Sanctions have never worked against Russia and they're now in a better position to resist them than ever before. So in the spirit of pure conjecture, some of my own: likely outcome is a reworking of the global economy. There will be the NATO bloc and the China-Russia bloc. It isn't impossible that there will be targetted trade deals between the two superblocs in 5-10 years. On a tech related note any country not making plans to repatriate all critical internet infrastructure ala China is basically trolling themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw peering agreements between China and Russia, sort of an expansion of the great firewall, especially if sanctions persist. As for clean technology.. lol. In my opinion the US and Canada are not serious about it. Germany has been making the wrong moves when it comes to renewables, and they're the largest EU economy.. So the chance of this affecting that seems small, but who knows. The energy crisis that is coming soon to the EU may change that.

I think there will be a new Cold War, this time Russia/China vs the West. This may not be a bad outcome. I think it will be good for the average citizen of developed countries in a lot of countries if globalization gets slowed a little. We traded cheap crap for a big increase in job insecurity and rising inequality.

> I think there will be a new Cold War, this time Russia/China vs the West. This may not be a bad outcome. I think it will be good for the average citizen of developed countries in a lot of countries if globalization gets slowed a little. We traded cheap crap for a big increase in job insecurity and rising inequality.

I agree. Globalization has had a lot of economic and social negatives (e.g. selling your fishing rod to buy a fish), and it's delusional at this point to think it will do anything to address the deep political differences and fundamental rivalries that exist between the blocs.

There's probably a lesson somewhere in this about keeping economists on tighter leashes.

Globalization is as inevitable as time - it is the direction of civilization.

Every day the world gets smaller, and the actions of each of us affect an ever increasing number of people as our connectedness increases.

The project of the new millennium and its generations will be to deal with this in a humane manner.

All of these questions are what global policy analysts and advisors debate for years and write entire books about. There is really nothing people can write in this thread which would even start to make sense of all this.

global policy analysts and advisors are the ones who influenced the policies that led to the current state of things. in comparison to that, wild conjecture on hacker news is pretty much gold imo

It's not about cutting citizens off from the world. It's about minimizing financial capabilities of an aggressor. So, even when they are not disposed, they can do less harm.

Eg. Their technological advancement will be crippled for decades to come, because they will still want to maintain their existing fleet.

Even now, Russia sells their tech advancement in military tech to others ( eg. India) and doesn't use it much for themselves because of cost. Even while they are investing 6% of their GDP into military.

That 6% in military that they invest now, will become much less in absolute value in the future. So it will be easier to outcompete them with a 1% investment of richer economies and concentrate on things besides military.

Just my 2 cents.

This is why China and India need to get on board with sanctions. We know what's coming should Russia continue with this attack, let alone escalation... the Russian oil and gas spigot gets turned off. At a certain point, anyone still buying from them, is aiding their war effort.

To get India onboard, you need to export weapons to them and compete with Russia.

China has it's own goal with this, they won't get onboard.

If the sanctions work it's the end of Putin (both literally and figuratively).

Personally, I think every country is looking at how much it relies on other countries to get by. Europe is too reliant on Russia for gas, and most of the world is too reliant on China for pretty much everything except food. I don't see this lasting another 10 years.

If this all ends well then it could be a case study in promoting economic investment / economic warfare with adversaries.

The idea is that they get dependent on that foreign investment and the threat of it being taken away and are much more amenable than an adversary that is completely disconnected economically and has nothing to lose.

Hopefully with Russian citizens (peacefully) ousting Putin.

What probably do you assign to that? I assign non-trivial probability to “ousting” but practically 0% chance of “peacefully” - more like “go out with a bang”.

Given that their only source of info is state media, I don't think it is realistic to expect uprising

Why do you think their only source of info is state media? Do you think Russians don't have internet, social networks, group chats?

All in all, on average, primary source of info. Afaik, a lot of works goes into controlling which parts of internet are well accessible and which are not. The social networks and group chats are amplifier of what you see elsewhere. They don't bring new information from outside into debate. They are also reflection of what you consider appropriate or safe to share. And with new criminalization of "disinformation about war", it will be less.

And right now, as far as Russian official version is, afaik, Ukranians are nazi child killers and Russia is there to denazify and protect regions of it.

Moreover, ousting Putin requires more then unhappy disagreeing populace. It requires either super weak regime or internal coup of powerful players. Regime is not weak currently.

