Radio War Nerd #320 — Ukraine-Russia War: Sanctions & Economic Warfare, with Ben Aris

Preventing war? I thought that was NATO?

Another great episode, cheers lads

Really enjoyed the bit about wars hurting all participants: goes against American interventionist orthodoxy, probably most embodied by the war in Afghanistan. Mark, would you consider devoting sometime to talking about McFaul? It's hard to find the eXile book now, but your clashes with McFaul were an amusing and illuminating digression. I think people now don't know just how involved he was with the cooper wire stripping of Russia.

Interesting article on Zelensky - https://visionnewspapers.com/from-peacemaker-to-warmonger-tragic-downfall-of-ukraines-volodymyr-zelensky/

Great guest with an interesting perspective on the region and relations. Here's an interesting tidbit/rumour I heard today from a Syrian: Syrians on Assad's side are being offered a $1000 a month to go and fight in Ukraine, but once there about half of them flee to Poland to get into the EU. Life in Damascus is getting quite expensive as well and might be one of the reasons for some of them to go. I can't verify all this, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Such a soothing audio rundown of central bank confiscations lol

Please add ASMR tag to each episode featuring this wonderful guest.

John pronounces Montreal closer to the "proper" anglo-canadian way than any other american podcaster

I think you're underestimating how much Russia can turn to China for alternatives re: advanced technology. The two nations are going to cooperate more on RND, not less. Russia will be in a lot of pain for the next 5-10 years, but I think it will have recalibrated and recovered to a large degree by that point. "What about sanctioning China for dealing with Russia?" you might ask. If Russia is too big to cut off from the global economy as you've quite rightly argued, China is impossible to cut off.

"First invasion since the second world war. Major one." Excuse me? I think the peoples of Afghanistan, Iraq, Korea, and Vietnam might have a few words to say about that.

Times like these remind me of that Lenin quote - "There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen"

Thank you having guests that can speak clearly and illustrate things from both sides. It takes a lot of work to distill this on your own. One side wants to overthrow Ukraine, has high hopes for Russia and says that the West has shot itself in the foot. The other side tells that Ukraine is winning, Putin is done for and the West will prevail. While it looks like Ukraine will prevail, the West and both Russia have shot their relevant foot off.

Ben Aris says Russia will slip behind irretrievably because it won’t have access to modern machine tool tech … who says they won’t be able to get it from China? Along with a swift replacement. This could all be quite good for China

Incredibly informative episode, thanks. Looks like I’ll be buying gold, currency’s and stocks are gonna be weak for years.

Putin's actions remind me a bit of the Confederates and cotton and the American Civil War. What happened? The British and other manufacturers cultivated other sources of supply. Yes, there were massive sources of disruption in the first couple years, but coming out of the Civil War, the net result is southern cotton never regained its position. Of course not all commodities are like cotton, but I think there's going to be a move to find other sources of supply (e.g. including bringing back on line sources that are currently sanctioned). In cases where product design needs to change as a result of commodity shortages, companies will search for alternatives. Russia's reliance on an export-driven growth model is also a limiting factor. Time will tell, but I still think this is a massive blunder by Putin. If he had tried to take some territory on the margins, put Russian troops in break-away "republics" I don't think you have the same kind of unified response from Europe. The push for regime change and the drive to Kyiv clearly changed the calculus for everyone. China's apparent support for the action too, has almost certainly changed the calculation as well for many pacific rim countries. Hopefully there is a resolution soon, but unfortunately, I think things are likely to escalate and get worse.

The two most likely outcomes are that 1) Russia conquers Ukraine and reinstates Yanukovych backed by indefinite Russian occupation, then moves on to Moldova and the Baltics, or 2) Russia loses and some kind of resistance movement and/or civil war begins against Putin. Whatever is left of Ukraine as an independent country in 2 months should definitely join NATO. As should Finland, Georgia and other countries.

I don't get it. Putin's main grievance was that Ukraine not gain NATO membership. The west (US of A) has made it clear for years that would not happen. So Putin already has what he said he wants. Why then the invasion?

