While I personally agree with this Realpolitik view, I don't believe it's actually universal among leaders. Many things that have happened historically did because leaders felt some grand moral imperative (national unification, stopping an atrocity, helping one's close ethnic allies in a defensive war, offensive "defences" when the momentum felt like it was being lost -- take your pick).
A moral imperative (although one rather out of place in the 21st century) seems to be behind Putin's actions, IMO. Restore the glory of the Russian empire, practical barriers to that will be ignored. It just must be done, for the sake of itself. Righteous causes eventually sort themselves out, right?
Which brings me to the sanctions. I've not actually seen much discussion on whether sanctions against Russia will achieve Western geopolitical goals. Much of the discussion is presently framed as a moral imperative. We must act to punish Putin.
I agree, actually. For example, the original Islamic expansion, and later the crusades that were a response to it, were both explained in moral terms. (these demonstrate how manipulating consensus reality is a core competency for rulers). And the people who fought in these wars genuinely honestly believed they were acting morally and serving a higher purpose.
Or, a more recent example: part of the reason NATO intervened in Kosovo in 1999 was that they were ashamed they hadn't done so in Bosnia a few years earlier.
Right now Zelinskyy and Ukraine are covering themselves in a lot more glory than Putin and Russia.
> Righteous causes eventually sort themselves out, right?
I think Putin psyched himself up into believing his own propaganda. He's probably surrounded by yes-men who tell him what he wants to hear, too. Oops.
> Much of the discussion is presently framed as a moral imperative. We must act to punish Putin.
Sure. Morality is intuitive game theory, after all.
The Saudis have been waging an offensive war for years in Yemen. Yet there hasn't been a single peep about cutting them off SWIFT, sanctioning their royal oligarchs, freezing their western assets, etc, etc.
It seems to send a message that yes, repressive petrostate dictatorships can get away with waging offensive wars... Well, at least some of them can.
A head-and-shoulders decapitation of a regime change in Russia, Chinese irredentism over outer Manchuria, a Han-supremacist lebensraum movement targeting Asia east of the Urals…
> On February 15 [2003, before the invasion started], millions of people protested, in approximately 800 cities around the world. Listed by the 2004 Guinness Book of Records as the largest protest in human history, protests occurred among others in the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Republic of Ireland, the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, Syria, India, Russia, South Korea, Japan, and even McMurdo Station in Antarctica.
I don't think "the largest protest in human history" qualifies as "mostly shrugs and silence" ;)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protests_against_the_Iraq_War
Lack of actual policy making to me is more that the US empire was at the peak of its power. Being punished by America at the time would be worse than trying to maintain a rules based.
The US is applying sanctions to China. The US doesn't see any limits to the target of their sanctions, as you seem to believe.
Your complete inability to be a fair global hegemon is the reason nobody respects or trusts your government. Cuba is still needing to ask Uncle Sam for permission to import syringes during a global health crisis, we're still backing a genocide in Yemen, doing all of these terrible things while acting like global arbitrage. USA isn't the global police. If you're going to undercut the WHO, the UN, etc. then you don't get to act like it's about freedom and democracy or the rule of law.
Might makes right is an inane policy for Machiavellian wonks. Just because you can do whatever you want doesn't mean you should. The US imports a lot of things too, and a concerted global effort would at the very least require an isolationist USA. Where are you going to get your silicon chips from if the Republic of China reunifies with the People's Republic of China?
US wants to play by different rules than everyone else, not sure that works long term. Either invasions are globally kosher or they aren't, over a million dead and 38 million displaced over a "war on terror" that didn't do shit is a war crime. If we're not going to call an invasion on false pretexts that killed and displaced millions of civilians a war crime the word has no meaning and the discussion is moot.
And if the US can do war crimes but only China/Russia/Iran face consequences for them because we're a "big powerful country" I hope you're ready for the era of multiple US-hostile nuclear powers. Almost ruined the Earth when only two nuclear powers were butting heads in the 20th century and now we've got several to pick from :)
If they want to, that's up to them. It wouldn't surprise me if China did do something like this.
> Your complete inability to be a fair global hegemon
Hey, (1) I personally am not a global hegemon. (2) I was describing the way things are not how they ought to be. You should work on distinguishing is from ought; if you can't you'll never understand anything.
FWIW I personaslly think a fair bit of US policy is both immoral and self defeating. But, again, that's irrelevant, because as I said, geopolitics isn't a morality play.
> Where are you going to get your silicon chips from if the Republic of China reunifies with the People's Republic of China?
I'm European and I think the EU should be self-sufficient in chips. This is because any polity that isn't won't in the long term be fully independent.
> US wants to play by different rules than everyone else, not sure that works long term.
"The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must" is a rule thast's worked so for for all 5000 years of recorded history (with a few counterexamples). Is that lnog term enough for you? Is that just? No. Does it matter (i.e. affect the course of events)? Not usually.
> I hope you're ready for the era of multiple US-hostile nuclear powers.
A world with lots more nuclear powers may well happen, depending on the result of the present Russia-Ukraine war.
Wrong question. Whether they "should" in any moral sense is not a useful way to think about things because geopolitics isn't a morality play. Clearly effective sanctions against USA were a non-starter because it is too big and rich a country and does a lot of trade with the outside world.
> Realize that our next Iraq or Vietnam this new standard could be applied to us or any other country.
Nope. Effective sanctions won't happen against big powerful countries (or coalitions of countries, e.g. EU, NATO).