Russia-Ukraine war and related tensions Megathread

[Dan the Roman]

https://tass.com/economy/1753173

"Russia's annual GDP growth reached 4.6% in January after 4.4% in December — ministry"

Russia's Jan 2024 economic momentum continues.  These numbers look more in line with the IMF's 2.6% growth estimate for Russia in 2024.   If true then in 2024 Russia's GDP growth will exeed all G7 economies in 2024 just like in 2023.

When this war is over it'll be wise to examine the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of sanctions to see if they really worked against Russia.
These numbers are probably something of a political failure for the Western sanctions regime.

I said when this all started that sanctions being meaningless was proved out how 7 years' worth of sanctions post-Crimea resulted in nothing. Not to say examples from other conflicts.

The U.S. then took steps to completely freeze Russia out of the international financial system, which at the time I thought was a ballsy and strong move. However, with the benefit of hindsight all it did was made everywhere not West in the world seek to increase distance between their economic system and the U.S. so they could remove the potential of this threat in the future. So the U.S. actions here the end result was it darkened a line between the West and the Global South. I'm not talking Russia and China, I'm talking more benign countries geopolitically like Malaysia.

Soft power is good, but has real limits and gets beat by hard power almost all of the time. The problem with the post-Iraq War West is they think soft power can fix everything, and if your only tool is soft power you're more a paper tiger than anything. Syria should've been a giant glaring example to the West of you can't do everything with soft power as we see now that Assad is still in power and Obama said that he must leave, but did nothing to actually make that happen.

Sanctions are very effective at inconveniencing individuals, and the post-Crimea sanctions regime provided a basis to go after any Russian national or their investments whenever a government or competitor wanted to. The criteria for what we were sanctioning Russia for had expanded to the point any Russian could be added for almost any reason. Which may well have contributed to the political climate of frustration with an endless Minsk process which did not resolve the key demand of the entire Russian political class

1. Ending the sanctions regime
2. Recognizing Crimea as Russian

Better-targeted sanctions might well have introduced divisions within the regime, or undermined it capabilities, but these did the opposite. It united every viable Russian political force behind those two points and set Moscow on a course for either dropping #2 or war. As dropping #2 could only be carried out by Putin personally, and perhaps not even then, that left war.

[Dan the Roman]

Given that the Iranian and North Koreans are basically helping for free in propping up the supplies of the Russian army and in a lot of cases being labor and advising auxiliaries and that this is turning the tides of the war, Russia basically has a blank cheque in wasting as much equipment on the field. They can do this because Xi Jinping has basically given up in trying to exert pressure over Russia and are helping bankroll the Russian economy for what amounts to peanuts.

And for what exactly? Iran got repaid through years of blood and tears in the Middle East for the Russians to swoop in and basically recognize Arabian sovereignty over the Persian gulf. Armenia was repaid by its participation and close relationship in the dead CSTO by the Russians all but abandoning them. If the former player got kicked to the curb because Putin wanted to ensure good relations for its oligarchy to play in Dubai, what is to say Russia won’t abandon the helping trio for what amounts to Putin plunging deep into bull•••• to find a corn kernel. Maybe Trump goes, but MAGA still remains and Putin has shown repeatedly that he prefers a Russia surrounded by likeminded boors in America and the white world like Steven Seagal and he isn’t afraid to throw the political capital he built up among allies to go be with a better crowd, even if that means throwing his vassals abroad under the bus and betraying his allies.

He has the personal views of Steve Bannon and the personality of Trump. The latter doesn’t care about people he views as beneath him and is willing to break from the existing international system and take on the world with fellows like his dictator club, and the former is an ardent fascist who obsesses about historical reactionary angst and engage in nonsense like helping some Chinese asset to overthrow the PRC in the Himalayas over butthurt Mao did by throwing the chains off the Chinese. What exactly is stopping Putin from rediscovering Russian irredentism over East Asia and anti-communist agendas once he is done with Ukraine. Given historical context, when Hitler was done in the western front, going after the nonwhite communist party member in charge in Moscow was the next logical step.

Russia’s main border is with east Asia after all, and by getting so much help for what amounts to absolutely nothing, what’s to say he won’t hang his sponsors once all of this is over? What’s to say history won’t repeat itself and the American-Russo alliance doesn’t fulfill the botched dream of ending the yellow peril with so much money and resources to mop up the rest of the world.

A Russian defeat would be worse for Xi than a stalemate or Russian victory. A Russian victory produces infighting between the US/Europe, harms Western prestige in Latin America/Africa, and inconveniences Biden by denying him success. I am unsure China is losing money on this conflict, so why wouldn't they?

This is the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Russia gains from weakening American influence in Europe. Iran gains from weakening it in the Middle East. China gains from weakening it everywhere.