Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War

history.columbia.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–69 of 69 posts

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

#61

Post by stormbrew »

LanceH wrote: post #52
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…

We aren't trading with people conducting war isn't the same as going to war. It just isn't. It is their choice to invade, enabling their invasion through trade would be closer to war than sanctions.

Again, sanctions are not just "not doing trade". They are a legal framework of consequences for doing trade that apply not just to the state doing the sanctions, but also other states, and private actors in other states who do business with the sanctioning state as well. It is not a boycott. It is a punishment with real tangible negative consequences for the target country and anyone caught in the middle.

In the US' case, sanctions often also come with things like "withholding the target country's reserves held with the US central bank", which do material harm to the target country's economy.

People keep trying to frame this as "just not buying gas/oil" but the funniest thing about that is that for the most part, the sanctioning countries are still buying gas from russia. That is literally the one thing not included in these sanctions. The sanctions would probably work better if they did stop buying natural resources, but the backsplash from doing that would be immense.

Anyways, it's awfully convenient that the tools America is uniquely positioned to use to cause harm to other countries (economic sanctions, targeted drone strikes, etc) are never "cause for war."

And again, this is completely independent of whether or not it's the right thing to do. If you can't get over your cognitive dissonance long enough to recognize that sometimes the right thing to do can cause immense harm, I don't know what to tell you. You should still recognize that sanctions are not neutral acts, and they do kill people as surely as a gun does. Thinking otherwise means you're somehow still stuck in the 19th century's idea of war (and even they would probably consider a trade blockade an act of war).

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

#62

Post by erdos4d »

Hendrikto wrote: post #36
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.

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 his…

Absent evidence to the contrary, my take on Putin's actions are that he wishes to reestablish the buffer region Russia has historically maintained around itself to absorb invaders. He controls every state near him except Ukraine, so I would let him have it and then he will have his buffer and hopefully be happy. He has nowhere else to go after that except actually attack NATO, after which there is world war, so the appeasement that is possible in this case is rather limited, it really can't go further than this.

Anyway, I get the argument that you should stand up to the bully, but this guy gives me the vibe that he's actually all-in and will (literally) lose his head if he loses this war. I think if this continues and he gets into a losing spot, he will gamble that his nuclear forces will win. I don't see any other option for him actually.

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

#63

Post by anikan_vader »

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…

Blockading a port is only achievable by destroying vessels and people attempting to access that port. Similar to establishing a no-fly zone, it is an action that almost always involves shooting at people.

I simply don't understand the moral argument for why people and countries are required to engage in trades that produce economic surplus if they dislike the person or country with whom they are trading.

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

#64

Post by rocqua »

renlo wrote: post #39
rocqua wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"

I had not considered that.

It seems like "dude has nukes and feels backed into a wall" is just really shite. You either give him what he wants, or you risk nuclear war.

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

#65

Post by simonh »

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…

Sanctions of the kind now being imposed on Russia, and previous imposed on North Korea are the modern equivalent of a siege to starve your opponent out.

It's not just a matter of abstaining from trading with them, the US and Europe are blockading trade by third parties as well. Even the bank of China has suspended dealings with some Russian banks because doing so would incur legal penalties on them from the US. Even parts manufactured in third party countries that were made using US equipment or technology are barred from export to Russia no matter who makes them or where.

The US and Europe are construing a technical argument that, well, these are US technologies, and it's ok to block trading with them in Dollars because the US technically owns all dollars, but the effect is to coerce many third parties into unwillingly participating in the blockade. Technically no it's not really an act of war. In practice it's absolutely a direct attack on the Russian economy and if not an act of war definitely an act of explicit aggression.

I say this as someone who fully and wholeheartedly supports these sanctions and believes they are well deserved. They are the right thing to do. I wish we were doing a lot, lot more and as soon as we can stop buying their oil and gas too the better.

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

#66

Post by stephen999 »

erdos4d wrote: post #62
Hendrikto wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 his…

Absent evidence to the contrary, my take on Putin's actions are that he wishes to reestablish the buffer region Russia has historically maintained around itself to absorb invaders. He controls every state near him except Ukraine, so I would let him have it and then he will have his buffer and hopefully be happy. He has nowhere else to go after that except actually attack NATO, after which there is world war, so the a…

Really he controls NATO member Latvia? He controls Finland? He controls Poland? All these countries are only a few hundred miles away.

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

#67

Post by vaidhy »

LanceH wrote: post #54
vaidhy wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 attack…

> And what does behaving nicely mean, in practice? Topically, it means not rolling tanks into another country and killing their people. Not sure why this is difficult to understand. Russia isn't reacting to sanctions. Sanctions are a reaction to war.

How about sanctions against other countries? It is so easy to make this only about Russia, but the post is not just about this one

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

#68

Post by belorn »

coldtea wrote: post #29
belorn wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sanctions are not independent country decisions for "not buying X". In real life they work by throwing a huge economy's and diplomatic power's might against lesser countries they don't like, and in pressuring satellite countries and global organizations a side controls to stop trading, sending supplies, even food and health kits, to other countries.

People are not exclusively operating on an independent basis. They form societies, like countries, and abide to democratic elections. People who work together occasionally achieves more than what each independently would.

Same occurs with nations. Small nations joins together to form large collection of nations, voting democratically on rules and decisions. EU is an union of European countries. If a country want to be in EU they will have to follow the decisions on the democratic process. We can eval this further and say that independent individuals can choose to form nations, and those independent nations can choose to form unions, and those unions can form global trade agreements, each however limited to the democratic process which dictate conditions, rules and laws.

Individuals can also choose to leave their countries, countries can leave unions, and unions can leave the global trade agreements. It is a choice. They do however loose the ability to achieve those things that is only possible when people work together.

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

#69

Post by jansen555 »

I expect Russia to boost assasination squads. Most companies have no access to secret service. Not only they are sitting ducks, their families too. All I can say is see mysterious and over the top deaths of public companies c-level tier. As you can see Putin shelling civilians building. But what Ukrainian news source didn't tell you is that those building have civilians taking up arms. Once you do that it is a fair gain to bomb you. American routinely did that. Ever heard of Obama bombing hospitals? Killing children? Killing goat herders that "look" like OBL? These civilians upgraded themselves to enemy combatant status. Yes, rise of sanctions as modern war tool. But so is economic civilians assasinations too.
Post reply on HN