Sanctions on Russia: Unusual unity and speed

We live in a globalized world, a planet interconnected by a complex chain of suppliers, banks, sports and other deeply intertwined fields. Until it ceases to be.

Exhibit A: Russia was abruptly cut off from much of the world this week. His banking connections were severely curtailed. It is being marginalized from sports competitions. There are restrictions for your planes in Europe. His vodka could stop being sold in several states in the United States. Even Switzerland, synonymous with neutrality, is turning its back on Vladimir Putin.

In just three days, Russia has become a pariah in the international community for its invasion of Ukraine and its leader has fewer and fewer friends abroad. What’s more, the moves against Moscow come in shifting and far-reaching forms, something remarkable in the highly interconnected world in which we live.

“Something is happening here. It’s a torrent that no one would have predicted three or four days ago,” said Andrew Latham, professor of international relations at Macalester College and an expert on geopolitics. “It is something really strange what we are seeing.”

In the last three days there has been a barrage of measures from governments, alliances, organizations and individuals. Taken together, they exceed the most recent international sanctions, including those imposed on Iran and North Korea.

European nations, displaying remarkable unity, closed their airspace to Russian planes. The international financial system SWIFT, which allows transactions in dollars from more than 11,000 banks and other institutions around the world, restricted the access of major Russian banks over the weekend, which could represent a severe blow to Russian finance.

On Monday, Russia was banned from all international soccer tournaments, including the World Cup qualifiers at the end of the year. The measure was ordered after the International Olympic Committee urged sports organizations to exclude Russian athletes and officials from any international event.

Germany, in an extraordinary move, dropped a policy it has followed since World War II and said it would help send arms to Ukraine. His foreign minister, Olaf Scholz, spoke of a “new reality” in the world.

Putin, according to White House press secretary Jen Psaki, “is one of the greatest NATO unifiers in modern history.”

“What we have seen in the last few days,” he added, “is a commitment to maintain unity and to send a clear message to President Putin that this action — these actions, this rhetoric — is unacceptable and that the world is erecting a wall against it.

It all happened so fast that they dwarf the sanctions after the September 11, 2001 attacks, which makes them even more extraordinary.

A key element: This answer is given against the background of social networks, which instantly offer information about what is happening in Ukraine and in the rest of the world. This is something that can serve as a force multiplier from afar, as when the governor of the US state of Maine decides to take action to prevent the sale of Russian vodka.

“A generation ago this would have been through the foreign ministries and the news would have been on the 6pm news, not with the speed and interconnectedness that it is now,” Professor Latham said.

Not everyone is isolating Russia. China is not entirely supportive of the rest of the world regarding the invasion of Ukraine, which should surprise no one. But his long-standing policy that state sovereignty must be respected above all else — a policy designed to prevent action against his attitudes toward Taiwan, Hong Kong and the South China Sea — could see him climb the train. In any case, their reluctance to participate in sanctions may be irrelevant to the extent of what everyone else is doing.

The world reaction was withering, without a doubt. But it remains to be seen whether it will hold up in the long term. In the past, this type of unanimous condemnation was diluted over time.

In any case, the interconnectedness that allows nations to take action so quickly appears as a novelty and is offered as a model to respond to the occupation of territories by another nation in the 21st century.

“I didn’t think the world could come together in this way in a globalized system, that everybody act in unison,” said William Muck, a political science professor at North Central College in Illinois and an expert on international security. “If we ask ourselves, ‘Do sanctions work in a globalized world?’ I don’t think there is a better case to find out.”