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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

#41

Post by MattGaiser »

stormbrew wrote: post #25
LanceH wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In the modern world, no country is self-sufficient. This isn't even an accident, it's an explicit goal of the modern liberal economic system, partly to try to dampen the conditions that lead to war. At any rate, sanctions create consequences for trade for third parties as well, so any country that doesn't come along on it will also face the possibility of being shut off from trade with the EU, the US, and the rest of…

> Sanctions as enacted here are not "I'm not talking to you", they're "I will punch anyone who keeps talking to you."

Hardly. We are’t going to bomb a country that goes against the sanctions. They will just also be sanctioned.

We are forcing people to pick a side to do business with, not punching them.

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

#42

Post by InsaneOstrich »

coldtea wrote: post #30
InsaneOstrich wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ensuring Ukraine's neutrality instead of sacrificing it as a pawn?

Ukraine is a democracy. It's not up to us or anyone else to "ensure their neutrality" if that's not what they want. We already refused to allow them into NATO under the guise of "ensuring their neutrality" and look how that turned out.

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

#43

Post by anonporridge »

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.

100%. Sanctions are a WMD that simply have a nice level of deniability.

We don't have to see the mass destruction and pain they cause, because it's not a direct explosion like a bomb, but the ultimate effect is much the same like you say.

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

#44

Post by pmorici »

syntaxing wrote: post #20
pmorici wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is historical precedent for economic sanctions leading to war. Notability the US froze Japanese assets in the US and embargoed selling US oil to them in July 1941. Less than 5 months later the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. You aren’t wrong but you also have to consider that economic sanctions have historically been a precursor if not the friction point that caused a war.

I’m not sure if that’s a fair cause and effect statement though. Most sanctions were placed to pressure the opposite side without going to war and arguably prevent physical conflict. Hard to say the hypothetical result, but the timeline would of been, no sanctions and go to war anyway or push for sanctions and hope it’s enough to scare the opposite party but if it fails, you go to war anyway

The point is one shouldn’t be so naive that you fool yourself into thinking that the range of possible responses to sanctions doesn’t include war.

Analogies of sanctions being like giving the school yard bully the cold shoulder seem like just such a naive interpretation given how they have played out historically.

I’m not saying they can’t work or that they shouldn’t be used just to be aware of the full range of possible outcomes.

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

#45

Post by egman_ekki »

coldtea wrote: post #30
InsaneOstrich wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Ensuring Ukraine's neutrality instead of sacrificing it as a pawn?

How do you ensure Ukraine's neutrality as another country? If they pick your side, you start with sanctions against them?

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

#46

Post by anonporridge »

vaidhy wrote: post #37
thallium205 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 -…

It's getting downvoted because westerners have been whipped up into a bloodlust frenzy towards Russia.

Just like the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, those who speak against the destruction will be derided as unpatriotic, freedom hating traitors.

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

#47

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

xdennis wrote: post #35

Not buying stuff is war, but invading a country is a special military operation. We are living in crazy times, but as the Ukrainian ambassador said, there's no purgatory for these people, they go straight to hell.

> Not buying stuff is war

Removing the tools of trade to specifically punish a country is akin to war, I agree with the sentiment. A lot of innocent people are going to starve and die because of this decision, regardless of whether or not bombs are dropped. They don't have any other options and their already fragile and corrupt markets are crashing.

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

#48

Post by oceanplexian »

qiskit wrote: post #14
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. 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…

I think we are all slinging mud over the same reason, but money is only a part of it, it's really about geopolitical domination.

The EU wants to dominate the cultural and political landscape in Eastern Europe. The West have their ideals of human rights, democracy, climate change, migration, etc. Russia has different views. Even if Ukraine were to become a part of the EU and NATO, all that happens is the problem is postponed. At some point the West will impose sanctions on Russia anyway, regardless of an invasion, because Russia is an obstacle to Globalization. I think that Putin saw the writing on the wall and that's why he made a move.

I certainly don't agree with it, I don't agree with the war, but what did the EU think was going to happen? They and the US smugly admitted to tampering with the internal affairs Ukraine over the last several decades, and and have made their designs on Eastern Europe obvious. Now that they are implementing extreme sanctions on the Russian people, it is only confirmation bias for the Russians and more reason for them to double down on the direction they are headed in.

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

#49

Post by stormbrew »

MattGaiser wrote: post #41
stormbrew wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the modern world, no country is self-sufficient. This isn't even an accident, it's an explicit goal of the modern liberal economic system, partly to try to dampen the conditions that lead to war. At any rate, sanctions create consequences for trade for third parties as well, so any country that doesn't come along on it will also face the possibility of being shut off from trade with the EU, the US, and the rest of…

> Sanctions as enacted here are not "I'm not talking to you", they're "I will punch anyone who keeps talking to you." Hardly. We are’t going to bomb a country that goes against the sanctions. They will just also be sanctioned. We are forcing people to pick a side to do business with, not punching them.

> They will just also be sanctioned.

Yes, and because most countries in the world are smaller than the US or Russia, they will suffer because of it. Likely with people dying, either directly or indirectly. The smaller the country, the more sanctions hurt, the more it's like getting punched in the face.

Most countries in the world can't afford to be excluded from trade with the western bloc.

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

#50

Post by thr0wawayf00 »

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…

Here's the problem though: if you obliterate a country's financial system to the point that people start starving and fundamentally lack their basic needs, what incentive are you giving someone like Putin to not drop a bomb?

If people start starving en masse the way they did back during Soviet Collectivization, which saw 4-7M dead[0], what's stopping Putin from ending it all in retaliation?

0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivization_in_the_Soviet...

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