If they were doing business in Russia and buying Russian-made tech under an agreement that the tech not be sold to Russian-sanctioned countries, and then they sold the tech to those countries in violation of that agreement... That might be a valid comparison.

And if they were in a country that cooperated with Russia to extradite criminals, this exact thing might happen to them.

For a similar reason is why google had move all of their employees out of Russia a few years back.

Yes, if you violate another country’s laws, you are subject to arrest. Whether or not they can actually arrest you depends if you are in their jurisdiction or a jurisdiction that does extradition.

This was a "should" question.

> So if some Western company would trade with Ukraine or Georgia in violation of Russian sanctions, should their representatives be arrested and extradited to Russia?

The US is still the sole global superpower, it is still (yes, despite Trump) largely charged with maintaining the world order that has existed since WW2. Russia is not a superpower, its reach is regional and it has few allies. You'll see a lot of varied answers in this thread, the only one that matters is this: the US can do things that Iceland (tiny nation) or Russia (large, regional power) cannot because it's far more powerful in most every regard. That's not meant to justify any arbitrary flexing of that power that the US does, it's an explanation for why the US can do it and Russia generally can't in the case of Georgia. It's an imposition of will, backed up by immense diplomatic, financial and military power. Few countries will comply with a Russian request to arrest an American executive, dozens of major countries will at least consider a US request like the one in this case.

Well, if one were to wake up one day and find that another nation had arisen, say, one that is world's large manufacturer and that a vast number of companies rely on and where a large number of powerful Westerners happen to wind-up at one point or another, well, however far-fetched this might seem, this situation might put a wrench in this idea of US hegemony.

I mean, I know it's 1999 but who knows what will happen in the years to come? /:s

In my post I never said there were going to be no consequences to US behavior. I never said anything attempting to justify US behavior. I never said the US would remain the sole superpower. I never said China wouldn't eventually rise to the same level of global power that the US now has, or even beyond that.

What I said non-the-less is true. It's unpopular to state it, to say why things are the way they are in actuality. Sometimes reality is unpopular.

> Russia is not a superpower, its reach is regional and it has few allies.

It still has lots of nuclear weapons. And probably more tactical nuclear weapons than the US does. But yes, it has fewer allies, for sure.

Nuclear weapons are difficult tools to apply in diplomatic contexts like this one.

Well, during the 1967 Six Days War, I've heard that Russia threatened to nuke Tel Aviv if Israel bombed Cairo.

> The US is still the sole global superpower, it is still (yes, despite Trump) largely charged with maintaining the world order that has existed since WW2.

No, the US is not "charged" with maintaining the "world order". The US just thinks that it is. And they're so bad at their self-imposed job that the only reason why they can get away with it is that they're a superpower.