Washington’s Extraordinary Hubris of Sanctioning Friends (They’re Really Vassals)

"US officials believe anything anyone does anywhere on the planet is a matter of Washington’s concern"

“American policymakers believe they see clearer and further than anyone else. They believe they are entitled to impose their preferences on the entire world”

One aspect of American exceptionalism is undoubtedly true. American policymakers believe that they have been anointed by heaven to rule the world. Just as God cares if a sparrow falls to earth, U.S. officials believe anything anyone does anywhere on the planet is a matter of Washington’s concern. That is reflected in a foreign policy which essentially has turned the Monroe Doctrine into a global strategy: the US, and only the US, is entitled to intervene everywhere on earth.

Admittedly, the policy is not entirely consistent, with Uncle Sam sometimes implicitly delegating its authority. For instance, Washington cares little if, say, France sends its troops to Francophone Africa. Libya became a military mishmash involving several European and Middle Eastern allies, while Washington stuck with diplomacy. American officials did not object when Saudi Arabia used its military to bolster Bahrain’s minority Sunni monarchy, crushing largely Shia pro-democracy protests; worse, the US actively aided Riyadh’s murderous invasion of Yemen.

However, the US has tried, often at great expense in blood and treasure, to generally keep order and transform societies in Central Asia, the Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. Washington’s moralistic arrogance and imperial pretensions often proved breathtaking. Unfortunately, the result has been many costly failures, such as the Iraq invasion.

Even more intrusive, however, is US sanctions policy. Originally they were just restrictions on Americans. For example, the Cuban embargo, applied six decades ago, prevents (with some exceptions) Americans from dealing with Cuba. Other governments typically did the same, restricting only their citizens, not foreign nationals. No one imagined that Washington was empowered to unilaterally regulate global commerce and punish anyone anywhere who defied American dictates.

However, in the 1980s US policymakers discovered secondary and financial sanctions. Given America’s global economic dominance, Washington now can make other nations and businesses enforce US policies. Any bank that uses dollars or relies on transactions routed through America can be fined billions of dollars for conducting any transaction, no matter how minor, with a sanctioned person or entity. In this way Washington seeks to force the entire world to implement American policy.

This has caused allied states, most notably in Europe, to follow US policy even when contrary to their own interests. For instance, European firms and individuals are punished for investments in Cuba. Europeans long were effectively barred from dealing with Sudan. More recently US sanctions prevented European companies from serving the Iranian markeunder the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action even as European governments attempted to save the accord from the Trump administration’s counterproductive “maximum pressure” campaign.

However, these steps, which triggered European resistance rather than acquiescence, did not go far enough for America’s hyper-interventionists and extremist hawks who, some suspected, hoped to create an excuse for war in several hotspots. (Many of them are cheerleading Israeli strikes on Palestinian civilians in the latest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas.)

The US also took a more hostile position toward Russia than did Europe. Washington policymakers, separated from Moscow by a large ocean, may have felt freer to risk conflict, since it would be primarily fought in Europe. After all, that was the case for both world wars in the 20th century. Nor had neoconservatives shown much concern for non-American casualties, which ran in the hundreds of thousands or more, during the nearly two decades of quasi-imperial conflict. The ever-egregious Sen. Lindsey Graham even dismissed the cost of a renewed Korean War since it would be “over there” on the Korean Peninsula. Why worry about a few hundred thousand or million South Korean casualties among allies, he apparently thought?

Believing that it was entitled to set its own energy policy, Germany agreed with Russia to build the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline project. The US government then lashed out at Berlin directly. In December 2019 American legislators, convinced of their unique virtue and perspicacity, approved legislation targeting European companies involved in the project. The measure, with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz as one of the authors, also would have the convenient benefit of promoting American liquified natural gas exports. It is convenient when an American politician claiming to do good also does well for his favored interest groups.

Although the project was almost complete, the sanctions threat caused European firms to flee. Cruz, along with Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson and Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton, appeared to enjoy writing letters threatening European enterprises with economic devastation and ruin. As Lord Acton warned, “power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” So it had with such sanctions supporters.

The GOP trio even threatened a German port owned by a local government:

“This letter serves as formal legal notice that these goods, services, support, and provisioning risk exposing Fährhafen Sassnitz GmbH and Mukran Port, as well as your board members, corporate officers, shareholders, and employees, to crushing legal and economic sanctions, which our government will be mandated to impose. These sanctions include potentially fatal measures that will cut off Fährhafen Sassnitz GmbH from the United States commercially and financially. The only responsible course of action is for Fährhafen Sassnitz GmbH to exercise contractual options that it has available to cease these activities.”

Unsurprisingly, Berlin’s reaction was anger and outrage, especially since officials believed Cruz’s participation was based on squalid economic interest.

German officials refused to surrender to their wannabe transatlantic masters and turn Berlin’s foreign policy over to Washington. Moscow stepped in to lay pipe, leading Congress to expand the penalties. Every German refusal to yield led to additional congressional demands for tighter sanctions. Indeed, the Trump administration appeared perfectly happy to ruin European companies, and likely would have doubled down had Trump been reelected. In contrast, the Biden administration, having promised to strengthen allies, has been less vigorous in opening new fronts in the economic war.

Still, under congressional pressure Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced:

“As the President has said, Nord Stream 2 is a bad deal – for Germany, for Ukraine, and for our Central and Eastern European allies and partners. … As multiple US administrations have made clear, this pipeline is a Russian geopolitical project intended to divide Europe and weaken European energy security. The sanctions legislation Congress passed in 2019 and expanded in 2020 has significant support from a bipartisan Congressional majority. The Biden Administration is committed to complying with that legislation. The Department reiterates its warning that any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks US sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline.”

