The View from Right Field

Can Even More Sanctions Beat Russia?

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the United States is proposing to the other G7 countries that they replace the current sector-by-sector regime of sanctions against Russia with a ban on all exports to Russia except for a few exemptions.¹  The EU and Japan are pushing back, but they trade more with Russia, so this kind of a ban would cost them more than it would the United States.

The frustrating part of this proposal is that it’s just another attempt to try to beat Putin with sanctions.  Too many people in our government seem to think Russia can be defeated in Ukraine if we just impose one more set of sanctions, if we just limit a few more things we sell to Russia or cut back a little more on what we buy from Russia.  It seems so easy – and cheap. Just impose enough sanctions and poof, Russia loses.  Except it doesn’t work that way, and it certainly hasn’t stopped Vladimir Putin so far.

Biden Announces for Reelection; Trump Is Already Running. Sigh.

Joe Biden announced his reelection bid in a video released on Tuesday¹, saying “It’s time to finish the job.”  The snarky response would be: Well, it makes sense that you need more time.  Things take longer when you get old.  

Others have already announced their campaign for 2024.  Former President Trump may have been the first, announcing in November of last year, though I am not sure whether he is running for election in November, 2024 or he is still trying to get the “stolen” election of November of 2020 “corrected” so he can take over right now. 

The Air Force Wants to Get Rid of the A-10 Warthog – Again

The Wall Street Journal has a long article about the Defense Department’s effort to get rid of the A-10 Warthog in today’s paper.  The title of the article, “Why Is America Still Flying the A-10 Warthog, a Cold War Relic?,” pretty well tells the writer’s view.  But the story of the A-10 Warthog is more than just the Defense Department struggling to build the Air Force we need for the future against parochial members of Congress caring only about jobs in their states or districts. 

The Warthog has a specialized mission: providing close-in aerial support for ground troops.  And it has done a great job of it from the first Gulf War to Afghanistan.  But the Air Force says the A-10 doesn’t work on the modern battlefield.  Actually, though, the Air Force has been trying to get rid of the A-10 for years.  The Warthog is not a fancy plane.  Its top speed is 420 mph.  It is not “stealthy.”  And its main purpose is to support the Army, not a job that appeals to Air Force generals who like advanced bombers and supercharged fighter jets.

NATO: And Finland Makes 30*

Finland officially joined NATO on yesterday, becoming the 30th 31st* member of the alliance.  And yesterday, a Kremlin spokesman said that Finland’s membership was an “aggravation of the situation” and “an encroachment on Russia’s security.”¹  I suppose it is true that Finland’s membership did aggravate Vladimir Putin.  As for it encroaching Russia’s security, it might have done so if Russia’s security is defined as being able to invade any country it wants to.

Also, Russia’s Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu, said that it was Finland’s membership was an “anti-Russian policy,”¹ which is actually 100% true.  There is no way Finland would have joined NATO if Russia had not renewed its invasion of Ukraine in February of last year.  Finland didn’t join NATO so it could attack Russia; Finland joined NATO so Russia wouldn’t attack it.  So, yes, it was an anti-Russia policy.  Or at least, an anti-Vladimir Putin policy.

If Russia wants to stops its neighbors from joining NATO because they are scared of Russia, maybe Russia should stop doing things that scare them.
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¹ Henry Foy and Anastasia Stognei, “Kremlin vows retaliation after Finland signs up to ‘anti-Russian’ Nato alliance,” Financial Times, April 5, 2023.
* Oops, 31st member.  I forgot about North Macedonia joining in 2020

Jack Ma’s Back. But the CCP Won.

On November 3, 2020, I was thinking that the most significant event that day might be the Chinese government’s decision to cancel the IPO of Jack Ma’s Ant Group Co., and not the U.S. presidential election.  Mr. Ma had given a speech in late October in which he very publicly criticized Chinese government regulators.  The speech did not go over well, and Ant Group’s IPO was cancelled, reportedly by President Xi Jinping himself.  In any case, Donald Trump fairly quickly put my original thought aside.  Still, the cancellation of Ant Group’s IPO was, and still is, a big deal.

The matter came up again last week when Jack Ma went to China to talk to a school in Hangzhou, the hometown of Alibaba (another of his companies), and it was announced that Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the e-commerce empire Mr. Ma built up, was going to split up into six parts.  Articles talked about how Alibaba was getting too big to manage and how investors didn’t know how to value a company with so many unrelated businesses (not unlike the conglomerates of the 1970s and 1980s in the United States).  The articles said the smaller companies would be more nimble, and growth would be easier.  All of which may be true but is irrelevant.