A complete suspension of all sanctions in the near future is highly unlikely but some easing is possible. Different issues are involved in the various groups of sanctions, and some are more amenable to relaxation than others.
The first round of EU and US measures - visa bans and asset freezes for particular individuals and, by extension, businesses in which they hold controlling stakes - is tied to Crimea, and so these measures are unlikely to be removed.
The case of the Crimea sanctions is paradoxical. On the one hand, Russia’s annexation of Crimea is a fait accompli and it is hard to see it being reversed.… Seguir leyendo »
La confrontation autour de l’Ukraine et de la Crimée ne correspond pas à une logique de guerre froide qui opposerait l’Occident à la Russie. Elle témoigne de la dégénérescence de la rivalité entre les zones régionales de l’Union européenne et de l’Eurasie, au point de contact de la Russie, en une guerre économique et paramilitaire. Sa violence est proportionnelle au fort degré d’interdépendance de ces deux zones.
L’élargissement de l’UE repose sur les valeurs du libre-échange pour garantir la sécurité collective et promouvoir un projet civilisationnel fondé sur la paix démocratique et libérale. Mais l’élargissement simultané de l’OTAN, sans intégrer la Russie, a provoqué un retournement dans l’UE où la politique sécuritaire est devenue la garantie du développement socio-économique.… Seguir leyendo »
La levée des sanctions infligées à la Russie en réponse à son intervention en Ukraine a acquis le dangereux statut de sujet frivole – un thème sur lequel un candidat à la présidentielle peut dire tout ce qui lui passe par la tête, dans le seul but d’accrocher la une des journaux. Or la sécurité des Français est en jeu, même s’ils n’en sont pas convaincus. Croire que tous nos problèmes futurs seront au Moyen-Orient parce que nos problèmes actuels s’y trouvent, c’est céder à la tentation de chercher l’avenir dans le rétroviseur plutôt que dans le pare-brise.
Imaginons un monde, que l’élection de Donald Trump rend vraisemblable, où les Occidentaux feraient une croix sur les évènements survenus en Géorgie et en Ukraine depuis 2008 ; ils concèderaient à Vladimir Poutine une « zone d’influence » qui couvrirait l’ex-URSS, et supprimeraient les sanctions pour s’adonner à de juteuses affaires.… Seguir leyendo »
Sanctions against the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are exactly the wrong answer at exactly the wrong time.
The European Union and the United States have recently issued sanctions against a number of officials in my country’s government. In their view, the EU and United States are punishing the government for outbreaks of domestic violence in the DRC’s capital of Kinshasa earlier this year. But if the EU and the U.S. really want to help the DRC as they claim to, and not hurt it as they appear to, they will offer my country a carrot, instead of continuing to bash it with sticks.… Seguir leyendo »
If you have a sense of deja vu reading headlines about new UN sanctions on North Korea as punishment for a nuclear test, that's because you literally have seen these headlines before -- as recently as spring.
In March, after Pyongyang's fourth nuclear test, the UN Security Council promised that Resolution 2270 would be the game-changer, inflicting crippling economic pain that would force Kim Jong Un to change his calculus. Those spring sanctions were billed as "the toughest yet."
Spring, alas, turns into summer, and then fall.
Proponents of sanctions, or "boa constrictors" as I affectionately call them, were sounding less triumphant by September, when Kim Jong Un flouted the UNSC by carrying out a fifth nuclear test -- the largest to date.… Seguir leyendo »
Moscow’s timing is remarkable. Ahead of a European Council discussion on Thursday that was widely expected to show further indications of a fraying EU consensus on sanctions, Russia’s bombardment of Aleppo has seen it labelled as a pariah state amid accusations that it has committed war crimes.
In this context, EU member states will be unable to contemplate lifting sectoral sanctions against Russia over Ukraine that are in place until the end of January next year.
Russia’s recent behaviour in Syria has already led some EU governments to consider personal sanctions against members of the Russian government responsible for the bombings.… Seguir leyendo »
On 20–21 October, EU leaders will discuss their relationship with Russia and whether to retain, adapt or drop the sanctions regime introduced in 2014 to express discontent with Russia’s actions and to constrain its behaviour. While the debate in Western capitals has focused on the personal and sectoral sanctions to influence Moscow’s policies, little attention has been paid to sanctions erosion.
