(no subject)

[timelets]

With little to no appetite for wars, economic sanctions seem to be the only mechanism available to the West when it comes to enforcing international agreements. WRT sanctions, we have an interesting dilemma: on the one hand, the sanctions punish the offender; on the other hand, they hurt the enforcer because she loses the benefits of economic cooperation. I wonder whether we are going to see the creation of weapons of mutual economic destruction, analogous to the thermo-nuclear weapons developed in the 1940-50s. Also, the West should be keen on developing SEA as an alternative to China.