XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.misc, talk.politcs.guns   
   XPost: alt.atheism   
   From: nowomr@protonmail.com   
      
   Make Russia Pay   
      
   The West has already frozen some $300 billion in Russian assets. Here’s   
   the case for seizing them.   
      
   For months, the West has fretted over the prospect of paying for Ukraine’s   
   reconstruction. Russia’s war has inflicted an estimated $400 billion in   
   rebuilding costs, a tally that rises every day. Western leaders, already   
   alarmed by inflation and the threat of recession, have understandably   
   blanched over the bill.   
   But many of them are disregarding a solution that would cover most of   
   Ukraine’s costs and help deter future aggression not only from Russia but   
   from dictatorships around the world. A year ago, Western governments froze   
   some $300 billion in state assets from Russia’s central bank. Now they   
   could seize the funds and give them to Ukraine.   
   The biggest question is whether this would be legal. As critics have   
   noted, a seizure of this magnitude has never been attempted. Moreover,   
   little precedent exists for the United States to confiscate the assets of   
   a nation with whom (despite the Kremlin’s claims to the contrary) it isn’t   
   at war.   
   From the June 2023 issue: The counteroffensive   
   But Russia has unleashed a kind of rank imperialism the world has rarely   
   seen since the Cold War, committing war crimes and—as manifold evidence   
   suggests—genocide, all against a harmless neighbor. Because of its   
   unjustifiable aggression and atrocities, Moscow has forfeited any moral   
   right to funds stashed abroad.   
   The reasons to seize them are legion. Confiscating the Russian funds—which   
   are spread across various Western economies—would serve a crucial role in   
   ending the fighting, beating back Russian imperialism, and ensuring a   
   viable economic future for Ukraine. And it would send a clear threat to   
   regimes that might otherwise be willing to breach international law and   
   destabilize continents for their own gain, as Moscow has.   
   Seizing these assets would also help fix an overlooked issue facing   
   Ukraine: investor hesitancy. Investors remain wary of bankrolling projects   
   that could be targeted by Russian drones and artillery. But the frozen   
   funds could cover nearly 75 percent of Ukraine’s costs and significantly   
   reduce the burden on potential financiers, making the country a more   
   appealing investment destination.   
   In the U.S., much of the legal debate has focused on the International   
   Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law that defines the   
   president’s abilities to regulate international commerce during national   
   emergencies. Although the IEEPA has historically been used to authorize   
   more conventional sanctions—including in Iran, the Central African   
   Republic, and China—some scholars, most notably Laurence H. Tribe and   
   Jeremy Lewin, have argued that it could also be used to seize the tens of   
   billions of dollars in Russian assets currently in U.S. reserves.   
   Recommended Reading   
      
   That proposal has generated legal pushback, although advocates are   
   undeterred. The nonprofit Renew Democracy Initiative told me that it has   
   commissioned a study of the “legal foundations for seizing frozen Russian   
   assets and transferring them to Ukraine,” which will be led by Tribe. (The   
   initiative is chaired by Garry Kasparov, who also chairs the Human Rights   
   Foundation, where I direct a program on combating kleptocracy.)   
   Even if U.S. law offered clear justification, though, it couldn’t be used   
   to touch any of Russia’s assets frozen in Europe, which are far more   
   valuable than those in the U.S. Fortunately, international law appears to   
   offer such justification.   
   As Philip Zelikow and Simon Johnson wrote in Foreign Affairs last year,   
   Russia’s obvious culpability for the war entitles Ukraine to claim   
   compensation from Russia. Because “the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a   
   wrongful, unprovoked war of aggression that violates the United Nations   
   Charter,” Zelikow and Johnson argue, any state (not just Ukraine) can   
   “invoke Russia’s responsibility to compensate Ukraine, and they can take   
   countermeasures against Moscow—including transferring its frozen foreign   
   assets to ensure Ukraine gets paid.”   
   Despite many policy makers’ impression that Russian assets are   
   untouchable, Anton Moiseienko, an international-law expert at the   
   Australian National University, recently showed that they aren’t immune   
   from seizure. “To extend protection from any governmental interferences to   
   central bank assets would equate to affording them inviolability,”   
   Moiseienko wrote, which is reserved only for property belonging to foreign   
   diplomatic missions. The protection afforded central-bank assets “is not   
   as absolute as is often thought.”   
   That is, in the eyes of international law, Russian assets aren’t   
   inviolate. In fact, the only real remaining obstacles to seizing them are   
   debates surrounding domestic laws and domestic politics. As Moiseienko   
   wrote, “Political and economic circumspection, rather than legal   
   constraints, are the last defense against [the assets’] confiscation.”   
   This is particularly true in the U.S., where plenty of hesitancy remains   
   even after more than a year of war. As The New York Times reported in   
   March, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen believes that seizing Russian   
   assets could reduce faith in the American economy and the U.S. dollar.   
   Other critics think it would threaten U.S. assets and investments in other   
   countries.   
   Eliot A. Cohen: It’s not enough for Ukraine to win. Russia has to lose.   
   These points all have a certain merit. And so, too, do concerns about such   
   a move prompting the Kremlin to escalate. In all likelihood, though,   
   Putin’s regime has already written off these funds, not least because   
   they’ll almost certainly never be returned while he’s in power. Moreover,   
   seizing them is hardly as escalatory as, say, the West sending Ukraine F-   
   16s or long-range precision rockets.   
   But at a broader level, these criticisms misunderstand the significance of   
   the war and what it may lead to.   
   Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is an assault on the geopolitical   
   order. A nuclear power launched a militarized annexation, entirely   
   unprovoked, against a neighbor that had long ago given up its arsenal. In   
   the months following the invasion, the Kremlin has been accused of   
   torture, beheadings, and manifold crimes against humanity. And it has been   
   responsible for more bloodshed than any conflict in Europe has exacted   
   since World War II. It is led by a dictator wanted for arrest by the   
   International Criminal Court, and who is driven solely by a deranged,   
   messianic imperialism. And it is setting a precedent for other autocrats,   
   who are eager to see whether Putin’s revanchism will work—and eager to   
      
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