1. I believe Russia also has India as a trading partner, so a resource rich country has access to over half the world’s population — they’ll figure it out.
2. I believe that China has already weaponized finance against the US, from funding organizations at universities to coercing policies at major companies, eg Disney and WarnerMedia, to demanding IP transfers from anyone who wants to do business there. My understanding is that the US was woefully unprepared for a one-way open market and the disruptions that would bring to their economy.
[1] It's also worth noting that government(s) played their part in facilitating much of this by not saying 'no' to some of these deals.
In such a case the opportunist (China?) is still committing assault and possibly murder. The victim (USA?) is likely joking, trying to show off, mentally unwell, or already suffering so much it would be mercy. Anyway, it appears you're trying to say the USA should realize it was asking to be exploited because they were too short-sighted or naive.
While India still buys Russian oil, it seems they demand huge discounts:
https://hindustannewshub.com/russia-ukraine-news/india-deman...
I actually read it on the Russian language Moscow Times first, which mentions Bloomberg, but I'm linking this English article (which mentions MT as source).
Another article, on the English Moscow Times (4th March): "Russia Running Out of Oil Customers" -- https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/03/04/russia-running-out...
So it looks like even though Russia still finds buyers it's not easy for them regardless.
Similar for technology, again linking to an English version of what originally was a Russian language article on the Moscow Times (.ru version). It looks like even China does not want to break sanctions on technology sales to Russia: https://hindustannewshub.com/russia-ukraine-news/china-has-j...
I'm reading a lot of "The sanctions don't work", citing that street life in Moscow seems normal. In reputable major German news sites such as Der Spiegel oder Die Zeit, for example, or from some Republicans yesterday (the Washington Post reported).
Sure - we're attached to the idea that the market will self-manage all this stuff, and it's antithetical to the US' culture that a government would directly interfere with it.
In actual warfare I end someone's life and they do not wake up the next day to fight me, or I wound them to a similar outcome. In 'economic' warfare I still wake up the next day when you freeze all my assets, or stop sending me my goods, or stop servicing my departments.
It's just a fundamentally different dynamic. And I agree, it's not clear.
That said, I do think these actions were necessary, geopolitically. My tangential opinion is that there have been two implementations of Capitalism in conflict the past decades, Western and Chinese. It's what I think has spurned the capital booms in each and acted as the foundational fabric for lots of cultural and political skirmishes.
But in this environment China could not necessarily be seen in direct competition and vice versa. Here, Russia acted as a sort of European conduit for China's geopolitical aims and cultural propaganda.
These western economic actions now help to more clearly split the two implementations in order to, I speculate, give the Western system time to breathe and consolidate. Lick its wounds. Whether it meets its goals, i'm skeptical, but I do believe it's rational even if it causes Russia to re-orient rather than collapse.
It may also be beneficial as a warning to smaller nations looking to try and keep a foot in both, if Russia can't do it...
It isn't yet so clear that the weak links in finance can be so easily weaponised against a state by foreign powers. Economic warfare always seems to me to be a series of self inflicted wounds. It would be interesting (and terrifying) to see whether these attacks would work against a liberal economy.