Somebody should make a list of companies that pull moves like this;
Screwing over nongovernmental entities when governments make moves that they dislike.
I understand people wanting to deter aggression, but this is not the way.
What happens when it’s your country on the other end of bad choices?
Not every country can shrug it off like America did when invading Iraq.
Friedman is right that this is economic war. Which I think most people will agree is preferable to nuclear war. But the principle is the same. What democratic countries are attempting to do just now is demonstrate an economic force so great that the enemy sees they cannot win.
These companies are doing it because of the strength of feeling of their customers, employees, and owners. There were dockers in the UK who collectively refused to unload Russian oil off a tanker. Didn't matter that the govt hadn't banned it yet.
People are making lists but they're of the companies that continue to do business with Russia. And they don't seem to spend a lot of time on the list before caving into the demands.
The nongovernmental entities often benefit from the barbaric behavior. If the people of Russia don't stand up to the aggression of their own country then they will live with the consequences. It's not like they are getting butchered in their homes like their neighbors.
Do you support the same sanctions for the population of all NATO countries after the illegal invasions of Afghanistan, Irak, Yugoslavia? For their support of allied invasions in Yemen, Palestine, etc.? I know my country (Romania) directly participated in these other horrible wars, but as a child at the time, I don't feel too directly responsible for not doing more to stop the warmongering of my leaders.
In fact, the sanctions should be even worse by your logic, since the people had much more power to prevent these wars, unlike the people of Russia.
Of course what Russia is doing is unacceptable, but it's hardly alone in the world in this type of behavior. Rather than getting on your high horse and condemning the people of Russia, it's better to send help to the people of Ukraine who are suffering in this brutal war, and maybe as well to the people of Yemen and Palestine and other invaded places.
Also, see if you can lobby your leaders to advance negotiations for treaties to dismantle all nukes - a major weapon that enabled Russia to bully its neighbors.
> I'm not sure why NATO would sanction NATO. If your country wants to sanction a NATO member then they certainly have that right to.
I was discussing the principle of it - would UN sanctions against NATO countries be justified, especially if they were to target the population of NATO countries?
Note that my country is in fact a NATO member.
> If we actually eliminated nukes NATO influence would only expand.
My point was exactly that eliminating nuclear weapons entirely would in fact be a boon to NATO, since for example in the current situation it could have actually considered some limited military aid without risking nuclear Armageddon.
The last time NATO depended on nuclear as a deterrent was in the late 70s when we didn't think we could stop the advancement of soviet tanks. No one would like nuclear to not exist more than NATO. You might want to be on an Asian website if you are trying to lobby against nuclear weapons.
The USA at least just recently unilaterally withdrew from the INF treaty (claiming Russian non-compliance, but launching a rocket of their own that would have been illegal to even develop while the treaty was in force the day the treaty expired). Israel's well known illegal nuclear weapons are also supported by the USA.
So at least one pretty important NATO country is very clearly not prepared to get rid of its nukes, or pressure allies to get rid of theirs. Even more scarily, per president Trump, this same country is very interested in finding ways to get usable nukes.
It's difficult to take your comment seriously when you start off with a falsehood. Afghanistan was not an illegal invasion, they were the aggressor country. To equivocate ukraine with afghanistan is to support Putin's invasion.
I am not equivocating Ukraine with Afghanistan. The Ukrainian regime is NOT a quasi-terrorist, fundamentalist, sinister right-wing regime as the Taliban were, for one. Putin had no right to invade Ukraine.
However, this does not mean that we should consider the invasion of Afghanistan as "defense" either. No state had been attacked by the state of Afghanistan. That a few afghan civilians conducted a terrorist attack in the USA doesn't mean that Afghanistan attacked the USA. Afghanistan even agreed to consider handing over Osama bin Laden to the USA, as long as they were provided with evidence of his guilt - like any state that is asked to extradite a resident. The USA decided that it didn't care to wait and produce such evidence, so they launched an invasion less than a month after the attack.
It is true that this war in particular got acquiessence from the UN security council, so I will admit that it was not technically illegal (unlike the Iraq war).
Not sure what you're trying to say. Nothing about war is right, with very very few exceptions.
My only point was that claiming NATO is a "purely defensive alliance" is not supported by history. This means that some NATO claims about Russia's lack of reasons for fearing NATO expansion are bullshit.
But to be very clear again, this doesn't justify Russia's illegal murderous invasion of Ukraine.
> Afghanistan was not an illegal invasion, they were the aggressor country.
This is wrong. The country of Afghanistan did not conduct the WTC attacks. The nominally ruling clique in Afghanistan would not extradite OBL. If anything Afghanistan was an area of civil war in which the US intervened.
