Two broad perspectives have emerged as the civilized world tries to figure out how to respond to the inhumanities perpetrated on Ukraine by the war criminal Vladimir Putin.
One argument counsels restraint and containment in any NATO or other Western action against Putin. Localized aggressors have created bloody massacres before in Yemen, Syria and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (to name but three), this thinking goes. What matters most here is negotiation and containment, especially given the Russian president’s aggressive state and his military’s formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons.
No-fly zones, boots on the ground and other forms of direct military intervention, while tempting in the face of human suffering and pleas for help, risk catastrophic escalation that could destroy much of the planet.
The counterargument often draws on the analogy of the early years of Adolf Hitler, when the world failed to act quickly enough to stop his fascist rout of Europe, thus failing to stop unconscionable subsequent loss of life, including the victims of the Holocaust. If Putin is not stopped in Ukraine, this thinking goes, he likely will be emboldened to encroach on other sovereign nations and, perhaps even worse, other authoritarian regimes, such as China, watching Putin’s success, will be tempted to follow his model in other disputed territorial regions, such as Taiwan.
As British Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote over the weekend: “Vladimir Putin’s act of aggression must fail and be seen to fail.”
Most politicians are vacillating between these two points of view.
Most Americans are doing the same as they talk around the dinner table. It is easier to grab an oligarch’s yacht, source your vodka from Finland or fire the Putin-sympathizing diva from the Metropolitan Opera.
Sanctions on an epic level are tricky, complicated and can cause collateral damage. But they are the world’s best option.
The danger, of course, is that the canceling of Premier League soccer, the closing of designer stores and the general, sudden de-Westernization of Russia and its people sends that country into the hands of China.
That’s already happening with credit-card processing. After Visa and Mastercard announced they would no longer guarantee Russian cards working abroad, many of the affected rushed to replace the contents of their wallet with a Chinese card.
Sanctions cannot be cancellations. The sanctions must not be viewed through the same lens as the performative congressional “freedom fries” debacle in 2003 after France opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That was mere posturing. And there is no logic to covering up the abstract work of Wassily Kandinsky, refusing to listen to the symphonies of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky or throwing Anton Chekhov plays out of the theater.
But, no, cruise ships should not now be calling in St. Petersburg. Netflix should not be filming comedies in Russia. Aeroflot should not be allowed to land at O’Hare International Airport. And who can drink Russian vodka in good conscience right now when other options are available that taste much the same?
Sanctions are imperfect and imperfectly targeted. If and when Putin is gone, they should be removed. The post-invasion economic recovery of a Russia without Putin will be in everyone’s interest.
Sanctions are the very least we can do to help end this brutal period of global history. Russians must understand we mean them no harm and that we are always at the negotiating table alongside the brave people of Ukraine.
But end it, we must. Together.
The Chicago Tribune