Photo: AA
New Year's relapse
For the first time in the United States, they started talking about a possible ban on the import of smartphones and other household appliances to Russia before the New Year.
Then the opinions of experts were divided - someone assured that the Americans were only scaring, and someone insisted on the seriousness of their intentions.
And now a new round of the "war of promises" - on January 8, the New York Times again warned of a possible restriction of exports to Russia.
Even the first package of sanctions was not introduced, but here we are talking about the second wave.
In many respects, of course, this was only preparation for the Geneva talks between Moscow and Washington, but the potential consequences of such restrictions could be of strategic proportions. And for both Russians and Americans. This is clearly understood in the United States and so far they are threatening sanctions only in the event of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
There is an opinion in the Kremlin political elite that the Americans, firstly, scare us, and secondly, “dishwashers are not the most sacred thing for Russians.” This phrase of the press secretary of the President Dmitry Peskov has recently become truly winged.
But here the expression is obviously taken out of context - the official answered with irony to a clearly provocative question like "did the Americans threaten the most sacred things with their sanctions?"
The Russians, of course, will cope with the embargo on the supply of refrigerators, dishwashers and washing machines from the United States. These are typical sanctions designed not for the economy and not for the political leadership of the country, but aimed directly at the consumer.
Until now, the Americans did not dare to do this in relation to the Russians. There are examples of the use of "anti-people" sanctions against Iran and Syria.
But, unfortunately, the United States has a lot of leverage to put pressure on the public.
Let's try to carefully consider the most likely options.
First of all, it is an embargo on the export of smartphones and other consumer electronics.
There will be no big grief from the disappearance of the iPhone, but this will inevitably increase the prices of Chinese and Korean products. A competitor has left - you can review the price tags. If this is not enough, Washington will impose sanctions against suppliers of analogues from other countries, primarily from China and South Korea.
It will not work to block 100%, but the quality of the supplied equipment and once again the prices will change dramatically and not at all for the better. The shadow market, coupled with the smuggling of high-tech goods, will become the norm for Russians.
But this is not the most depressing thing that can await the country.
In the most radical version, the United States is able to seriously restrict the operation of operating systems in Russia.
That is, all computers and other computer equipment connected to the Internet will at one moment turn into a pile of scrap metal.
What this can threaten is perfectly illustrated by the events in Kazakhstan, when, with the shutdown of the Internet, the country plunged into the conditions of the middle of the XNUMXth century for several days.
At the same time, for the Russians, this threat is becoming more and more real from year to year - the government is systematically transferring all documentation to electronic platforms. A one-time shutdown of Windows, Ubuntu, iOS and partially Android will greatly complicate access (if not block it at all) to future electronic passports, TCP and, of course, cashless payments.
Therefore, with the dispersal of the Cold War, it will be very useful to have houses under the pillow of NZ from crispy banknotes.
The United States can influence the operation of Android quite indirectly - after all, it is an open source operating system.
But Americans can easily block the work of various Google applications.
However, for some it will be a long-awaited gift - thousands of YouTube bloggers and other "loafers" will be unemployed.
Smartphones to the landfill
There are already precedents - in 2019, Trump banned Huawei from working with the Android operating system and Google services not only in the US, but throughout the world.
This, of course, is not an apocalypse, but work with Chinese technology has been seriously complicated. The Chinese analogue of HarmonyOS is not even an analogue of Android yet, but in terms of functionality it seriously lags behind the range of Google services.
And, of course, users of the native American iOS system, which Washington can turn off in Russia within a couple of minutes, will be the first to suffer. And not only those that are imported into the country, but also purchased earlier.
So far, the few electric vehicles of the Tesla brand can also immobilize in the bud - this allows the system to update the operating system “over the air”.
Some expert opinions from the programming community regarding the situation:
“Of course, you can disable operating system updates, but many functions will be lost, this is especially critical for smartphones. But it still won’t help, they will find a loophole - the systems of their development. For example, they will write a simple program that will be tied to the geolocation of the gadget. He got to the territory of the Russian Federation - that's it, khan, the drive is formatted the first time it is turned on. There is no reception against scrap, we do not have our own software. All hope is in the Chinese."
All of the above is not the fruit of idle speculation - Bloomberg claims that the US administration is seriously considering the possibility of banning the supply to Russia of everything that is "made using American technology."
If you just look at the list of patents in the US, it turns out that almost everything can be cut off.
And if we fix all this by disconnecting from SWIFT, then our country will return to not the best years of Soviet power.
However, it's too early to despair.
There will be no winners
The situation with the total introduction of restrictions for Russia will be unpredictable, first of all, for Washington itself.
First, companies will lose one of the most important markets with a population of 146 million people.
Look at how Google is slowly but surely bending under the rather strict requirements of the Kremlin - this is a clear sign that money is more expensive for the States than politics.
American business will cease to exist on the territory of Russia - most of it will be nationalized with a high probability. As a response, so to speak.
Secondly, a precedent of this magnitude will not go unnoticed and wary on the part of US trading partners.
Where is the probability that in a couple of years this will not be done with South Korea or Japan?
Thirdly, Russia always has leverage over the European vassals of the United States in the form of gas and oil supplies. And if you block the streams in the dead of winter, and even with half-empty vaults, then vassal devotion will noticeably decrease.
And, finally, the extreme, fourth scenario is the interpretation of sanctions as a declaration of war.
A real war, not a cold one, but a very hot one.
In fact, Washington, by such restrictions, seeks to throw the country back 30–50 years, almost to the “pre-information” era, which is identical in consequences to a war.
It is unpleasant in this situation to realize Russia's vulnerability to such threats. As trite as it sounds now, in the Soviet Union resistance to total sanctions was much higher.