To make clear to President Vladimir Putin the high price he would have to pay if Russia decides to invade Ukraine, the government of Joe Biden and its allied countries are putting together a package of financial, technological and military sanctions that would come into effect as soon as Russian troops set foot on the other side of the border.
For the first time, several US officials gave details of these plans, on the eve of a round of negotiations that will try to defuse the current crisis with Moscow, perhaps the most serious that Europe has experienced since end of the Cold War.
Among other measures, the United States and its allies are considering excluding the largest Russian financial institutions from global transactions, imposing an embargo on technology American-made or designed weapons needed for the defense and consumer industries, and to send arms to the insurgents in Ukraine, who would, if necessary, wage a kind of guerrilla war against the Russian occupation forces.
A warning telegram is not usually sent for plays like these. But with the negotiations at hand and with the fate of European borders and NATO forces at stake, President Biden’s advisers want to convey to Putin the exact dimension of what face, at home and abroad, if he does not change his attitude in the coming weeks.
The talks that start Monday will be led by Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, a seasoned diplomat who negotiated the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015. It is believed that Russian delegates will raise their claims for “security guarantees”, such as the prohibition to install in Europe any missile capable of reaching Russian territory and to deploy weapons or troops in the former Soviet states that joined NATO after the fall of the Berlin Wall, according to what was published the New York Times.
Biden prepares the bill that Putin will have to pay if he invades Ukraine
Putin also demands an end to NATO expansion, including a commitment that Ukraine will never join the Atlantic nuclear alliance. Although the Biden administration claims to be willing to discuss all of Russia’s security concerns—and has a long list of its own concerns about it—the truth is that Putin is practically calling for the dismantling of the defense architecture that was built Europe after the collapse of the USSR.
Meeting in Brussels
On Wednesday, the members of NATO will meet with Russia in Brussels. The next day, Ukrainian officials will also sit at the table in Vienna for the first time, for talks within the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. But it is such a large group — 57 members — that no one expects the negotiations to be serious.
The American diplomats fear that after a week in a rush the Russians will say that they are not satisfied and use the failure of the talks to justify a military action. “I would not be surprised if Russia instigates a provocation or an incident, and then tries to use it as an excuse for a military intervention, in the hope that by the time the world realizes the ruse it will already be too late,” Secretary of American State, Antony Blinken.
“So this time we want to be clear, so that Russia knows what it will have to face if it continues down this path, including some economic measures never applied and that have immense consequences,” Blinken shot.
That warning, however, is a tacit admission that the Obama administration’s response in 2014, when Putin invaded parts of Ukraine, was weak and hesitant. Now US officials are trying to learn from their past mistakes.
The sanctions of Obama began with actions against some small Russian banks and people directly involved in the invasion. Virtually all of those sanctions—including additional measures imposed after Russia’s interference in the 2016 US election and the 2020 cyberattack on software used by the federal government and US companies—remain in place. But they don’t appear to have deterred Putin, who began amassing forces near the Ukrainian border just as Biden announced his response to the cyberattacks.
Putin seems determined to invade Ukraine
Instead of starting with moves against small banks and military commanders on the ground, officials say new sanctions will be aimed at blocking access by large financial institutions to the global financial transfers they depend on, “a fast-acting, high-impact response that we didn’t apply in 2014,” says a White House source.
The technological sanctions would target some of Putin’s favored industries, particularly aerospace and weapons, which are the biggest generators of revenue for the Russian government The main target would be Russian-made fighter jets, anti-aircraft systems, anti-satellite systems, space systems, and emerging technologies that Russia hopes to make a profit on, such as artificial intelligence and co quantum mputation.
They are also considering other options that go far beyond simply banning the sale of computer chips. A step further, according to the same officials, would be for the United States Department of Commerce to issue a ruling that prohibits the export to Russia of any consumer goods — from cell phones and computers laptops to refrigerators and washing machines—containing American-made or designed electronic technology. And that would apply not only to American manufacturers, but also to European, South Korean and other foreigners using American chips or software.
Unlike China, Russia does not manufacture many of these products, and the effects on Russian consumers would be severe.
While the Departments of Commerce and the Treasury prepare these sanctions to maximize the deterrent power of the United States, the Pentagon has its own plans, with reminiscent of the proxy wars of the 1960s and 1970s.
To make clear the danger that Russia would face, the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley , spoke with his Russian counterpart two weeks ago and sent him a harsh message: Indeed, Russia can invade Ukraine and run over the Ukrainian army. But that lightning victory, Milley would have told General Gerasimov, would be followed by a bloody insurgency similar to the one that forced the Soviet Union to withdraw from Afghanistan more than three decades ago.
After visiting Ukraine last month, Democratic lawmaker and former Marine Corps officer Seth Moulton opined that the United States “has to make Russia pay with pain for the slightest incursion into Ukrainian territory”.
“We have little time to take decisive action to deter Putin from a true invasion,” Moulton said. “I am afraid that so far our deterrent tactics seem more aimed at responding to an invasion than preventing it.”
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