The question isn't whether Mr. Putin, his administration or the Russian state is 'owed' trade. It is whether individuals in the west should be able to freely purchase petroleum products.
The prohibitions on trade are the fault of those enacting the prohibitions on trade.
If you're going to take the realpolitik stance of demanding the necessity of the sanctions as a result of the Russian administration's actions, then where does this train of consequences end?
Did the war in Ukraine happen in a vacuum? Were there no precipitating events, no opportunities for deescalation? If the invasion was solely the fault of the Russian administration, then it should follow that the sanctions are solely the fault of those who enacted them.
> The prohibitions on trade are the fault of those enacting the prohibitions on trade.
International trade isn't a right, it's a privilege. Agreements negotiated between states at the state level. You have a right to trade at home, you don't have a right to trade abroad whether that's at the discretion of the state that represents your interests, or the state that represents the interests of your trading partner.
For instance, the Chinese can't sell fentanyl into the US market. Why not? Because trade isn't a right, it's a privilege.
> If the invasion was solely the fault of the Russian administration, then it should follow that the sanctions are solely the fault of those who enacted them.
Other way. If the fault of the invasion was solely on Russia then the consequences of those actions are also on Russia.
How fair is it to force starvation upon a populace in retribution for the actions of an unelected leader?
As a thought experiment, suppose that Russia did not have nukes nor means to retaliate, would you be equally okay with the US bombing Russian cities and killing civilians in numbers equal to those that will starve due to our sanctions?
What if instead of sanctions or bombing we developed some kind of chemical weapon that increased the population's metabolism such that equal numbers starve. Would that not be seen as completely despicable? Yet the outcome is the same.
I'm not sure holding up the Opium Wars as a golden example of how trade should be a right is making your case. To be clear that was the time the UK fought China so it could sell old-timey OxyContin on the Chinese mainland. That's become quite a blemish on the UK national blemish registry (I call it that because, well, you know, everything in the British Museum and whatnot).
As a fun bit of trivia, one of the main opium traders, Jardine Matheson is still around. Now a British-domiciled Bermuda corporation that, among other things, owns the Mandarin Oriental.
There were a lot of things popular back then that wouldn't be such an easy sell today. Slavery, for one (not in the UK, btw, they'd already ended it by then).
> As a thought experiment, suppose that Russia did not have nukes nor means to retaliate, would you be equally okay with the US bombing Russian cities and killing civilians in numbers equal to those that will starve due to our sanctions?
As an aggressor nation conducting genocide in all but name? Go to town. By "go to town" I mean bomb government and military buildings until they surrender, and avoid civilian casualties at all costs.
How many Russian civilians died btw, as a result of these sanctions?
> What if instead of sanctions or bombing we developed some kind of chemical weapon that increased the population's metabolism such that equal numbers starve. Would that not be seen as completely despicable? Yet the outcome is the same.
The only folks using chemical weapons appear to the the Russians. But I'm sure you know they're broadly banned by the Geneva Convention.
Is anyone in Russia at the risk of starvation? Also The leader of Russia was elected. While their elections were not exactly fair (then again US presidential elections are also a complete shit show) I’m not sure many doubt Putin wouldn’t have easily gotten 50%+ even if they were.
Putin knows the history of starvation in Russia so is stockpiling wheat and other food stores to counter the sanctions. You're right that it may not be Russians, it's likely that Middle Eastern and African countries will be the ones that feel the brunt of this.
Are those countries going to see more problems from western sanctions or from lack of production in one of the largest wheat exporter that Russia is currently preventing from producing wheat.
>For instance, the Chinese can't sell fentanyl into the US market. Why not? Because trade isn't a right, it's a privilege.
Take any example of a state abusing or denying someone their rights. Next observe that those were not rights, those were privileges. This chain of logic works well if you believe that rights originate from the state.
>“Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
>Russian President Vladimir Putin has said his country had "no other choice" but to invade Ukraine and that what he has called a "special military operation" was aimed at saving people in the Donbas region.
Just as others would claim that the west had "no other choice" but to prohibit trade. From my side your response reads as side-stepping this direct comparison. Perhaps one could even go as afar as denying the free-will of human actors by concluding that the sanctions were inevitable, just like the war was inevitable.
Another area where I would differ with your perception of fundamentals would be the personification of the state. States, in my view are incapable of trading. It is individual human actors who create trade. National anthems, lines on a map or flags simply cannot load up the trucks. As to the origin of rights, because humans create states, their rights clearly do not come from those states.
The prohibitions on trade are the fault of those enacting the prohibitions on trade.
If you're going to take the realpolitik stance of demanding the necessity of the sanctions as a result of the Russian administration's actions, then where does this train of consequences end?
Did the war in Ukraine happen in a vacuum? Were there no precipitating events, no opportunities for deescalation? If the invasion was solely the fault of the Russian administration, then it should follow that the sanctions are solely the fault of those who enacted them.