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The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

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Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#31

Post by klyrs »

InsaneOstrich wrote: post #24
erdos4d wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Economic sanctions are an act of war. This 100%. I'm seriously wondering how all these people supporting heavy sanctions will feel when Putin realizes he can't win via conventional means and his economy is destroyed, so he starts nuking things.

What's the alternative? Doing nothing while Russia invades countries in Eastern Europe one after the other?

Or, put boots in Ukraine or Russia, and get nuked.

Or, nuke Russia, and get nuked.

Our options are very limited and these alternatives are all terrible.

Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#32

Post by vaidhy »

LanceH wrote: post #17
brandall10 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silent treatment is cutting off diplomatic ties. Sanctions is starvation of resources, potentially impacting the war effort directly but indirectly by causing civil unrest. I agree it’s certainly not the same as direct warfare, but its definitely somewhere in the middle, and can particularly castostrophic when done in a concerted multilateral fashion (ie. North Korea).

Sanctions is not feeding them -- but doing nothing to stop them from feeding themselves. Certainly not stopping them from behaving nicely and getting to interact again. War is shooting people dead. There is a stark difference.

I would prefer to be shot than be starved to death. And what does behaving nicely mean, in practice? Change the elected government? Let go of their sovereignty? You are forcing countries to go back to stone age because you have a bigger wallet and a bigger army.

Economic sanctions are the rich countries way of being a bully. We are all interconnected and cutting one country's access and resources is worse than attacking them.

Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#33

Post by stormbrew »

belorn wrote: post #22
qiskit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Economic sanctions are an act of war. Just like blockading a port is an act of war. War doesn't necessarily mean killing human beings. You could bomb an empty munitions factory and it would be an act of war. Economic sanctions is the rich nations' weapon. It's a weapon that only a wealthy nation can wield. It's why there is so much support for it amongst rich nations. Certainly if anyone destabilized the american…

Not buying Russian oil and gas is not an act of war. Any nation has a right to decide if they want to buy a product, how much, by whom, and at what price they are willing to accept (tariffs and import tax, up to infinitive). Calling sanctions war is like calling boycotts theft. Vegetarians are not stealing money from beef producers. What boycotts and sanctions can be is passive aggressiveness. It harms people on a so…

Boycotts and sanctions are not the same thing. If I stop buying Coca-Cola products no one goes to jail. Sanctions create legal consequences for trade, enforced by law. They are very different.

Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#34

Post by jmbwell »

anikan_vader wrote: post #7

Surely this will be an interesting event, but the title alone seems to compare economic sanctions with war, unfairly in my opinion. From a schoolyard perspective, economic sanctions are like giving a peer the silent treatment. It hurts you both, but it's your right not to interact with someone if you find them sufficiently unpleasant. War is like committing homicide against that peer during recess. In other words, it…

Except that the peer you’re giving the silent treatment provides oil, gas, and metals to every part of the world that isn’t North America.

Your point is taken, it’s not physically blowing someone up. But from the global perspective, isolating Russia with sanctions removes them from the economy in the same way bombing Moscow would, while leaving alive people who might have a chance of changing the course of the conflict.

You don’t have to kill an enemy to neutralize it. In fact it’s quicker, easier, cheaper, and more effective not to. But it is still every bit an act of war — wrecking the global economy is also “really fucking bad.”

And besides all that, if people getting blown up is what you’re looking for, it’s still early days yet. This is all far from over. And even if it stopped tomorrow, we will be dealing with the ramifications of this for years.

Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#36

Post by Hendrikto »

erdos4d wrote: post #21
qiskit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. Economic sanctions are an act of war. Just like blockading a port is an act of war. War doesn't necessarily mean killing human beings. You could bomb an empty munitions factory and it would be an act of war. Economic sanctions is the rich nations' weapon. It's a weapon that only a wealthy nation can wield. It's why there is so much support for it amongst rich nations. Certainly if anyone destabilized the american…

> Economic sanctions are an act of war. This 100%. I'm seriously wondering how all these people supporting heavy sanctions will feel when Putin realizes he can't win via conventional means and his economy is destroyed, so he starts nuking things.

It is always easy to criticize. What do you think should happen? Just yield Ukraine to Putin? Did not work with Germany and Elsass-Lothringen, did not work with Russia and the Crimea, won’t work now.

What happens if you give in to a dictator’s demands isn’t that he is satisfied and stops. Instead he will realize that he got away with it, then try something bigger next time. There are countless examples of this in history.

Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#37

Post by vaidhy »

thallium205 wrote: post #28
anikan_vader wrote: post #7

Surely this will be an interesting event, but the title alone seems to compare economic sanctions with war, unfairly in my opinion. From a schoolyard perspective, economic sanctions are like giving a peer the silent treatment. It hurts you both, but it's your right not to interact with someone if you find them sufficiently unpleasant. War is like committing homicide against that peer during recess. In other words, it…

No. Sanctions are weapons of mass destruction. They starve and kill the poorest in a nation. It's akin to carpet bombing a town without explosions. This is not hyperbole. Look to history at the destruction of sanctions.

I have no idea why this is being down-voted. This is the truth. People in western europe have no idea what it means to live under scarcity. Take Sri Lanka for e.g. - not even under sanction, but lack foreign reserves. Long blackouts, disruption of normal life since petrol (gasoline) is not always available. Eventual food shortages because fertilizer needs to be imported. Now think of another country under sanctions - even hope of better future is being crushed.

Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#38

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

pintxo wrote: post #15

I wondered for a while, is there any sensible analysis on the effectiveness of economic sanctions?

Here is one I saw wrt the Russia sanctions specifically that seems to be well-sourced and makes sense whilst being pretty terrifying for the Russian people[0].

TLDR; Russians are about to face mass shortages of basic goods at the same time their markets are crashing. This is going to cause major problems when people try to buy things like food and seed to grow more food. There's already a brain drain hitting Russia as these sanctions take effect, so the government may be forced to close the borders as well.

0: https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/03/04/world-war-of-economic-...

Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#39

Post by renlo »

rocqua wrote: post #9
it_does_follow wrote: post #5

I'm presuming the link is supposed to be about this book https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300259360/economic-weapo... There's a review with the same title as this post here: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2021-1... Which sums up the topic with: > In an original and persuasive analysis, Mulder shows how isolating aggressors from global commerce and finance was seen as an alternative to war th…

I think that, in the world of nuclear powers, it is trivial to see that physical violence at war scales between nuclear powers is essentially infinitely bad. Famine among millions of people, and general economic depression has a massive human toll. But it doesn't compare to full on nuclear war, followed by nuclear winter and Global radiation levels from fallout. So it seems obvious to me that economic violence is the…

the question is whether economic sanctions could lead to "full on nuclear war"

Re: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

#40

Post by dang »

webmaven wrote: post #4

Correct URL for the event: https://history.columbia.edu/events/the-economic-weapon-the-...

Thanks! Changed from https://events.columbia.edu/cal/event/showEventMore.rdo;jses....

(Event announcements like this aren't on topic for HN because they aren't intrinsically interesting. An article or transcript or recording of the event might well be.)

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