Yes, I agree with your main points. As for the "US produces only weapons" statement, that's been flying around for years now and there is some truth to it but obviously as you pointed out there is some level of local production. For a country that size and economy, the scale of the production deficit is really shocking though. And the American working class are the ones losing out. But that's a different discussion.

I think perhaps your fears about long term serious sanctions being perceived as a genuine threat, are warranted.

It would explain Putin's unexpected change of position this week, on Eastern Ukraine.


  • He essentially tells rebels to calm down and try to negotiate internally.
  • He tells them to postpone the referendum.
  • He made a clear comment that an intact Ukraine with federalism is the way to go. Earlier it was more open-ended what objectives Russia might have.


All good stuff that he communicates at last, but if that was the view all along, why not say so a month earlier, before over 100 people were killed on both sides!

It gave the impression that he changed his mind. Why would that be? Well, sanctions come to mind as a possible explanation. Or possibly genuine concern that too many people had died, but frankly the sanctions seem more likely.

If it's not that, then he's playing a very shrewd game indeed.
Or he was genuinely indecisive, or communicated poorly.

The thing about the sanctions is that it's ludicrous and rude of Washington to sit and talk about sanctions when they have practically no trade with Russia anyway. China obviously would probably only laugh at it, or pay lip service in respect to "American" products that are made in China.

The real victim of the sanctions would be European energy consumers, i.e most people in Europe, particularly North and East, and European companies that do business in Russia, i.e. almost all major companies.

Do we need this, in the middle of the financial crisis, Euro crisis, Greece and everything else that's going on. And frankly, to whom in the EU does it even matter on a practical level, which country Crimea belongs to? As usual, the USA looks only to its own interests and Europe is supposed to dance to its tune for no good reason. Some politicians are so keen to score points with Washington that they'd go with anything, but others are realising that these sanctions would hurt EU just as much as they would hurt Russia.

Ever since the end of the Cold War, "trade with Russia" and "expand into Russia" has been the capitalist motto of Europe. But now we are adding the clause "but only if they behave as Washington wants".

I for one found Putin's turnaround very odd and am thinking, that either he genuinely fears sanctions, or he is playing a very elaborate game of poker with Russia's real intentions. If Russia isn't going to support separatists, the decent thing to do would have been to make that completely clear to them a long time ago, rather than let things drag on and even allow people to do. They obviously hang on every words Putin says, as was clear from their response to the request to postpone the referendum. Seems to me, something changed Putin's mind!