Spiegel: The Wake-Up Call: Europe Toughens Stance against Putin

[geek tragedy]

It's part of the occasionally cynical business of political experts to refer to a tragedy of this magnitude, and to the endlessly repeated TV images of the suffering of innocent people, as a "game changer." It's the moment that divides the course of a crisis into "before" and "after" -- a time when the public and politicians hold their breaths and take a new look at the situation. But one of the unique features of the European Union is that in the "after" period, it often continues for a time to behave the way it did in the "before" period. Supporting evidence was provided by an exchange from last Tuesday, almost a week after Malaysian Airlines flight MH 17 was shot down:

...

But by the end of the week, Europe had finally arrived in the "after" phase. The "game changer" had had its effect. It is now all but certain that flight MH 17 was shot down by a surface-to-air missile system from Russian inventories, a system that hardly would have reached Ukraine without Putin's approval. The 28 EU ambassadors agreed in principle on initial tough economic sanctions against Russia, which they plan to wrap up on Tuesday. In a letter to European leaders, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy wrote: ""I would like to ask you that you instruct your ambassador to complete an agreement by Tuesday." Unless the EU abandons its resolve once again, "we can now pull the plug on Russia and Putin in a very controlled manner," say officials in Berlin.

..

Eckhard Cordes, the chairman of the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations, an organization representing German business interests in Russia, agrees. "In the current situation, too much external pressure can achieve the opposite of what is intended. It does no one any good if we completely force Putin into a corner." Indeed, such a prospect alarms quite a few people in the Russian economy. Oligarchs may be concerned about their billions and their villas in Cyprus, on the Côte d'Azur and in London. But they also know that without machinery and know-how from the West, the Russian economy is doomed.

Of the very few people who have dared to say this openly, one is former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin, a liberal. According to his calculations, rearmament, military intervention in eastern Ukraine and sanctions could cost Russia up to 20 percent of its economic strength within a few years. Former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov was even blunter: "If sanctions were imposed against the entire Russian financial sector, our economy would collapse in six weeks."

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/europe-prepares-tough-sanctions-against-russia-a-983224.html

[Igel]

1. Silly rhetoric.

It's like getting a corrupt cop to be honest. He does it reluctantly, only when he has no other choice, and only for as long as he thinks he has to.

The EU sanctions are the same way and the "after" will last only as long as politicians are afraid that if they don't act tough(er) that bad things will happen to them. When the public looks away they'll go right back to doing what suits them and gets them a "legacy"--preferably years in power.

There's very little new or different about the information available after MH17 as before. All the "evidence" that outrages them about Russian supplying munitions, arms, fighters; engaging in various kind of economic sabotage and intimidation--all of this was going on before. But their ox was gored, and suddenly they wrapped the Ukrainian mess that they stepped over before in the language of rights and fair play, of treaty violations, etc. As long as people were dying all they wanted was for it to stop--not be resolved, but stop. Resolution may take weeks. If it's just being stopped, that can happen quickly and in a conference room.

Some conflicts can be resolved through talking.

Some can't.

The Donbas conflict can't. The russists will need to be defeated. Then their mirror-image counterparts, the Right Sector, will need to be dealt with.

[geek tragedy]

2. the question is how much of Russia's economic and diplomatic power

is Putin willing to flush down the toilet in order to prevent his gangsters in East Ukraine from getting sent scurrying back to Mother Russia.

Hundreds of dead EU citizens, and Putin acting the part of remorseless ghoul, certainly crystallized the need for something to be done to wrap this up.