People still remember Chechnya and Afghanistan, so I think they expect to have to use unofficial sources for certain kinds of information, like getting information about their dead or missing relatives. I guess we'll see what happens when the coffins start coming back.

Putin's regime wouldn't be the first to fall over a failed war.

In the USA, there is nothing stopping you from going to learn all the pro-Trump, anti-vax, anti-mask propaganda you want, yet millions of people do not.

What makes you think it's any easier for someone to leave their filter bubble in Russia, where the consequences aren't just losing your job and social ingroup, but also being kidnapped, tortured, and being found dead in a ditch five years from now?

Some must see planes turning around, body bags coming home, ships not leaving port, the stock market staying closed for three days straight, friends withdrawing cash, family at sanctioned companies afraid of losing their jobs, etc. and know that something is up.

I don’t think everyone is brainwashed by state media, some just ignore it or tolerate it to stay out of trouble.

I don’t think a civil uprising is likely though due to Russia’s police, military, legal system and covert ops that are willing to dramatically intimidate or eliminate political threats.

Any uprising is going to come from generals sick of bombing civilians or oligarchs sick of losing money IMO.

Did they have truthful media in 1917?

Like, who exactly?

If you mean Russia, they had years of internal violence behind them. They had well established revolutionary movements and terror groups acting inside on top of it even before WWI. And the regime was weak and forced to do concessions already in run up to WWI and even weaker by end of it. They were doing reforms, too little too late, but they were doing them because internal pressure was strong for years.

That revolution did not came out of nowhere. Plus, the population was literally hungry and desperate to large extend. And plus, it was followed by major civil war of like 5 sides competing for power.

Utter speculation on my part, but I see this as both a weakness and a strength for Putin. On one hand, as long as the government and whoever controls what goes out on state media are on his side it helps Putin. If, however, that control breaks down and the people in those positions lose confidence in Putin than the leverage reverses and they can easily use their media in the opposite direction.

The best case is if the current inner circle "convince" him to step down. A new regime could come to some compromise and blame the fiasco on Putin drinking too much vodka. Popular uprisings against Putin would be a bloodbath and could turn into a civil war.

Everyone knows Putin is a teetotaler.

How would they do that peacefully? Surely whether or not it would be peaceful would be up to Putin.

Or not peacefully. Who cares, he is an insane dictator who caused thousands of deaths.

pssssst nuclear weapons

I am not so sure if the average Russian citizen thinks Putin is that bad. From the outside it looks like life has massively improved during Putin’s reign. We shouldn’t forget how things were in Russia before Putin.

Maybe the Ukrainian situation is the turning point. If the sanctions cause pain in Russia people’s view of Putin may change.

There's an opinion that Russian conservative people like Strelkov[0] are more radical than Putin. And they feel that Putin should done these things at 2014, for 2022 it's already a little bit late. If Putin cannot achieve his goal, these neo-imperialist people will overthrow him and continue this war.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igor_Girkin

Dreamland. Putin is a deranged murderer and he has so far good support (or they are just scared shitless) in duma and enforcement. Right now they're putting protesters in jail because there are relatively few. If protesters follow former US ambassador's Michael McFaul's advise (I think dumb one) and show up in hundreds of thousands the shooting will start and it might provoke him to press that red button.

The only hope I really have that the close circle and the enforcement part would render Putin out of the picture. But for that they have to have a way out. As it stands now they're all booked for ICC and have no reason to do anything like that.

Putin is a corrupt murderer but I've seen very little to suggest that he's deranged or otherwise insane. And depending on how firm the west is about sticking to sanctions (i.e. will Europe quietly roll them back after gas prices spike?) his choice to invade Ukraine may even be a smart move for him from a geopolitical perspective.

Europe isn't going to roll back anything, they can move to US, Mexico, Venezuela, Middle East gas sources although it will be painful. They are not going to enrich the guy who is trying to reconquer Europe. Germany will start spending a bunch more on their military now as well as Russia is a traditional enemy.

The west has area areas when it comes to the U.N. Charter, but Putin has gone way over the line to exactly why the U.N. founded to prevent. The west will stick to the multilateral system until nukes drop, and will sooner close the Russian oil and gas spigot entirely than abandon it.

