U.S. Gas Exports to Europe Won't Worry Putin

We wrote about this supposed panacea in 2012, and the logic still seems to hold sway. Garry Kasparov's piece in the NYT  echoes a theme in our recent post.

The oligarchs who run globally recognized sports franchises like Chelsea FC and the Brooklyn Nets down to traditional rackets in Little Odessa have historically been like poodles when summoned by President Putin to pay their baksheesh.  The West, and particularly the United States, have a banking and financial system that was big enough to almost bring down the world economy.

It can certainly be used to freeze the pipes of the multi billion empires of the oligarchs, and when they rationally consider their future with an increasingly isolated President Putin who is running out of cards to play, they could use the advantage of the Ukraine crisis to get out from under their peculiar form of bondage.
It's something worth considering, as all the other hackneyed ideas being pushed around are too little, too late.