Once again, rapturous clarity. Thanks so much

Guest request: Russell "Texas" Bentley and/or Scott Ritter. 2 guys who did call it correctly

One aspect of Russia's economy that I was surprised to find missing from this discussion is the direct cost of the war itself. Even with minimal losses it would be somewhere on the order of a hundred billion per year, wouldn't it?

I’m admittedly at the John Dolan’s level of financial illiteracy, but Russia has a huge markets still open in China, India, Africa and substantial swaths of South America. Honest question: is being cut out of Western trading sphere such a death sentence as this guest presents it to be?

“We started a war” No we didn’t lol. The thrust of this discussion is that Russia is a poor smol bean who should be allowed to do what it wants to who it wants. It’s not that all the sovereign states surrounding Russia hate it and wanted to join a defensive alliance (an anti-Russian alliance even); NATO recklessly expanded. Hell, the fact that NATO /already/ borders Russia is completely ignored because you guys bought the laughable bullshit that Putin is threatened by NATO. The threat is that Ukrainians get access to EU development funds and Putin is willing to murder a bunch of Ukrainians to stop that. This is not a complicated issue lol

One specific inaccuracy: Russians have NOT been locked out of their USD/EUR currency accounts, although a ban on buying USD/EUR currency was put in place just today by the Russian government. Russian can still withdraw cash up to 10,000 USD from existing USD/EUR accounts, in USD, and above that sum must be withdrawn in rubles. I am in Russia, just checked with my bank today that this is the case, money can be ordered with a 1-week delay. A bank run is likely, and already happening to some extent, but that's a different issue. A major part of the impact of the sanctions on regular Russians so far have to do with measures the Russian government itself imposed internally as a result, which have had both stabilizing and destabilizing effects.

Ben Aris' presentation is full of factual inaccuracies and mis-analysis. In a broad sense, it massively overstates the degree of EU agency in this whole mess. I suppose it's useful as an illustration of the perspective of a type of EU bureaucrat on what's happening, but this perspective is quite narrow and clouded by partisan bias, i.e. "first major invasion since WW2" etc.There are also a number of inconsistencies in his own interpretation, where on one hand he says "Russia has been planning this for years", and on the other hand suggest repeatedly they have been caught with their pants down, in particular with regard to the RCB asset freeze. I don't understand why you guys don't even attempt to point out this inconsistency and examine possible explanations.

I love this "lets just concede that we will never let Ukraine into NATO and we can stop this" line. As if that would somehow close Pandora's box. Laughable. EDIT It's quite clear that Ben, Mark and John don't understand agricultural production if they think not having sanctions would've led to a different outcome for the global wheat(and grains in general) supply. The moment Putin put boots on the ground in Ukraine, he interrupted the 2022 crop. Sanctions mean little when there isn't any wheat to sell

Why on earth should NATO (the US) go to war with Russia over Ukraine?

Would love an episode on 1973 (for starters the Yom Kippur war and especially the oil embargo that followed). Many other huge things that year (especially for the financial system). Seems like a good prequel to the 1979 episode.

Guys, look up Gonzalo Lira on Youtube. Chilean, grew up during terror of Pinochet. Now stuck in Kharkov, by choice, even though thugs went looking for him at his apartment, to disappear him perhaps as so many others apparently have been, after Russia media showed a small footage of one of his Telegram feeds speaking about his views on both Ukraine/Zelensky and Russia/Putin. Interesting they still have internet service, heat, electricity, hot coffee even. This with the cauldron pincer move by Russia almost complete. Had it been the US invading... And Zerohedge says now Ukranian women are falling prey to thugs in NATOSTAN Poland pushing them into prostitution? At least with Russia it won't look like Damascus, nor Libya, afterwards. A meme I read a few days ago has stayed with me. It said, "A people that voluntarily and silently cowered in lockdowns for 2 years, now ask Ukrainians to die fighting against Russia, while they watch from far away."

https://twitter.com/drspamcat/status/1497368421222297601

Scary and superb episode

Does anyone have the link to the wall street journal article they referenced in the beginning?

Truly the best podcast

Aww what your in Montreal now? I was there for work 2 days ago, damn lol