Hubris and hard power: The West’s losing battle against a rising Russia
With 18 rounds of sanctions totaling over 24,000, Russia has remained seemingly immune to the combined economic belligerence of the EU and the US. But why have the sanctions failed?
The EU has signed off on the 18th round of sanctions against the Russian Federation, this time focusing on blacklisitng the “dark fleet” oil tankers and the Chinese and Indian companies engaged in trading Russian energy.
Most of the important and “obvious targets” were hit during the initial rounds of sanctions, notably the affecting of major Russian banks (GazpromBank, VTB, Sberbank, Rosselkhozbank), etc., cutting some even from SWIFT, freezing approximately $300 billion worth of Russian Central Bank Reserves, and banning energy imports from the country.
At the time, the assertion seemed to be that Russia would likely fold under such a stringent sanctions regime. It was still the early days of the Special Military Operation when the U.S. president arrogantly mocked the Ruble as “rubble”, after the initial round of sanctions, while some of his allies, on the other side of the Atlantic, would goad the decision makers into rmaping up proxy warfare against Russia by proclaiming that “Russia is a akin to a gas station with nukes”.
Though six feet under, the spirit of John McCain lives on in Washington and Brussels, a Frankenstein’s monster of forever wars, stitched together by defense contractors and kept animated by the dark magic of the NATO expansionism.
It is this quintessential Western hubris that is causing them to cede ground and encouraging traditionally non-aligned countries to welcome multipolarity, even if they have considerable ideological differences, disparate strategic interests from China and Russia.
Fortunately for such countries, this is not the “unipolar” world of the 1990s and 2000s.
The very fact that the first 17 rounds of sanctions have failed to deter Russia from not only keeping up with the combined might of the NATO arms, training, and weapons supply but has also been able to ramp up its campaing, especially in the past few weeks is illustrative of the fact that the world today has three “great powers”, not one.
While sanctions and economic bullying may work against smaller nations, and even, to a certain extent, “medium powers”, they fail to deter the very strategic independence that makes a country a “great power”. By definition, a “great power” can remain strategically independent and be immune to external economic and military pressures.
It is, perhaps, a more academic definition of the term “great power”, but it is a nation that cannot be coerced, economically or militarily forced to compromise on its core strategic interest, and a power that is independently capable of exerting influence anywhere in the world, witout being bogged down with the economica or geographic constratins faced by other countries.
If the example of the war on the Eastern European front is not convincing enough of an example, consider the events that have transpired in the past years, in the Sahel and Venezuela.
Imperial Retreat in the Sahel
It was fairly recently when Francafrique faced a major setback in the region. In 2014, France launched Operation Barkhane, aimed at countering the growing influence of ISIS and AQIM (Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb). Yet, the security situation continued to deteriorate, the grassroots sentiment against the French grew, as did the public resentment against the tinpot dictators.
Soon, a series of military coups occurred in the region, starting with Mali in 2021, Burkina Faso in 2022, and, most recently, Niger in 2023. Since then, the Russian Wagner Group has replaced the French military in the region as the primary guarantor of security, which is now rebranded as the “Africa Corps” and provides a security framework for most of the Sahel region.
With the U.S. war lobby now ramping up its proxy war against Russia, it is, finally, time to do away with the illusion that a change in the government represents any significant change in U.S. foreign policy.
Many still hold the conviction that the world operates on a unipolar model, a unique moment in the history of global geopolitics, which began with the end of the USSR and lasted until the mid-2010s.
Nyet to gunboat diplomacy
The U.S. has considered the Western hemisphere to be within its sphere of influence for over 200 years. The Monroe Doctrine has remained a cornerstone of the U.S. foreign policy and has successfully barred European powers from interfering in the affairs of the Central and Latin American countries and gaining any foothold in the western hemisphere.
That was until Russia thwarted the latest iteration of the gunboat diplomacy aimed at a regime change in Venezuela. Although the history of the U.S. intervention in Latin America goes back centuries, it was not until recently that there seemed to be no deterrent against such regime change operations. The Maduro government, since 2013, has endured a multi-pronged adversary, from the insidious role of the Trojan horse organization, such as the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The bipartisan pressure continued. In 2015, the Obama Administration declared Venezuela to be a “national security threat” while it ramped up sanctions against the Venezuelan energy sector, most notably between 2017 and 19, along with recognizing the opposition leader Juan Guido as an “interim president of the country.
The question is, why have the nations not succeeded? Why has the Maduro government stayed in power, when the U.S. has tried almost everything short of military intervention to sanction and isolate the country, to treat Venezuela as if it’s a leper at a pool party?
The differential factor is Russia. While toppling populist governments and installing puppet regimes in the past might have been a walk in the park for the U.S., the situation is different in the case of the Maduro government. His government has the backing of a “great power,” and, by its essence, a great power can exert influence anywhere in the world, irrespective of its traditional sphere of influence, and cannot be coerced or subjugated by its peers.
A variety of assistive measures have helped sustain the Venezuelan government. From Russia providing diplomatic support at the UNSC against the U.S.-led resolutions to helping Venezuela sell its oil and gold, to providing military support like the S-300 surface-to-air missile systems and Su-30 fighter jets, as well as the Wagner Group’s presence in the country as a military deterrence against the anti-government forces.
They sanctioned his oil, and he laughed all the way to the bank.
So, what about the sanctions?
The previous cases, both of Sahel and Venezuela, illustrate why the American and EU nations have not worked against the Russian Federation. It is the changing nature and the strategic position of Russia in the global geopolitics that make it immune to economic coercion and diplomatic pressures. By pushing back the French in the Sahel and the United States in Venezuela, Russia has fundamentally changed the state of play. This is a clear demonstration that the doldrums of the 1990s are over, when an inept and often drunk leader personified the state of his country.
And this is why the next 18 rounds of sanctions will prove to be as futile as the first 18 rounds. The decision makers in the West still believe in their hype and still think the adversary this time is something akin to Libya or Syria.
On the part of the Western elites, it is perhaps hubris, or worse, a deliberate strategy to inevitably provoke Russia into a confrontation with NATO. After all, some of them still think that they can “win a nuclear war”.
Their war drums are beating a rhythm of folly, each thump a step towards the precipice. Only posterity will bear witness to where their incessant bloodlust takes us all.