Businesses and local authorities in Donbas and Crimea have been exploiting loopholes in the sanctions regime, but these transgressions have not so far met with any response from Western governments. Their silence is sustaining the finances of the unrecognized authorities in occupied territory in Donbas and Russian-annexed Crimea.… Seguir leyendo »
Le 9 septembre, jour du 68e anniversaire de sa fondation, la République populaire démocratique de Corée a une nouvelle fois défié la communauté internationale en procédant à un essai nucléaire, le plus puissant jamais réalisé. Ce cinquième essai, qui s’inscrit dans une stratégie visant à doter le régime d’un arsenal nucléaire et balistique, marque un tournant.
Depuis l’arrivée au pouvoir de Kim Jong-un, Pyongyang a considérablement accéléré la fréquence de ses essais tant nucléaires que balistiques. Alors qu’entre 1994 et 2011, son père avait réalisé deux essais nucléaires et trois essais balistiques intercontinentaux, Kim Jong-un en a déjà réalisé trois de chaque, dont deux essais nucléaires en 2016.… Seguir leyendo »
Following a visit to China, South Korea and Japan three years ago, I argued it was long past time for the United States to get serious about the North Korea threat and China's continued support for the Kim Jong Un regime.
Yet here we are in 2016, on the heels of a missile launch and North Korea's fourth nuclear test -- a test that may well represent a significant technological advancement of North Korea's nuclear program -- and there is no sense of urgency or substantive change in U.S. policy.
This week the U.S. Senate will join the U.S. House of Representatives in passing legislation that sends a strong bipartisan message: North Korea is a serious threat to U.S.… Seguir leyendo »
China’s recent threat to impose sanctions on U.S. defense companies that sell arms to Taiwan should come as no surprise to American officials or corporate executives: Washington has been issuing sanctions of these sorts for years. It was only a matter of time before U.S. competitors started copying its tactics.
Regardless of whether China follows through on its threat, Washington needs to be ready for a new normal in which the United States must defend against sanctions as well as impose them.
China is taking a page from the sanctions playbook Washington developed against Iran. Between 2010 and 2015, the United States effectively gave companies a choice: If they did prohibited business with Iran, like buying oil, they would get cut off from doing any business in the United States.… Seguir leyendo »
Hoy, el Consejo de Seguridad de las Naciones Unidas tiene más regímenes de sanciones en marcha que en cualquier otro momento de su historia. Durante los años 1990, el máximo era ocho; en los años 2000, el pico subió a 12; ahora está en 16. Y estos totales no incluyen las sanciones impuestas por la Unión Europea y Estados Unidos. A juzgar por este incremento, se podría concluir que las sanciones han demostrado ser una herramienta extraordinariamente efectiva a la hora de promover la paz y la seguridad internacional. Desafortunadamente, esto dista mucho de ser la realidad.
Por cierto, estudios académicos sugieren que las sanciones han tenido un éxito limitado.… Seguir leyendo »
Ukraine and Russia are still at war. Since the Minsk II peace agreement came into effect on Feb. 15, nearly 400 Ukrainian soldiers and more than 200 civilians have been killed. Many more may die yet. As European Union leaders gather for a summit meeting this week, with the issue of whether to renew sanctions against Russia far from resolved, they cannot afford to ignore the continued violations of the cease-fire.
The Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin, got the better end of the deal in Minsk II. He forced Ukraine to accept as legitimate the authorities he installed in the territories invaded by Russia.… Seguir leyendo »
L’humanité n’attend pas simplement un accord contraignant mais qu’également, les Etats soient eux-mêmes contraints de répercuter leurs obligations sur les principaux émetteurs de gaz à effet de serre, à savoir les entreprises privées. Or, 90 % d’entre elles sont responsables de 60 % de ces émissions. Ainsi, les engagements qui seront consignés dans le traité n’auront de portée que s’ils sont traduits dans la loi, de sorte que les manquements des acteurs privés puissent devenir justiciables.
Le scandale Volkswagen est riche d’enseignements, pour le pire et le meilleur. Pour le meilleur, car il révèle que les systèmes les plus cyniques peuvent être confondus par une société civile «sentinelle».… Seguir leyendo »
Las sanciones económicas impuestas a Rusia por Occidente en marzo de 2014 sin duda han resultado dolorosas. Pero hasta el momento no han logrado el objetivo de debilitar la posición del presidente ruso, Vladimir Putin. De hecho, pueden tener el efecto contrario y dejar a Rusia -y a su presidente- más fuerte que antes.