Cutting off 50% of the flow by my reading translates into around $150 per barrel oil which is in the realm of $7/gallon gas at the pump. Europeans pay on average $7-8/gallon for a long time. Cutting it off entirely? Someone else will have a better idea if that could be in the range of $10/gallon or $20. Of course it will cause problems. Folks might decide in a couple years they like cheap gas more, and then end up in another world war with even higher prices anyway just because they have no imagination about what a completely stupid move this was from a geopolitical perspective.

Actually EU and US is still traded with Russia

This is an important point, we have not cut off Russia completely because Europe is heavily dependent on it's oil and gas. What we have done is shut down almost everything except that critical oil and gas (and probably wheat).

Since 2014 Europe has invested a fair bit in diversifying it's potential energy sources by building gas shipping terminals and increasing integration between national pipeline infrastructure, and this will need to be put into overdrive.

Word is a lot of folks in Europe are happy that Biden has stepped up to bring things together but don't think the same would happen if Trump was still around. So, they're planning on ensuring they can move forward if the US's leadership weakens in another couple years.

There's somebody who perceives Biden as a strong leader?? In the US, divided as it is, polling would suggest that even his supporters don't feel that way.

I didn't say they or I thought he was a strong leader. But in relation to the invasion, Biden seems to have put in the work working with NATO and allied leaders to ensure the sanctions could be enacted swiftly and broadly and has publicly and privately expressed strong support for NATO. This contrasts with his predecessor who openly discussed his desire to withdraw at different points in time. European diplomats have apparently expressed that they wouldn't expect any support from Trump if he were in power now.

Optimally Putin is deposed in some fashion or another by one or all of the high powered individuals in Russia because he is killing everything they worked their lives to build up. Worst case nuclear war and it doesn't matter any more.

>So, and I realize all answers will be pure conjecture, what happens if the sanctions work? What's the end game? Can the proverbial tiger be put back in the cage?

Literally everyone in the world is hoping the sanctions work. If it does, it tells the world even a nuclear power can't attack sovereign nations and get away with it. If it doesn't... then humanity is not post-war and we're about to get into a nuclear world war.

>Russia has invaded Ukraine and Europe has responded in a unified manor. China gave muted support, but largely stayed out of it (at least vocally - but still traded with them).

No they didn't. China picked up the phone with Putin on day 1 and said peace talks immediately and made comment they respect Ukraines sovereignty as well as the security needs for all involved. China appears to have been sideswipped and used as as shield by putin.

>China is, of course, watching very closely, as they have their own expansionist interests.

This is seeming more and more like Russian propaganda. China has 75 years of foreign policy showing no expansion. They have all the factories and a gigantic standing army. They could expand and take quite alot. Yet they dont because they know war isn't the way. Invest the war money back in yourself and grow taller.

>How does/can Russia get out of this and save face?

Every good negotiator makes it possible for their opponent to save face. Russia has a huge and simple one they provided themselves. "Nazi government was toppled, we are guaranteeing the new republics. White Peace out." Though to get sanctions lifted im sure there will be reparations to be paid.

>Where will this go with social/cyber warfare - it has to ramp-up dramatically, no? Now that western Europe has increased its military spending, what does that mean for the "World Police" American stance that has been so prevalent since the late 40's?

Everyone is making this about the USA... the Russian propaganda was running all these 'USA imperialism' which hey... they have to get in line... the commonwealth is up first... but the USA didn't do anything. Didnt get involved other than showing unity with the EU. Russia probably predicted the USA would act. In fact, it looks like an awful lot of effort is being done to curb the ongoing russian propaganda internally for most countries.

> Does this, in fact push forward clean technology, or will it hinder it as now America and Canada sit in a prime spot to export fuel and make record profits for decades - environment be damned?

Usa and Canada are leading the way with clean tech in many ways. We have 10,000 trees per person. Canadian solar is top notch. Our automotive industry has pivoted in an instant to manufacturing EVs. Coal plants are gone or going? The only thing I think Canada is missing out on is nuclear fusion.

The world needs oil still. Oil rich countries are switching over. Lets not exclude awesome scandanavian countries. This hasn't been some sort of Canadian conspiracy to convince Russia to attack a sovereign neighbour. This is Canada being a good ally and offering conflict-free oil.

> China has 75 years of foreign policy showing no expansion.

Err..you might want to check your history there a bit more stringently. And say hello to the invasion and annexation of Tibet. The Sino-India War. The several Sino-Vietnam Wars.

