The Economics of the Ukraine Proxy War with Michael Hudson and Radhika Desai

Posted on February 6, 2023 by Yves Smith

Yves here. Get a cup of coffee. This is a meaty talk, hosted by Danny Haiphong, on the economic and geopolitical effects of the war in Ukraine. One place where I beg to differ is that the sanctions were intended to increase European Union dependence on the US. The intent was to break Russia and secondarily to assure cheap access to Western resources while having a US/Collective West compliant government in charge. The fact that European leaders and even EU businesses have meekly gone along with the damage to their economies from sanctions blowback and only bleated a bit about US exploitation means the sanctions have served as a what we in finance call a price discovery event. It may not have been apparent before to what degree EU members we US vassal states, but now it’s awfully hard to deny that.