On June 15 the U.S. Senate, by a vote of 98-2 enacted what can only be called draconian new sanctions on Russia. This legislation also would tie the president’s hand if he tried to reduce or cut back these and existing sanctions. This legislation reflects the mounting anger over the extent of Russian intervention in the 2016 presidential elections and attacks on U.S. cyber networks. Although it is has not yet been signed into law; this draft legislation has already aroused Administration opposition because the White House maintains that it would undermine the President and Secretary of State Tillerson’s efforts to restore a dialogue with Russia. However, given the strength of the general anger over Moscow’s efforts to undermine and corrupt the integrity of the American political system and the size of the Senate majority for this bill, it is also entirely possible that Congress would override a presidential veto.
But beyond the U.S. this draft legislation also has serious implications as it would also mandate the imposition of sanctions on firms any firm that invests money to help build Russian energy projects. This puts the projected Russo-German Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline at risk of U.S. sanctions. Predictably German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel and Austrian Chancellor Christian Kern lambasted the legislation as an attempt to dictate U.S. preferences to Europe and as an example of illegal extra-territorial sanctions. They also attributed this decision to the U.S. desire to supplant Russian energy sales by threats of sanctions and replace that energy with projected U.S. exports. However, these objections demonstrate why such sanctions are desirable, even necessary.
As we have seen, the recent revelations of Russian interference in Western elections demonstrates the execution of a sophisticated, long-term strategy in which Moscow has heavily invested to wage cyber and political warfare, not to mention , subversion, espionage, and criminal activities against the French, Dutch, German, and American governments. In official Russian documents and statements the Russian government has not bothered to hide its belief that it is at war, albeit a non-kinetic war, with the West. Yet it is clearly the case that too many Western elites, like Gabriel and Kern, refuse to grasp that Moscow is essentially conducting the functional equivalent (according to its own defense doctrines) of a war against the West. They have failed to grasp the truth of Trotsky’s century-old – but still no less relevant dictum that “you may not be interested in war but war is interested in you.”
Given Moscow’s continuing aggression in Ukraine, mounting military and nuclear threats against Europe, the attacks on Western information networks, elections, and political institutions, plus the long-term use of organized crime syndicates, energy corporations, and other business groups to fund such subversion, and Russia’s long-standing resort to economic warfare across Europe, new sanctions are hardly an unjustified response to what is happening.
Moreover, in fact Gabriel and Kern, for all their indignation, are hardly in apposition to complain. Nord Stream 2, the projected second gas pipeline from Russia through the Baltic Sea to Germany that would then redirect gas flows to Eastern Europe, is a project of very dubious economic justification. It appears to be another political gas pipeline intended to isolate Ukraine while reconfirming Eastern European states’ dependence upon Russian gas and extending Russo-German business ties – including extensive Gazprom investment in Germany’s gas distribution network –and political leverage up[on Germany. As Stephen Szabo has already demonstrated, those ties exercise a corrupting influence upon German policy. Gabriel, in his previous role as Vice Chancellor directly told President Putin that, the pipeline plans must bypass the European Commission and EU’s authority and remain strictly a joint Russo-German project under the authority of both governments. In other words, he was perfectly prepared to bypass not just the EU but also all of Germany’s allies and fellow EU members. Gabriel also explicitly told Putin that we, i.e. Germany and Russia, must settle Ukraine’s role as a transit nation after 2019 when the current agreement with Russia to be a transit state for Russian gas runs out. In other words, he was also prepared to sell out Ukraine as well to advance German business interest in collaborating with Russia. So he is hardly in apposition to speak on behalf of Europe and pan-European interests. Austria too, as Kern undoubtedly knows, has played a material and not particularly edifying role in acting as a front man for Russian energy and banking interests throughout Eastern and Central Europe in their efforts to secure lasting political and economic leverage over those states.
The objection to these sanctions that they will inhibit dialogue therefore falls before the fact that Russia wants to be able to conduct dialogue with Western governments while simultaneously maintaining a freehand to carry on its ongoing war against the West. And the so called European interests that are harmed by sanctions are mainly those of a clique of self-interested businessmen and banks who have done much to smooth the way for Russia in its continuing war against the West. Indeed, allowing this warfare to continue with impunity negates the idea or value of a genuine strategic dialogue since it tells Russia it has a free hand to keep pushing and will not suffer undue costs for doing so. Such inaction merely confirms Moscow’s belief in European and Western decadence and weakness. Given the present circumstance, these sanctions are indeed, highly justified and should become law.
