerous to ordinary Russians, though perhaps not so dangerous to Putin in terms of potential unrest, is the fact that the economy is projected to slow down in 2019. The coinciding fact, though is that (given the maelstrom and general conservatism of Russian society) these problems will be weathered, and little will be attributed to the Putin regime’s failures. Importantly, when Putin falls, it will be purely a domestic process, and not brought about by international issues.
So where does this leave us? What’s a strong believer in changing the Putin regime without unduly hurting the Russian people to do?
The only thing we can do is to make smarter sanctions. Also, the West should do something unpredictable for a change. We should be counter-intuitive. Instead of walling off Russia, we should be more open.
However, this policy would need to start with an enhanced status quo.
First, we need to continue to punish the Putin regime’s surrogates, both on the ground militarily in places like eastern Ukraine and, indeed, also prevent his oligarchs buying from new mansions in London. These are all good things. Don’t stop.
Second, we should help the Russian economy through enhanced travel and trade of consumer goods and services. There are many ways to do this; too many to discuss in this column but, for one thing, we should not restrict ordinary Russians from travel, we should welcome them. This means lighter visa restrictions. This includes no ban on Aeroflot. We, the countries of the West, have more soft power than we know. Let’s invite as many Russians as possible to see it. Also, don’t worry about accused spies like Maria Butina and her ilk. They pose little danger to our democracy if we recognize it to be as strong as it is, and anyway, the FBI can handle a bevy of such characters.
Third, we should actively support any and all civil organizations in Russia, which support ideals of democracy and human rights. We already do this in terms of some media outlets like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Support Memorial. They should be but the tip of the iceberg.
If we do these three things, we are well on the way of at least trying to separate the Putin regime from the Russian people. Once some degree of that separation has occurred, then all things can be possible, and these last four years can be an insignificant blip in the course of a future preferably post-Putin Russo-American relations.
About the author: Jason Vaughn has worked as a U.S. government analyst, researcher, teacher, and independent scholar for close to 18 years. His first book, A Socio-Political Model of Lies in Russia: Putin Against the Personal, was published by University Press of America in 2016. His next book, The Russian “House”: An Examination of Post-Soviet Russian Culture in the Times of Putin, will be published in November 2018.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
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The Conundrum of Sanctions
August 13, 2018
And so, it has all come down to this: ‘this’ being an economic and financial war in all-but-name with the West on one side, and Russia and its tiny handful of allies on the other. The conundrum of sanctions is that the principal weapon of such a war, western sanctions on Russia, will hurt mostly the Russian people, and not the intended target of the leading Putin regime, and there’s little that anyone will do about it.
In geo-political bureaucratic procedure, the process of the West-Russia-West ping-pong match is destined to continue, and there’s little hope for restraint. On Wednesday, August 8, 2018, the administration of President Donald Trump announced that new sanctions would be imposed on Russia owing to the Russian Vladimir Putin regime’s proven use of a high-grade chemical weapon on British soil to attempt to kill former Russian agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia. Investigators, up to and including the American intelligence community, have satisfactorily proven that the weapon, Novichok they call it, most likely originated in Russia and was, again most likely, used by the Putin regime’s foreign-operating thugs to poison the Skripals. Weeks later, the leftovers of that attack found its way into the hands of an innocent couple ending in the death of a British woman who almost certainly had no connection to the original attack to begin with.
Last week’s American sanctions are a continuation of previous ones, which started with the Putin regime’s invasion of Ukraine in 2014. In practice, this round of sanctions has two levels, but that has little importance for the lay person as both levels at near-future increments almost certainly will be imposed on Russia. Of course, further potential sanctions float around the corridors of the U.S. Congress, and there is more than a fair chance that they will be duly imposed on Russia as well.
So where is all of this going? What’s happens to the Russian people?
Having spent nearly two decades of my life studying Russian political culture and society, these have always been the big questions for me.
Ostensibly, the sanctions are meant to “hit Putin where it hurts,” as Misha Glenny put it in a New York Times op-ed referencing, among other things, the issue of Russian money in London. Hitting the Putin regime is, after all, the point of sanctions; that of ending the Putin regime in favor of a government more amenable to helping the Russian people. The bigger issue though is whether hurting Russian trade, reducing technology transfers to Russia, stopping state-airline Aeroflot from flying to the U.S., and limiting Russian oligarchs’ money transfers really does “hit Putin where it hurts.”
The answer is: it does, but it doesn’t. It does hurt Putin’s inner circle somewhat. Putin’s closest friends, his oligarchs, cannot travel; they cannot buy that (fifth) home in Cyprus; they cannot buy that (third) dacha in Sochi; they cannot buy that next office building in London; yes, these represent damage to Putin’s inner circle. The Putin regime will also have trouble getting newly-sanctioned technologies, and so on. If sanctions continue to heighten, as they inevitably will, Russia indeed will suffer when its debt is sanctioned, and the Russian banking and oil-and-gas sectors—the bread-and-butter of the Russian economy—will be hurt tremendously.
They don’t hit Putin where it hurts in that they are not a danger to his regime, which is the far more important target. Far more dangerous to Putin, I would argue, are large-scale domestic protests to pension reform, which a great many ordinary Russians depend on, though still not a ‘mortal’ danger to the Putin regime. Also dangerous to ordinary Russians, though perhaps not so dangerous to Putin in terms of potential unrest, is the fact that the economy is projected to slow down in 2019. The coinciding fact, though is that (given the maelstrom and general conservatism of Russian society) these problems will be weathered, and little will be attributed to the Putin regime’s failures. Importantly, when Putin falls, it will be purely a domestic process, and not brought about by international issues.
So where does this leave us? What’s a strong believer in changing the Putin regime without unduly hurting the Russian people to do?
The only thing we can do is to make smarter sanctions. Also, the West should do something unpredictable for a change. We should be counter-intuitive. Instead of walling off Russia, we should be more open.
However, this policy would need to start with an enhanced status quo.
First, we need to continue to punish the Putin regime’s surrogates, both on the ground militarily in places like eastern Ukraine and, indeed, also prevent his oligarchs buying from new mansions in London. These are all good things. Don’t stop.
Second, we should help the Russian economy through enhanced travel and trade of consumer goods and services. There are many ways to do this; too many to discuss in this column but, for one thing, we should not restrict ordinary Russians from travel, we should welcome them. This means lighter visa restrictions. This includes no ban on Aeroflot. We, the countries of the West, have more soft power than we know. Let’s invite as many Russians as possible to see it. Also, don’t worry about accused spies like Maria Butina and her ilk. They pose little danger to our democracy if we recognize it to be as strong as it is, and anyway, the FBI can handle a bevy of such characters.
Third, we should actively support any and all civil organizations in Russia, which support ideals of democracy and human rights. We already do this in terms of some media outlets like Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. Support Memorial. They should be but the tip of the iceberg.
If we do these three things, we are well on the way of at least trying to separate the Putin regime from the Russian people. Once some degree of that separation has occurred, then all things can be possible, and these last four years can be an insignificant blip in the course of a future preferably post-Putin Russo-American relations.
About the author: Jason Vaughn has worked as a U.S. government analyst, researcher, teacher, and independent scholar for close to 18 years. His first book, A Socio-Political Model of Lies in Russia: Putin Against the Personal, was published by University Press of America in 2016. His next book, The Russian “House”: An Examination of Post-Soviet Russian Culture in the Times of Putin, will be published in November 2018.
The views presented in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent the views of any other organization.
