This cartoon is by Stuart Carlson and was published on the Christian Science Monitor's website on March 24. It can be accessed here.
On Monday, March 24, Russia was effectively suspended from the Group of 8. In addition, the seven other member countries warned that they would impose more severe sanctions (more info on that here) if President Vladimir Putin were to expand his military presence in Ukraine. Russia, however, dismissed this move as unimportant, stating that the G8 is simply an "informal club."
To backtrack, the Group of 8 comprises eight of the most power, industrialized nations globally. In addition to the United States and Russia, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Canada are also members. Each year, the Group of 8 meets to discuss global issues such as energy, terrorism, and the global economy. According to this briefing on the Group of 8 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Russia has always been the odd-ball of the group. In addition to being the most recent addition to the Group of 8 (it was added in 1998 following some nudges from U.S. President Bill Clinton), it has always stood apart from the others based on its economic and political structures (neither of which really align with their Western counterparts). Since Russia has been slipping back in the direction of a more autocratic government and Russian leaders have raised concerns over their continued support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia's membership in the G8 has been more contested than ever.
As the Washington Post article points out, there would be considerable repercussions if Russia's energy and banking sectors were to be targeted through sanctions ("Several European nations import more than 90 percent of their energy from Russia, which has used natural gas exports to apply political pressure in the past"). Given this information and the rest of the sanction information discussed in the other Washington Post article, what concerns or opinions do you have? On a slightly different platform, what are your opinions on the Group of 8? Is it effective based on its past actions and does it have the potential to affect change this time? Should it replace Russia with a new member? Should it expand at all?
Additional NY Times article
Old but interesting Telegraph argument for expanding G8
3 comments:
My concerns are that many innocent lives are going to be lost as this conflict progresses. As one of the articles you posted states:
"The Obama administration said it is reviewing a Ukrainian request for non-lethal military assistance to help deter a Russian incursion. But a senior official, one of several who briefed reporters in a conference call about the new measures, said that 'nobody wants the outcome here to be a full-bore military conflict between Russia and Ukraine,” and repeated that the United States is not considering “the introduction of U.S. military forces.'"
No one wants this to escalate any more, but I'd like to see more diplomacy than is happening at present.
I'm not sure if replacing Russia in the G8 is the best solution. It might antagonize Russia even more. I also don't have particularly strong feelings against expanding it, but it's not the best solution form what I can tell either. We'll see if 10-20 years from now Russia is once again included, but for now, I'm hoping that other, more pressing parts of this conflict are being addressed (and they are...but aren't.) Perhaps we can have another post for people to post opinions/links in general.
Quite frankly, Russia has the upper-hand in this situation.
European leaders are losing sleep over the possibility that Russia will issue this ultimatum: Europe can say byebye to Russian oil and natural gas... and along with that, byebye to cheap prices and warm homes.
The price of these natural resources will balloon out of control and supply will be significantly short of demand. Western Europe is dependent upon Russia, and while Russia stands to suffer huge blows economically, Russia has historically always been more steadfast in suffering longer and waiting out the other countries. They'll suffer together, but one will outlast the other.
While this move to remove Russia from the G8 may be the most substantive step thus far, it's not a move that damages Russia in any substantial way. It may hurt their international reputation, but Putin doesn't care. The West can only hope that these moves coerce Russia into prioritizing long-term international cooperation over its gains in Ukraine.
The weakness of these moves is highlighted in this article:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/thanks-for-being-so-cool-about-everything,35584/?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=SocialMarketing&utm_campaign=LinkPreview:2:Default
In line with what Branyan said, the Russian government does have the advantage here. Ukraine is in a state of turmoil, and unlike other developing/2nd-3rd countries where strong liberal and revolutionary movements have led to significant changes and attention from Western governments, the Ukrainian population is split on stances towards the EU and the Russian Federation. In a referendum, the population of Crimea voted more than 90% in favor of joining Russia. There is no violation of the will of the people argument to be made in favor the Western countries, and military intervention is not a realistic option at this point.
Minor sanctions from both sides have been enacted, causing confidence drops in the Russian economy and stock market. Should Russia restrict energy exports to Europe, their economy will suffer as well, inflating costs of many other goods as energy, oil and natural gas are important complementary goods to many other products. Alternatives like American natural gas, expansions in energy imports/ production and alternative forms of energy use will be slow to compensate for the drop in supply (although they may gradually reduce European dependence on Russian energy exports). The choice to boycott the Russia from the G8 does indeed do little practical damage in comparison with a Russian energy embargo or Western economic sanctions. This situation seems to be more unpredictable than other revolutions and country upheavals, although within the next year I'm sure we'll be able to reflect on the significance of this crisis.
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