Topic: Impact of Sanctions on Russia 

Speaker:  David Edick, Jr., global political economist and Principal of Core Global Advisory
 

CPE credit: 1.0 hour will be given to all participants requesting it, and who are present for the presentation

Presentation:
There's not a person among us who does not remember how, on February 24 of last year, Russia invaded Ukraine.  Russian planes attacked; Russian tanks and troops, which had been massing at the border, moved into Ukraine, fanning out and heading west toward the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.  It was a violation of the formal agreement between Russia and Ukraine since the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and it was a violation of the United Nations Charter. It was the first overt act of naked aggression by one sovereign European country against another since the end of World War II. 

The Kremlin’s expectation was that the Ukrainian military and political leadership would fold quickly. However, within days, the invasion largely ground to a halt. The Ukrainians stopped the Russians in their tracks -- and in their half-tracks, tanks and trucks. Moral outrage against the Russian attack echoed around the world. But it was the response of the Ukrainians themselves which inspired the rest of the world to begin to act in support of Ukraine. 

In the U.S., President Biden had committed that no American troops would be sent in to Ukraine to get into a confrontation with Russia.  In the capitals of Europe, they was a similar recognition that Ukraine was not a NATO country, and those countries similarly would not be committing their troops to the fray. Instead, the U.S. and its European allies implemented a vast counterstrike of financial and economic sanctions on Russia, with the intention of dealing a devastating economic blow to Russia and forcing Vladimir Putin to realize the folly of his ways and withdraw Russia's troops and armaments back to the pre-war borders. 

Eighteen months later, the war continues.  One may reasonably ask -- and it's the question we have asked today -- what have been the economic consequences on Russia of the many and complex sanctions imposed on them by the west?  Are the sanctions bringing the Russian economy to its knees -- or not really?  Are the effects of the sanctions slowly but steadily weakening Russian resolve to continue its pursuit of its naked aggression, and to consider finding a way out of the quicksand of war?

One can find divergent opinions on all sides of these questions.  Just several months ago, the Wall Street Journal forcefully argued in an article that the sanctions were finally starting to work, and that investment in Russia was down, supply chains were increasingly limited, labor was scarce, budgets were squeezed and the country was becoming increasingly reliant for its survival on China -- to which, today, we could also add Iran and North Korea. Just two weeks ago, Business Insider ran an article claiming that, despite Putin's bluster, economic sanctions were working and Russia's economic future was bleak unless it can end the hostilities. But also a few months ago, Foreign Policy magazine ran an article pointing out that Russia has found numerous ways of blunting the negative effects of western sanctions. And even if, as the WSJ noted, Russia is becoming increasingly reliant on China (and Iran and North Korea), that need not have any implications for causing them to bring the war to an end, but rather may simply mean that they're successfully finding more friends in the world to help them pursue Putin's expansionist goals.

In his presentation, David Edick will look at the question from multiple angles, including how the Russians have been able to bypass the negative effects of western dollar-based sanctions by gradually "de-dollaizing" their economy.  He will show some hard numbers that indicate whether key sectors of the Russian economy -- e.g., manufacturing -- are hurting, or whether they're actually humming.  He'll look not just at what's happening with the overall Russian economy, but what's hapening in certain key sectors of it, and whether those sectors may in fact be more important than others in the grand scheme of any expansionist plans Putin may have. 

And then, of course, we'll hear a dose of realistic thinking on whether economic hardship in a dictatorship wil reflect itself in that country's outward actions in the same way that similar hardships might play through in our own or other democratic societies. We should never forget the importance of national, historical and cultural differences in driving differential behavior between countries.

This presentation will give us some eye-opening insights, and leave us with a deeper, and likely different, understanding of how our economic sanctions are playing out on the global stage. And that, in turn, may leave us with a set of new questions we need to be asking. 

Speaker's bio:

David Edick Jr. is a global political economist and Principal at Core Global Advisory, a consultancy focused on political risk, commodities, and market strategy. David has over 30 years' experience in trade, investment banking, and NGO relations in Russia, Mexico and elsewhere. He has worked abroad in Russia in the food trade and investment banking sectors, and in Mexico in the seafood export development business.  He speaks and reads Russian as well as English.

David serves as a member of the Energy Committee for the Western Regional Partnership, a collaborative between the US Department of Defense and representatives of Federal agencies and State and Tribal leadership in 6 states of the US southwest. He also serves on the Natural Resources Committee and the Tribal Engagement Working Group.

David has lectured widely for more than 15 years on energy, finance and geopolitics, drawing on his global perspective and experience.

Long active in San Diego's international civil society community, David is 3-term Past President of the San Diego World Affairs Council, and serves on the organization's board of directors. He is also 6-term Past President of the San Diego International Sister Cities Association, and 7-term Past President of the San Diego - Vladivostok (Russia) Sister City Society. In 2015 he served as Chair of the Steering Committee which led the establishment of San Diego’s 16th sister city relationship (Panama City, Panama). David is a longtime participant in the international collaborative Pacific Rim Park program founded by James Hubbell.

David graduated from San Diego State University in 1985 with a custom-designed, cross-disciplinary degree in Global Political Economy. David and his family live in Rancho San Diego, California.

As with David's past presentations to the San Diego FENG, this will be a talk with active Q&A and lots of facts, analytical insights and new understanding of some complex issues, in a dynamically developing situation. Join us Tuesday morning, when David will address the above issues and more, in this highly engaging and energetic presentation.

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To Attend:
Meetings are for members, prospective members and invited guests only. For non-members, RSVP is required by writing to chapter chair, Dan Ruchman at [email protected]. Please include a one or two sentence description of who you are, and your interest in attending the meeting. Thank you.

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CPE Credits: Reminder for those members maintaining their professional certifications - we offer the documentation for Continuing Professional Education (CPE) credits for our speaker presentations. For those members interested in this, you may complete the appropriate forms, which we'll have available at the meeting, for 1.0 hours of CPE credit

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