So what should we expect from the sanctions? Western pundits and commentators have little doubt: the sanctions will hamstring the Russian economy, sow discontent among the Russian people and elites alike, and possibly even cause the downfall of the Putin regime. At the very least, we’re told, they will hinder Russia’s war efforts. But history suggests otherwise: see Iraq, or more recently Iran. Far more likely is that this turns out to be the latest Western strategic miscalculation in a long list of strategic blunders, of which the United States’ inglorious withdrawal from Afghanistan is just the most recent example.
After all, Russia has been preparing for this moment for quite some time. Following the first wave of Western sanctions, in 2014, and partly in retaliation against them, Putin embarked on what analysts have dubbed a “Fortress Russia” strategy, building up the country’s international reserves and diversifying them away from US dollars and British pounds, reducing its foreign exposure, boosting its economic cooperation with China, and pursuing import substitution strategies in several industries, including food, medicine and technology, in an effort to insulate Russia as much as possible from external shocks.
Pakistan
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From Security Magazine, 29 January 2020, citing the Maplecroft Civil Unrest Index.
A quarterly Civil Unrest Index reveals that over the past year 47 jurisdictions have witnessed a significant uptick in protests, which intensified during the last quarter of 2019.
This includes locations as diverse as Hong Kong, Chile, Nigeria, Sudan, Haiti and Lebanon.During this period, Chile and Hong Kong have plummeted in the ranking of 198 countries, from 91st to 6th and 117th to 26th highest risk respectively, says the Maplecroft Civil Unrest Index. Other hotspots, including Nigeria (ranked 8th), Lebanon (13th) and Bolivia (21st), have also recorded some of the biggest negative swings in the index.
https://www.securitymagazine.com/articles/91622-in-2020-47-countries-witness-surge-in-civil-unrest
A group of 101 Iranian doctors has penned a letter addressed to the leaders of Afghanistan, Georgia, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan to take ‘immediate action’ to destroy “all of the US biological laboratories” in their countries amid fears that the coronavirus pandemic may have been spread deliberately as a form of biological warfare, Press TV has reported, citing the letter.
http://archive.today/2021.10.23-110640/https://sputniknews.com/20200319/iranian-doctors-urge-neighbours-to-liquidate-any-us-biological-labs-amid-coronavirus-fears-1078623300.html
From Thu 7 Nov 2019:
After the strand was eliminated from Pakistan five years ago, all P2 vaccines should have been collected from hospitals and clinics and not used. However, it appears a P2 vaccine was administered accidentally and a child became a carrier for the disease. Tests on the new cases allegedly show the children are all carrying a vaccine-derived form of the disease .
…However, it is understood that, instead of publicly declaring the renewed outbreak and beginning a public vaccination campaign, a “secret” vaccination campaign will begin on Monday in Rawalpindi and surrounding cities in an attempt at containment.