...und beschränken sich keineswegs ausschließlich auf militärische Mittel.
Banning the companies that support American Congressmen
Yesterday the idea was floated to ban any US company which financed a US congress rep that votes for sanctions against Russia, for 5 years from the Russian market.
Oh. This could be bad.
Most US companies donate to some, at least the ones in the state, of both parties.
Apple? Coca Cola? Boeing? McDonalds? VISA? Walmart? General Motors? Ford? Procter&Gamble?
Apple alone does 3 billion sales in Russia, 5 years would be be 15 billion sales lost.
No problem for Russia. They just get everything from China. At a fraction of the cost.
A US rep is not worth 15 billion, so most likely, if such counter sanctions are officially announced, a US rep would quit to save the company from losing business.
That could mean a good chunk of congress reps would quit, and new elections would start and make the US even a worse political mess.
This could also be applied to media and think tanks. This would also throw a spanner in the US political system of “pay and play”.
The complete suspension of copyright/IP protection of US companies
Over the years other ideas were floated. One of the harshest is the complete suspension of copyright/IP protection of US companies: software, music, movies, pharma, the name itself…
That would mean Russia could effectively open source most software, as governments usually get source code of major softwares from the vendors, like Microsoft, Oracle, Apple, Android to check for security holes.
Big Pharma would also be hit, Russki Viagra anyone? Cialis? Xantax?
And copycats would bloom into a worldwide trade. All at a fraction of the cost. Instead of $10 for a single Viagra pill, it will now be 50 pills for a $1. And Big Pharma won’t be able to do a single thing about it.
Think what would happen if China joins Russia in doing this?
YIKES!
A third could be law warfare.
A Russian court could set a price of war reparations on US “adventures” like Vietnam, Iraq, Korea, use of nukes on Japan and the many others, at beyond 100 trillion, so that even the staunchest US allies would be tempted to get a piece of the action of this credit collection.
Overflights of US airlines and Boeing jets could also be banned, so that airlines would have to end leases of Boeing long distance jets.
Others are to confiscate/freeze equity in Russian companies owned by investors from sanctioning countries.
In general, Russia has endured lots of sanctions over many years, but plans are in place to go head on.
A lot of time was devoted to make them as painful as possible. There is speculation in the media, but the actual plans are kept under lock, no big announcements or media leaks.
But they ARE being seriously considered.
Sanctions seem a clever tool for the big guys, but if somebody hits back and you have a low pain threshold, it starts hurting. The fact is that they are outside the rules, so you might also get hit back under the belt. And chess masters plan many moves ahead, exactly where a hit under the belt gets the best result.
https://metallicman.com/russian-commentary-on-the-collapsing-united-states-5/