(Vietnamese were probably the most battle-hardened folks in the 1950-1990's era - a half-dozen big foreign powers came for them and they sent every single one packing - though they did loose some territory permanently to China)

>Err..you might want to check your history there a bit more stringently. And say hello to Tibet.

Annexation of Tibet: 23 May 1951

Damn it, you're right... that was 71 years ago.

Have anything more recent? Other than the obvious moves against India. Russia, Pakistan, and China sure are eyeing up India.

The occupation and militarisation of 80-90% of the South China Sea islands which are formally claimed by other nations. Including the Spratly Islands. The Chinese regularly threaten any military vessels that pass through here. Look up videos on youtube on the radio conversations.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3126656/sou...

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/ed8539753d69434596cc239...

Ok but it's not some vast annexation over a sovereign nation.

Canada and the USA has an awful lot of these kinds of conflicts. Worse when indigenous rights start to get involved.

Vietnam and China go way back for conflicts.

Our fear here is China invading sovereign neighbours like south korea, japan, australia, and the usa.

Is china planning to do that?

Well..President Xi has himself openly declared that re-unification of Taiwan - along with all ancient Chinese domains will happen within his term of governance. And no (sane) leader declares more than one planned invasion at a time. So plans for annexation of India's eastern provinces are on hold presently.

Right now China is at the ending stages of modernising its military forces - a process that started a decade and half ago. Once Xi successfully passes his traditional term limits with no hiccups and consolidates his firm control on the CCP over all objectors, you can bet on a Chinese annexation of Taiwan in 2023-25 period. (assuming no economic disasters or another Covid variant)

Japan & South Korea are pretty impossible to annex without extreme mass casualties, especially with the extraordinarily heavy US military curtain and the eye-boggling dense build-up of weapon systems in place.

>Well..President Xi has himself openly declared that re-unification of Taiwan - along with all ancient Chinese domains will happen within his term of governance. And no (sane) leader declares more than one planned invasion at a time. So plans for annexation of India's eastern provinces are on hold presently.

Lets not forget Manchuria. Russia actively owns chinese land. If one china is so important to invade taiwan... giving up on manchuria seems backwards.

For all I know China invades everything soon and world war 3 triggers. Asia will probably be an absolute shit show. But from my point of view reading xi jinping. It seems more and more like he understands that war isn't good for anyone. The very low funding on military means he can invest so much more into themselves and that's how they grow so much more.

>Japan & South Korea are pretty impossible to annex without extreme mass casualties, especially with the extraordinarily heavy US military curtain and the eye-boggling dense build-up of weapon systems in place.

What I hope for, Sanctions against Russia work really well. War ends and the world tells the world that we are all united against territorial conquest. Our crippling sanctions can even stop a nuclear power.

Then everyone settles down knowing they aren't threatened like this again.

> The very low funding on military means he can invest so much more into themselves and that's how they grow so much more

China is now the nation with the second highest military expenditure after the USA. It has increased its military budget continuously year by year. China’s military spending far exceeds that of its neighbours and was greater than the combined expenditure of India, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan in 2019.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/understanding-chinas-2021-defe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_...

Due to significant increase in the last few years, all the neighbours are also now forced to drastically increase their expenditure.

Vietnam incursions were in the 1970s I believe. (Now I have checked) seem to have lasted between 1979 - 1991 off and on.

Island and coastal nations of the South China Sea seem concerned about the island militarisation going on. Taiwanese people don't have a particular reason to rest easy either.

Well, they do want Taiwan back.

>Well, they do want Taiwan back.

Back? They currently own it. No country in the world recognizes them as their own country. They are not in the United Nations. They have no alliances.

If Taiwan declares independence and is recognized... and China invades to stop this. Who can even stop China if they decide to take them? Nobody is coming to their aid. This is a super silly thing to say.

Republic of China (Aka Taiwan) is not the same thing as The People's Republic of China (Aka China). And pardon me for talking about Taiwan as being sovereign, which it actually is, but I recognise it's a little more complex than that: https://international.thenewslens.com/feature/taiwan-for-sal...

Anyway, you are more wrong that I am.

I don't think it makes any sense to say China 'owns' Taiwan. For all the formalisms you list, PRC exerts no controlling influence over life in Taiwan whatsoever. It has a free market economy, free elections, free media and makes it's own trade and political agreements internationally. These are the things that really matter.

>These are the things that really matter.

