The White House says it is preparing additional “major sanctions” on Russia in response to opposition leader Alexei Navalny’s death in an Arctic penal colony.
That’s not exactly how sanctions work. You have legal limits on sanctions based on trade agreements. Certain actions by the other nation allow you to enact or lift sanctions and still keep the trade agreements and diplomatic ties in place.
Why should anyone care about legal obligations to Russia? A country that invades its neighbors is not operating within the realm of law and should not benefit from legal protections.
“It’s complicated” is a non-answer. How, specifically, do Western countries benefit from honoring agreements with a country that is currently threatening them with nuclear weapons?
If I owe money to a someone who murders my neighbor and then threatens to murder me and all my other neighbors, I’m never going to pay him no matter what I agreed to in the past. That goes double if the murderer is also a broke alcoholic who spends all his money on weapons.
Your question is a good one, and I don’t understand why you got down voted for asking.
The thing to keep in mind, is that it’s not between us and Russia.
Russia has still working trade agreements with other countries. Countries we also have trade agreements with. Like China.
Us fucking with Russia against our established trade agreements, might looks to China like we could do the same to them if they did something up another country we didn’t agree with.
So honoring those trade agreements with Russia, protects the other agreements we have with other countries.
‘it’s complicated’ is easier to say, but the truth is that most countries don’t get along with each other. Especially those that share borders. This creates some very difficult dynamics to keep the world economy in place.
We could, of course, stop. But then the world economy would collapse.
That’s not exactly how sanctions work. You have legal limits on sanctions based on trade agreements. Certain actions by the other nation allow you to enact or lift sanctions and still keep the trade agreements and diplomatic ties in place.
Why should anyone care about legal obligations to Russia? A country that invades its neighbors is not operating within the realm of law and should not benefit from legal protections.
Because geopolitics is a hard problem that ends up being unfair by nature.
“It’s complicated” is a non-answer. How, specifically, do Western countries benefit from honoring agreements with a country that is currently threatening them with nuclear weapons?
If I owe money to a someone who murders my neighbor and then threatens to murder me and all my other neighbors, I’m never going to pay him no matter what I agreed to in the past. That goes double if the murderer is also a broke alcoholic who spends all his money on weapons.
Your question is a good one, and I don’t understand why you got down voted for asking.
The thing to keep in mind, is that it’s not between us and Russia.
Russia has still working trade agreements with other countries. Countries we also have trade agreements with. Like China.
Us fucking with Russia against our established trade agreements, might looks to China like we could do the same to them if they did something up another country we didn’t agree with.
So honoring those trade agreements with Russia, protects the other agreements we have with other countries.
‘it’s complicated’ is easier to say, but the truth is that most countries don’t get along with each other. Especially those that share borders. This creates some very difficult dynamics to keep the world economy in place.
We could, of course, stop. But then the world economy would collapse.