Thread: Economic Sanctions against Russia and Russia’s Retaliatory Trade Measures

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

Russia decided to enter the economic war initiated by USA and EU and formally today.

It looks like an economic war, but i can be something bigger - the end of the global economy as we know it.

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

My personal opinion is that a country with a GDP of 2 trillions dollars cannot fight against countries with total GDP of 37 trillions (EU, USA, Canada, Australia and Norway)

It doesn't work that way. GDP matters if there's a global hot war with massive casualties — how many tanks, traiers, cannons, guns and ammo can you produce, how many ammo can you afford to shoot in every attack and so on.
You probably should calculate GDP per capita and keep in mind that there're a lot of countries that would be happy to take place on russian market - China, India, Turkey, Latin America etc.

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

Do you think that this was the right decision from the Russian Government or it was just a "nationalistic firework" in order to disorientate or just to "entertain" the fears of the russian public in front of the imminent and unpreventable financial crisis(*1) in Russia?

One thing should be clear - Putin is very western-oriented person. He's not willing to give away everything for just words of friendship and support as his predecessors did, but he wants Russia to be a part of the western world. Demarche like this is very uncharacteristic for him. It not pure populism - I'm sure.

Originally Posted by Antonio1986

Also, a historical question: During the Soviet Union era (1917 - 1989) were any trade and economic relationships between Soviet Union and Western World?

There were economic relationships with Germany before WWII (technologies in exchage for resources mainly) and with allies during the war. But after the Cold war had begun relationships stopped. Only with the Warsaw pact countries.

Originally Posted by Suobig

There were economic relationships with Germany before WWII (technologies in exchage for resources mainly) and with allies during the war. But after the Cold war had begun relationships stopped. Only with the Warsaw pact countries.

Finland (and seemingly India) and the Soviet Union had economic relationships: Bilateral trade - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Just in case I want to remind, that Finland never was a member of Warsaw pact.