And in event of PRC attempting to reunify TW, formalism will categorize that as a civil war, not an international one where sovereignty is violated like current RU/UKR conflict. As far as I know, PRC doesn't need UNSC approval to finish an civil war, it's already dejure a legal ongoing war. Plus there's all sorts ambiguity on 3rd parties aiding UKR with lethal aid right now, but aiding TW will be declaration of war with PRC. These are the things that really matter politically when bombs start exploding.

I suppose it makes more sense to say PRC owns "China" including TW in the same way it makes sense to say TW owns "China" including mainland.

Yeah, they raised the alarm about Covid and the WHO just flat-out ignored them at China's behest.

No one is going to invade India unless they want to welcome nuclear annihilation and face 1.5 billion angry Indians.

India & China both have a formal "No First Use" position that has been repeatedly reaffirmed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_first_use

A grab of a portion of east Indian states via conventional warfare, followed by cease-fire and negotiations is very much in the ambit of China's strategy. Modi is attempting to prevent this by scaling up military infrastructure on the eastern front, but its still way-way behind what China already has in place. (by orders of magnitude)

https://www.newindianexpress.com/thesundaystandard/2021/oct/... https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/new-weapons-deploy...

> China has 75 years of foreign policy showing no expansion

How could you type this with a straight face?

> Canadian solar is top notch

Can you give examples, because from my limited view all Canada has in terms of renewables is hyrdo.

All of our automotive industry is owned by foreign manufacturers and relationships with Detroit are strained [1]. Plants have been shut down [2]. Canada has only just started to adopt EV, Europe is way ahead [3]. I will concede that both Europe and Canada aim to phase out IC engines by 2035.

In my opinion the stupid investment in that pipeline the government bought from the Americans after they backed out was a huge mis-step. That money could have been spent investing in solar.

[1] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/car-plants-bridge-1.6346556 [2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/gm-closing-oshawa-fac... [3] https://www.canadianmetalworking.com/canadianmetalworking/ar...

>Can you give examples, because from my limited view all Canada has in terms of renewables is hyrdo.

For example, https://www.canadiansolar.com/ Windmills and solar farms are everywhere.

That I suppose is another huge problem in canada, we have a severe lack of grid scale energy storage. Be it pumped hydro or whatever.

In fact, one of the big problems in our grid is how many greenhouses have switched to led and sodium lighting. TONS more energy is being consumed. Also a huge problem for astronomers.

>All of our automotive industry is owned by foreign manufacturers and relationships with Detroit are strained [1]. Plants have been shut down [2]. Canada has only just started to adopt EV, Europe is way ahead [3]. I will concede that both Europe and Canada aim to phase out IC engines by 2035.

That would be somewhat old news. Most of those plants have either plans to reopen or have reopened. Not to mentioned several new plants being built in ontario.

No doubt many places in Europe are way ahead and not to mention the USA is kicking our butt as well.

>In my opinion the stupid investment in that pipeline the government bought from the Americans after they backed out was a huge mis-step. That money could have been spent investing in solar.

Hindsight 20/20. Unless I can borrow your Tardis, I can't go change it.

I count 3 or 4 Canadian Solar projects. Most of the projects they are involved with are in other countries: https://www.canadiansolar.com/successful-projects/

As for hindsight, governments are supposed to have foresight in how they manage the country. The myopic vision is what I object to.

People forget the trump white house tried to disuade Ukraine from joining the EU

>People forget the trump white house tried to disuade Ukraine from joining the EU

I liked Trump in many ways but...

The day of the invasion... everything the democrats ever said were proven true. Trump was clearly starting shit with China because he's team Putin. Made the USA fear China and China became defensive and threatened by the USA. Meanwhile it was all just a play by Russia.

Trump is in Putin's hip pocket, there is more going on there than just "admiration". Putin has something on Trump that would ruin even him in the eyes of the worshipful Trump-thralls.

> China picked up the phone with Putin on day 1 and said peace talks immediately and made comment they respect Ukraines sovereignty as well as the security needs for all involved. China appears to have been sideswipped and used as as shield by putin.

This is just public display. Actions matter: will they continue buying Russian gas and oil?

>This is just public display. Actions matter: will they continue buying Russian gas and oil?

Russia's diplomacy was pure lies. Maybe it's true of China? If actions matter: what has china done wrong exactly? Have they invaded anyone yet?

Continuing to trade with a trade partner isn't an indictment.