Cote Blog 5

Brian Cote

Professor Shirk

POLS 170

4 May 2022

Blog 5

Looking back at the previous blog posts written over the semester, the one that notably aged poorly was Blog 1. It was mentioned in Blog 1 that Ukrainian allies should take the approach of threatening economic instability through sanctions (consistent with the liberal ideology) as a way of deterring the Russian Federation from invading Ukrainian territories, as simply the threat of an imminent economic collapse would scare a nation out of a conflict. I believed that this route was so effective and desirable that it would likely prevent conflict and therefore ensure no shots were ever fired. This was written mere days before Russia sent troops into Ukraine, thus making my argument appear unreliable and too optimistic. While I still believe that the economic sanctions placed on the Russian economy are still draining supporter’s faith in the Russian war effort, I admit I did not consider that Russia could still have its war while dealing with the economic sanctions in other faucets. Russia has threatened to cut off various NATO countries from its exports of natural gas causing a surge of panic from those who indirectly support Ukraine’s war effort; a move I was unaware was going to cause such chaos. Now the United States is being looked at to alleviate this potential natural gas shortage and has been pressured by their allies to fix the problems caused by supporting Ukraine in its war. Given these new facts, I believe that the liberal approach of economic threats of sanctions as a way of ensuring peace has been utterly ineffective in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. My previous blog praised this method of action because I believed it would help the most people, however currently there is a full scale war raging and consumers all across the world are being hurt, which is especially unfair to the socioeconomically poor in Europe because soon gas prices will be exponentially higher meaning people will not be able to afford to heat their homes or light their stoves. Thus, the war turns global and hurts everyone as a result, not even taking into account the massive losses of life on either side of the conflict itself. It would be in everyone's interests to minimize the negative effects of war, however with the longer the Russian-Ukrainian conflict drags on, it seems more and more people across the world are being negatively affected.


https://www.bbc.com/news/58888451


Comments

  1. Remi AdefioyeMay 8, 2022 at 8:40 PM

    I agree that this war is a sad situation that is negatively affecting everyone around the world. I am not sure how long the war will last but hopefully countries can come up with an effective solution to stop Russia because as you mentioned the sanctions haven't really helped.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Christine AjaoMay 9, 2022 at 6:55 PM

    I find this blog post very interesting with how you brought up the sanctions-paradox. Personally, I believe that calling sanctions on Russia did not benefit the way that is was supposed to and deter them from starting a war. It's unfortunate with how many people are being affected and all of those who will suffer from this. I do believe that maybe if sanctions were not placed on Russia as early as they were, there could have been a slight difference with how everything is be handled right now.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Billera Blog 5

Simone Billera May 4th, 2022 Blog Post #5 During our class discussion on the Todorov reading, one of the groups asked a thought-provoking question. Within the question, they proposed the potential similarities between the colonization of the Americas in 1492 to our world’s current pursuit of space exploration. After our class discussion, I concluded that the foundation of these two events are similar in nature, to an extent. Additionally, I deduced that such similarities highlight the hypocrisy that continues to seep through our world today, especially in the United States.  Space exploration is a well-respected sector of society. It can be said that those who work in the field are generally intelligent people from educated backgrounds. Each of these individuals has personal reasoning behind their contributions to space exploration, whether it be an earnest urge to benefit the whole of society or the simple but compelling desire for money and power. Whatever the reasoning might...
Read more

Cohen ICC Blog

 To me the most persuasive argument came from the author Daniel Abe; wherein he makes the claim that the cases that the ICC are continually pursuing are both not high value enough, as well as much too costly. Given the underwhelming nature of many of the recent cases the ICC has been taking, the amount of money being poured into financing and providing resources for these cases is far from worth it. As of late, the ICC has been trying to target leaders within many African countries with arguably moderate success at best. If the ICC can't handle going after these much smaller, much weaker countries in comparison to any more powerful or rich countries, how effectual of a body actually is it?
Read more

Remi Blog Post 5

  Remi Adefioye Blog post 5 May 4, 2022 In the article, “Silences Voices in Global Health,” the author describes current movements which aim to improve the representation of the global south and ultimately tackle the power structure in global health. Additionally, the author believes that whilst improving inclusion in global health is required, to change the power structures in global health there needs to be a new and fair world order. After reading this article, I thought about the pandemic and its effect on developing countries. While some people have argued for a reform of the World Health Organization due to its inadequate response during the pandemic, I believe the first problem that needs to be addressed in global health is improving the health systems in developing countries. As we have seen during the pandemic, many developing countries have struggled. Unsurprisingly, NGOs and donors have been the primary providers of health services. Even though these organizations are pr...
Read more