CrossTalk: Sanctioning Russia S.722

There will be no peace. US and EU strategy papers have made that very clear.

“First published From Parameters, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14: US Army War College
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There will be no peace. At any given moment for the rest of our lifetimes, there will be multiple conflicts in mutating forms around the globe. Violent conflict will dominate the headlines, but cultural and economic struggles will be steadier and ultimately more decisive. The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.”
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3011.htm

“Excerpts From Pentagon’s Plan: ‘Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival’
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Our first objective is to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival, either on the territory of the former Soviet Union or elsewhere, that poses a threat on the order of that posed formerly by the Soviet Union. This is a dominant consideration underlying the new regional defense strategy and requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia.

There are three additional aspects to this objective: First, the U.S. must show the leadership necessary to establish and protect a new order that holds the promise of convincing potential competitors that they need not aspire to a greater role or pursue a more aggressive posture to protect their legitimate interests. Second, in the non-defense areas, we must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order. Finally, we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. An effective reconstitution capability is important here, since it implies that a potential rival could not hope to quickly or easily gain a predominant military position in the world.
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access to vital raw materials, primarily Persian Gulf oil;”
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/03/08/world/excerpts-from-pentagon-s-plan-prevent-the-re-emergence-of-a-new-rival.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

“Hard power politics – Clausewitzian influence over alienated state regimes. Some alien-
ated regimes will still exist in 2020 – the key uncertainty here being the Kremlin. If so, we will need to retain a capability to meet their deliberate challenges to our vision of the world. This will require hard military power, but also an increased focus on asymmetrical forms of destruction, notably in the cybersphere. This is of major concern to the East-
ern members of the EU, and if the ESDP is unable to provide this then they will turn to NATO or directly to the US.”
http://www.iss.europa.eu/uploads/media/What_ambitions_for_European_defence_in_2020.pdf

“In the current issue of the military journal “European Security and Technology,” Johannes Varwick, Professor for International Relations and European Policy at the University of Halle-Wittenberg
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Varwick considers that, at least for the time being, it is conceivable that Berlin and Brussels should “grit their teeth and continue to flexibly attempt to benefit from US capabilities,” because for now, the EU’s military capabilities are insufficient for an independent global hegemonic policy.[6]”
http://german-foreign-policy.com/en/fulltext/58808