I have made about a dozen posts on it already. The economic war began the minute the first sanctions ware applied. World War III was an economic war and we won it in 1991. We made the decision to make this an economic war because Putin can't win one. He can't win any kind of war with the West, but economic war doesn't cost American lives. We are going to steadily fuck up his economy until he backs off or another Russian revolution occurs. This is all about turf. The West cannot live with Russian troops right on the Polish border. The Russians cannot live with NATO troops right on their border. Ukraine is the buffer state. Putin fucked up when he tried to change the game. Ukraine wanted to establish closer economic ties with the West, but Putin feared that NATO membership was what they wanted. But it has always been in both sides best interests for Ukraine and Belarus to be buffer states between NATO and Russia. Stirring up discontent among Russian-speaking Ukrainians has a high possibility of spilling over to Russia itself, which already has mature insurgencies in Chechnya and occupied Georgia. Russians are very nationalistic, but their discontent is because of economic reasons. Average Russian are very poor because the Russian economy cannot compete with anyone. Regressing to Soviet-style economy is very unpopular and Western sanctions will just make the matter worse. American and European investment money is fleeing Russia at an alarming rate due to these Soviet-style moves from the Kremlin. Western money requires a free-market capitalist economy and we just don't see that happening in Russia since Putin. Vladimir is in deep Kimchee from this overreaching. When he starts losing support from his party and the military brass, a new strongman will emerge. We have seen this many times in Russia. It's far older than Communist dictators. It's Czarist politics.
So far, it is an economic skirmish. But there is a lot of room to ramp it up. And already Putin is worried about the private companies doing business in Russia pulling out and stockholders of Russian companies selling out. The flip side of looking like an intimidating Soviet dictator to small neighbors is that . . . you look like an intimidating Soviet dictator to international investors. Money flees from risk.