However, though opposed to the pipeline, the administration so far has refused to add penalties. It does not want a showdown with one of the allies with whom the president committed to strengthen relations. Instead, he named a special envoy to press Berlin to voluntarily surrender its sovereignty to America, which is likely to prove to be a hapless task.

Washington officials offer several unpersuasive justifications for going to economic war against a longtime ally to impose America’s Russophobic agenda. One is that the pipeline is not in Germany’s interest. Although the project would ease the transit, lower the cost, and improve the security of natural gas supplies, all obvious benefits to the German people, Washington insists that the pipeline would be bad since it might increase Berlin’s already heavy energy reliance on Russia. American policymakers, who, not so incidentally, hope to expand US LNG exports, purport to be lecturing Germany on what is in Germany’s interest. Imagine how Americans would respond if the situation were reversed.

Ironically, a failure to complete the pipeline would not stop Moscow’s exports, but rather force them to continue to go through Ukraine, enriching Kiev. In fact, the transshipment fees earned by Ukraine are cited as a separate justification for halting the pipeline. Yet Kiev is no model of principled governance likely to spend such resources well. Although Ukraine deserves sympathy, stuck in a bad neighborhood and battered by Russia, Kiev never has been an important American interest. It spent the last couple centuries as part of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union and matters little geopolitically to America. Kiev is important politically because ethnic Ukrainians, who mostly originate in the anti-Russian east, push their personal agenda on Washington despite the geopolitical cost to the US.

Washington’s approach to Nord Stream 2 encapsulates the failure of US foreign policy at least since the end of the Cold War. American policymakers believe they see clearer and further than anyone else. They believe they are entitled to impose their preferences on the entire world.

Finally, they care little or nothing about the costs they impose on others. Eggs and omelets, as communists used to say. US officials’ position to friend and foe alike is submission or ruin. And as is evident in the Middle East, the outcome too often is ruin.

One of the worst aspects of Donald Trump’s foreign policy was its promiscuous use of economic sanctions in the name of “maximum pressure” against multiple governments. The result was mass hardship for oppressed peoples with no security gain for Americans. The Biden administration has an opportunity to back away from a policy which is both myopic and counterproductive. Minimizing use of economic sanctions, including against the Nord Stream 2 project, would be a good place to start.

Source: Antiwar.com

7 Comments
  1. Steve Ginn says

    Always the big stick to force everybody to do the Yank bidding! Fortunately some countries are beginning to grow a pair and flip the Yanks the bird!

  2. Ronnie says

    Using the dollar as the “Big Dick,” will one day be debated in hallo University cloisters.
    Over reach, biting off more than America could chew or swallow. Bullying, self denial. Arrogance, embarrassing table manners … the list is long and cringeworthy.
    As The British would say… “it all went pear shaped and turned into a right royal cock-up.”
    I mean, just look at the pompous, low rent clowns in Congress. “Soooo embarrassing”

  3. jm74 says

    One can’t lay all the blame on the US; the EU and many other states allowed it to happen. US got their power because other states relinquished theirs and this allowed the US to bypass the UN Charter, International Law and commit atrocities, wars unimpeded and without being held responsible. A large part of this can also be the fault of the UNSC where all members have allowed and even voted with the US knowing of the consequences for example Russia voting with the US against Iran, North Korea and staying mute over Libya and Yugoslavia. Kill the dollar and that will put an end to the US.

    1. Mr Reynard says

      Kill the Dollar ?? Hmm nahh let it just bleed to death ! NEVER INTERRUPT YOUR ENEMY WHEN HE’S MAKING MISTAKES.

  4. Mark says

    Poor Ukraine! ‘In a bad neighbourhood, battered by Russia!’

    You mean Ukraine’s biggest foreign investor, by a wide margin? If the United States is so hot to see Ukraine be successful, why aren’t American investors pouring their money into the place?

    Western analysts like to sneer that Cyprus is the largest investor in Ukraine, not Russia. Ummm….who do you think uses Cyprus as a tax haven? Ukrainians certainly know.

    https://oblrada.dp.gov.ua/en/investors/foreign-direct-investment-in-ukraine-war-and-peace/

    “Investments from Cyprus and other tax havens are usually of Ukrainian or Russian origin. Investors use special purpose entities (SPEs) in those countries in order to pay less tax and to acquire a special legal status etc. For instance, according to a study cited by the OECD Investment Policy Review, real Russian investment in Ukraine was at least thrice as large as the official data suggested at the end of 2014 (about $9.9 billion compared to $2.7 billion).

    At first glance, such developed countries as Germany and the Netherlands also seem to invest quite a lot in Ukraine. Yet German FDI mostly comes from Indian ArcelorMittal, the largest foreign investor in Ukraine, which uses its Germany subsidiary to control a steel plant in Ukraine.

    Similarly to Cyprus, the Netherlands is a popular conduit for capital from all over the world and ranks only formally among the largest global sources of FDI. For instance, part of $1.8 billion of its FDI stock in the telecommunications sector in Ukraine comes from Dutch-registered VimpelCom, which owns Kyivstar, the largest Ukrainian cell-phone operator. Yet the largest owner of VimpelCom (through intermediaries) is Russian Alfa-Group. Genuine FDI from the Netherlands is actually not that large and is represented, e.g., by Unilever.”

  5. yuri says

    prowar.com tiresome….amerikans like all morally decayed empires during last phase before suicide produce self immolating policies reflective of their incapacity to compete….KOestler compared amerika to 5th century Rome: “a similarly contactless society populated by automatons…a similarly soulless, politically corrupt everybody for them selves society”

  6. Mr Reynard says

    Quote:Washington’s Extraordinary Hubris of Sanctioning Friends..
    It does remind me of the old Lord Prayer ?

    “Lord protect me from my friends, my enemies I can take care of them myself “

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