After the Taliban refused to turn over the mastermind of the attacks, Osama Bin Laden, Operation Enduring Freedom officially began 7 October 2001 with American and British bombing strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Afghanistan.
FWIW Taliban actually offered to put Osama on trial. But they insisted that it be an international tribunal, and that it should be held in some Muslim country.
Think about results. Does it help or hurt the Russian resisters when they (and the people they need to persuade) lose most access to the free world?
Sanctioning state organs and oligarchs is good and overdue, but the mob extending that to canceling all of Russian civil society seems stupid and evil to me.
At a certain point we need to worry less about Russia's opinion regarding anything, and more about defanging them as a power in the world capable of projecting force until their leader is no longer a power-mad tyrant. Technology sanctions absolutely help us accomplish this goal.
Yeah, a family of 4 evacuating and executed during a planned ceasefire in an agreed humanitarian corridor is the same level of sad as Russian citizens who don't even 'accept' there 'is' a 'war' not being able to play Minecraft.
People are dying, many of these people are friends, relatives, and co-workers of people living in Russia. Many Russian soldiers are dying needlessly because one - ONE man is having a end-of-life mental break. One man's pride is the cause of all of this. Just one man.
Period. One man. Blame Putin for Putin's war. If you don't like suffering for one man's tantrum -- call the Kremlin.
> Blame Putin for Putin's war. If you don't like suffering for one man's tantrum -- call the Kremlin.
This reminds me how people in Soviet Union wrote letters to Stalin to describe injustices and how much they love him because he is the best possible leader they could have. Putin isn't Stalin yet, but the Russian people are waiting patiently for him to become one.
Even if all of that is true, it is still also true that turning Russia into a massively nuclear armed version of North Korea is bad for the world. Eventually the Russians who remain are going to get slowly butchered in their homes.
There is significant risk of Russians blaming the West if NATO gets involved. Navalny's organization did a survey of Moscow's internet users, and nearly half think Russia is liberating Ukraine. It strongly suggests the vast majority of Russians do not see this as them having started an aggressive war.
The nation-state system tends toward distributed blame (to the nationals) even when there isn't distribution of power (autocracy). For once, most of the world is blaming the autocrat rather than the nation. That's an improvement.
There is definitely an argument that boycotts is a blunt tool and have to be applied sparingly and with great care.
But in the scope of this conflict, and as an European living in a country that borders Russia, I'm all for it.
What is happening in Ukraine is horrific and it is happening because in the mind of the Russian leadership the country had aligned it self to close to the west. So they are in a sense attacked because they are to much like us.
There is also the question about what happens next if Putin succeeds in Ukraine, where is next on the path to rebuild the Russian empire? Georgia and Moldovia are candidates, in addition both the Baltics and Finland used to be part of the Russian empire, then there are all of the old Warsaw pact countries as well.
How can they and the rest of Europe ever be safe without a regime change or huge degradation of Russian military capabilities?
One of the ways to accomplish this to thrash the Russian economy, while that is horrible to all the Russian that do not support the war, the alternative seems worse. Not that Redhat pulling out of Russia is going to have much of an impact on the Russian economy. But everyone's contributions helps a bit.
They have no choice without liquidity you can’t pay your employees and you can’t offer paid services. At the moment Russian YouTube is ad free because google wants to keep it open for information purposes but they don’t make any money from it. For other services like McDonalds this is just not feasible. McDonalds and Coke kept their stores and production longer open because they had to get rid of their perishable goods.
The difference here is nuclear weapons. We aren't able to use the normal military options against a country threatening nuclear first use. The normal military options are no-fly zones, embedded SOF and advisors, help with logistics and supply chains, etc.
IMO, this war has demonstrated where power really lies. And that is in the hands of the people. Do you think any politician West of Poland really wanted this economic war with Russia?
Clearly, the lives of the rich and powerful would have been much easier had Zelenskeyy snuck off allowing Putin to annex a big chunk of South Eastern Ukraine like he did with Crimea. Energy bills go back down. No additional influx of refugees. Pandemic free. Peachy.
So why is it happening? Because the free press is out there documenting the horrors for all to see. And it turns out that people do care. And they are fed up of the lies and the fake news. These sanctions are being made because people demand it. That is customers, individuals, employees. This is what is driving decision-making processes at the moment.
>IMO, this war has demonstrated where power really lies. And that is in the hands of the people.
I think what's huge right now is soft power. Public relations and propaganda. Social media to form groups and opinions. I'm linking a Russian example here but I'm sure there's many others.
I understand people wanting to deter aggression, but this is not the way.
What happens when it’s your country on the other end of bad choices?
Not every country can shrug it off like America did when invading Iraq.