By the same token though, a renewed pandemic in Russia could push them to a political and economic breaking point at a time when they're already stretched thin and vulnerable.
If they want to lash out, they have many other ways to do so that carry far lower risk of crippling blowback.
Covid showed that even strict border controls aren't sufficient to keep viruses out if they're contagious enough. No borders are 100% secure, and it only takes a single person getting through to light the match.
(gentle) Escalation till the point where Russia will have to give up or concede, something far bigger than Ukraine, from an region with an strategic resource to something digital, like encryption keys or forcing West backdoors in their systems.
That assumes that Putin will prefer to surrender and keep avoiding by all means falling into an end of the world scenario. At least while the push keeps being gentle.
Anyway, the situation is pretty fragile. There are more players in the game, from big economic players and tech companies to individuals that may, by a direct or a false flag operation, do something (like a hack attempt or destruction of system/information) that could trigger a big reaction from one of the sides.
There needs to be an escalation path. Sanctions should always be able to get worse, or else Russia would no longer have anything to lose, and Europe won't have anything left to threaten with. Once in that situation it would be a recipe for a hot war between NATO and Russia.
Lots of death and destruction in Ukraine. Human suffering and misery. A new refugee crisis because many Ukrainians, and probably Russians, will try to flee the conflict. I think that there won't be direct military intervention by other countries out of fear of escalation, but who knows. Certainly a lot of sanctions, and a lot of cold and exploding electricity bills ( Russian gas supplies will be cut off either by Russia for pressure or European countries as sanctions).
Also, the global oil and gas prices will increase, countries like Qatar will benefit from washing their image. Russia should be banned from Olympics and other sporting competitions ( the World cup comes to mind). And the stock market, especially in European countries, will dive a bit.
I'm still hoping for de-escalation, but frankly it feels like we could easily have an incident that causes things to spiral out of control, a la the start of WWI.
Any action or reaction (including no reaction) could lead to MAD depending on how you see it. Russia has seen fit to escalate significantly despite basically no change in international posture towards Russia since 2014.
Economic actions can be reversed much more easily than military action. Sanctions and frozen accounts have an undo button. Dead people and destroyed cities cannot be undone.
I see economic action as the one most likely to have immediate effects internal to Russia that would undermine support for the war rather than bolster it.
How do you imagine that would work? Because it currently seems that the only way to de-escalate is to kill tens of thousands of Russian soldiers, and/or a coup and consequent total regime change in Russia.
But putting further stress on the countries opposing might help a cut-off Russia in the short term...
I mean they already have virtually no travel across their borders, and what happens in next few months is probably of greater urgency to them than later.
I've had the exact thought, it looks as if we are further descending into apocalyptic territory.
You have people capable of extreme destruction being cornered into an existential state, leaving them with very little rational options. This is when the irrational options starts appearing very rational..
True or not, what if this appears like a western backed coup to Putin and his inner circle. The kind of retaliations such an action would call for is unimaginable.
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