Se calcula que los países de la Unión Europea han perdido unos 100.000 millones de dólares en comercio con Rusia, lo cual afecta tanto a los productores de leche bávaros como a los exportadores industriales del este de Alemania. El PIB ruso, que creció modestamente en 2014, se contrajo un 4,6% en términos anuales en el segundo trimestre de este año.… Seguir leyendo »
La actitud occidental para con Rusia se basa en la suposición de que una presión continua sobre ese país obligará al régimen del Presidente Vladimir Putin a hacer concesiones o incluso provocará su desplome. Nada podría estar más alejado de la verdad.
La suposición subyacente a la eficacia de las sanciones occidentales es la de que el profundo deterioro económico resultante de ellas volverá al público ruso, en particular la minoría selecta política y financiera, contra el Kremlin. Putin no podrá soportar la disensión en aumento de las zonas urbanas acomodadas y la incipiente clase media.
Entretanto, según esa concepción, la presión militar –en forma de un posible ayuda letal a Ucrania– inmovilizará igualmente a los rusos de a pie contra Putin.… Seguir leyendo »
The American government tends to see sanctions against Russia as a low-cost policy that will eventually force Vladimir Putin to change course in Ukraine.
But this conventional wisdom obscures significant costs. Just as using drones to target suspected terrorists in Pakistan may have created more converts to Islamic militancy than it has eliminated, sanctions advocates haven’t reckoned with the unintended consequences of the policy — consequences that could prove far more damaging to American interests than the Kremlin’s aggression in Ukraine.
First, by employing commercial and financial sanctions on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, the United States — the architect and largest beneficiary of the globalized system of trade and finance — is exploiting post-Soviet Russia’s integration into that system.… Seguir leyendo »
The United States is on a dangerous trajectory in its relations with Russia, a nuclear superpower that believes itself to be under direct threat. Several former U.S. officials and top think-tank experts released a report calling on the West to provide military support to Ukraine. (Two of them, our colleagues at the Brookings Institution, expanded on the report a week ago on this page [“Ukraine needs the West’s help now”].) The logic of sending weapons to Ukraine seems straightforward and is the same as the logic for economic sanctions: to change Vladimir Putin’s “calculus.” Increasing the Ukrainian army’s fighting capacity, the thinking goes, would allow it to kill more rebels and Russian soldiers, generating a backlash in Russia and ultimately forcing the Russian president to the negotiating table.… Seguir leyendo »
Less than a month after French President François Hollande mused that sanctions on Russia should be lifted (apparently reflecting the prevailing sentiment in much of the European Union), Russia has launched a new offensive through its proxies in Ukraine. Facing a full-blown crisis, with the Russian economy estimated to be contracting by at least 5% this year, Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to be unconcerned about further economic pressure and diplomatic isolation. Is he irrational? As the only one making important decisions in Russia today, does Putin not care about the sanctions? He is not and he does. His is a multiphased, well-calibrated endgame to destabilize Ukraine and to weaken the sanctions at the same time.… Seguir leyendo »
Confusion, confusion, confusion! This is how Russian President Vladimir Putin, increasingly isolated from Western conversations, keeps the world on its toes. Because only he has any answers.
The conflict in eastern Ukraine is ever more fierce. Russian-supported rebels in the occupied cities of Donetsk and Luhansk now use sophisticated weapons to capture more land and ports. Yet Putin continues to insist that Moscow has nothing to do with it, despite abundant proof from intelligence reports and satellite imagery. He has no influence, Putin declares, over the rebel bands battling for independence from a Kiev government that the CIA installed.
As Western countries respond to the resumption of all-out war in Ukraine, they must ensure that the driving force behind the hostilities — Moscow — pays a greater cost for the rising civilian death toll. European Union foreign ministers are set to meet Thursday to discuss deepening sanctions against Russia. However, if the United States and its allies are serious about supporting Ukraine's freedom to determine its own future, they must agree on a more comprehensive approach, including the provision of effective military aid to the Ukrainian military and the training to use it.
If there were any illusions about who is fueling the violence that's laying waste to the regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine's Donbas coal basin, there should be none now.… Seguir leyendo »
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