Merlin Weekly Macro: The West’s diplomacy has failed Ukraine
The Jupiter Merlin team discuss the West’s latest efforts to box Russia in with a raft of new sanctions. Will these be any more effective than the last?
“There is no more serious an issue for the world, and it’s the world that’s gathered here, than one country invading another in this completely illegal and unacceptable way. And the whole world should get behind Ukraine, should support Ukraine, and should call out the illegality of what Putin and his cronies have done.”
I’ll huff and I’ll puff and I’ll blow your house down
Exactly two years later, this week’s G20 summit illustrates the West’s ongoing diplomatic impotence when it comes to dealing with Russia and President Putin.
Poker with the devil: it all went wrong a decade ago
Roll forward two decades, David Cameron was the British Prime Minister in 2014 when Putin annexed the Crimea. Expressing ‘concerns’ about Russian ‘interference’ in Ukraine, Cameron was Tough and Decisive: UK government officials would boycott the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi as a public embarrassment to Putin. That would show him! Prince Edward was advised not to go. The US also withdrew its delegation from the fortnight’s winter holiday but went one stage even further and issued some sanctions. And that, as they say, was that.
Putin was shaking in his boots. With laughter. As revealed in the excellent BBC2 series “Putin versus the West: Path to War”, virtually every western leader thought they had influence and leverage over Putin. President Hollande, like his successor Emmanuel Macron, through Gallic charm and flattery. Germany’s Angela Merkel thought Putin would demonstrate diplomatic reciprocity and bend to EU values if Germany mortgaged its economy to Russia by buying its gas. Cameron thought he had it via the London Olympic Games and his invitation to Putin to come and watch the men’s Judo gold medal match which had a Russian finalist. As candid Cameron admitted later, he and his peers had none, and their unanimous reaction with varying degrees of rueful embarrassment and disbelief at being duped was, “he lied to me!”. Putin is an ex-KGB colonel! What did they expect?
As the second largest donor of military aid to Ukraine, the UK is right to be to be ‘calling out’ Putin and his cronies and it has every right exhorting everyone to get behind the Ukrainians. But that Budapest Memorandum still rankles, pointing the accusatory finger not only at Russia as the aggressor, but the US and the UK for failing to prevent the desecration of Ukraine’s border in the first place, as far back as a decade ago, as guarantors of the country’s sovereignty. As for the US, with Congress having blocked any further aid to Ukraine, Cameron’s is now also a public appeal to Washington’s Republicans to honour the US obligation. The weakness of Biden’s situation is only highlighted by the fact that with the US funding tap to Ukraine turned off and his being able to bring no influence so far to alter that, he has only sanctions left as any tangible form of help.
The diplomatic solution that nobody will take…
Joe Biden has announced 500 sanctions including export restrictions on 100 companies and individuals supplying military equipment or components to Russia. One of the targets is a North Korean company: presumably, the White House has the demonstrable means of enforcement otherwise the sanction is irrelevant.
The sanctions imposed so far clearly have not worked, despite both Biden and Boris promising two years ago that what at the time was billed as the strongest sanctions regime in history would bring the Russian war machine to its knees. Half of Russia’s assets are frozen under sanctions. But the economy is proving remarkably resilient thanks to the sanctions wall leaking like a sieve allowing a constant and strong stream of foreign income. Sanctions are pointless unless 100% enforceable (they have been no more successful against Iran). There has been a multitude of appeals to the international community, and two formal votes in the UN to condemn Russia. What is evident is that countries amounting to half the world’s population have no intention of taking sides. Realistically, the only way of breaking the Russian economy and therefore its war machine, is to sanction any and every country provenly purchasing Russian oil, gas, wheat, minerals and other commodities, and to sanction any government and individuals who actively supply or who entertain negotiations with Putin about the source of raw materials or goods not available in Russia.
All of that would include China and India and many administrations in Africa and South America, not a few of whom are sitting in that G20 talking shop. And that is simply not going to happen.
…and the military one that is struggling to make itself evident
As for our own nuclear deterrent, he’ll be quite happy that of the two British Trident live firings since 2016, the hapless Royal Navy has 100% failure rate. No doubt the FSB, scouring the Daily Telegraph for intelligence, will have picked up the Matt cartoon the day after the latest misfire was made public: as the captain of one of His Majesty’s submarines peers over a crewman’s shoulder at the radar screen, he says “Our Trident missile is veering off course. I hope it doesn’t hit the UK’s only working aircraft carrier”. Amen.
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