(July 30, 2014 at 5:33 pm)Chuck Wrote: At a time when we seek to contain China's rising military power, It would be totally idiotic to drive Russia to seek a bailout from China when Russian still has a array of superior military technology to sell to China, and Russia could make good any resource shortfall China might experience if the US seeks to disrupt Chinese trade.
The degree of idiocy required to do such a thing is so vast that its magnitude constitute proof that this is exactly what we would do.
I wasn't saying that the US is doing this just to force Russia to seek a bailout from China. That may be one of the short-term goals, but I think what Obama is most concerned about is the new BRICS, because Russia is forming a strong financial alliance with China, India and others and this is posing a great risk for the US dollar as the dominant global currency for reserves and trading. So, now the US is trying harder to put an economic strain on Russia by delivering multilateral sanctions against the country.
And I think the sanctions will definitely impose costs on the Russian economy, but as to what extent and the long-term effects it would have depends on the direction of Putin's dive (which is still unpredictable). In a recent New Republic piece on Putin, journalist and blogger Julia Ioffe writes that "Sanctioning Putin is a gamble. Not because it will adversely affect the American and European economies, but because it’s hard to predict which way Putin’s going to dive."
Most sources say that the sanctions are being tossed in order to inflict "punishment" on Russia for its recent annexation of Ukraine as well as the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 (though I should add that there is no evidence to support the latter). That may well be true, but I think there are also much more cynical reasons for doing this.
