Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

Their history of strategic bombing is wrong. They fail to mention that the RAF was developed to primarily bomb civilians in Mesopotamia and elsewhere in the British empire. The development of bombing after WWI was really about imperial maintenance and putting down any internal strife. This can also be said of the Italians in Ethiopia. I think the point is that the technology developed at a time when the need for the Europeans with the technology was to fight imperial wars. Only later did WWII see the methods of bombing that has been used to quell imperial revolt get adapted to war. The Spanish civil war should get a mention here as well. Everyone knows about Guernica, etc.

Sanctions are just modern day siege warfare. Go look at the 80 years war between the Dutch and Spanish for some of the longest and most interesting sieges in history. In almost all examples one can find sieges or sanctions almost never result in a local popularion rising up against their local elites and leadership. The fact that this is not more widely discussed in American sanctions discourse is a testament to American war propaganda effectiveness. Name one country where American sanctions have resulted in a local population regime changing their leadership. I can't think of any. Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, Iraq, N Korea, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and of course Russia.

Go look at the list and find a single country under US sanctions where the USA has achieved regime change because of sanctions.

https://home.treasury.gov/policy-issues/financial-sanctions/...

Go look at the history of countries the US has sanctioned and try and find one that resulted in regime change. You will not find any.

Instead sanctions typically have the effect of prolonging conflict and solidifying the power structures of the local regime and elites. They're punitive and they affect the poorest of a country. The UN says the greatest humanitarian disaster right now is in in Yemen, and that's directly caused by US and UK sanctions. It won't win the war for the Saudis and UAE, but it's starving hundreds of thousands of Yemenis.

Sanctions against Cuba did not remove Castro. Instead it provided his regime an ability to control food distribution. I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Cuban people and their ability to live under US sanctions, but even if I hated Communism in my bones I would recognise that US sanctions on Cuba have been an abject failure.

Black markets and smuggling develop under sanctions and these get controlled by those in power. Sanctions make it much easier for established power structures to survive and thrive. Suddenly people can't get fuel, food and other essentials. They need to come to those in power and beg for them. So those in power can decide who gets these essential items, and even better yet, blame their enemies on the fact that they have to be rationed. Sanctions are both a material and propaganda gift to the regimes the US says they want to dethrone.

So who benefits from sanctions in the USA, why do they keep imposing them? I think the answer to this question is really complex. Partly because there is both real political will in the USA to see regime change in sanctioned countries and people who benefit materially from sanctions knowing that they will not succeed.

If sanctions are so bad at achieving their stated objectives, why does the USG keep imposing them? This is the interesting question.

I think worrying about the impact in civilians who had no part in a crimes by their fellow countrymen but are being punished by the bluntness of a response is perfectly reasonable. In fact, I find the opposite (an utter lack of concern for it) to be unreasonable.

That’s true whether the blunt response is economic sanctions or widespread bombing.

Those actions might still be the best available response overall, but that conclusion should be reached after considering the effects on innocent civilians, not after ignoring them.

>while Russian soldiers are raping, murdering and looting left and right

It's disgusting that you translate blatant low-quality propaganda which clearly aims to amplify hatred. Even Zelensky had to fire Denisova who was behind the most outrageous lies about "raping". The Western media liked to re-translate her sexual fantasies, but have you heard any official refutations of those claims?

P.S.: I wonder why this comment was flagged. Is the Denisova's case became too toxic and ruins the demonization narrative?

There are numerous recorded cases of rape (according to various neutral NGOs present on the field), and there was that intercepted call of a Russian soldier getting permission from his wife to rape, as long as he used protection.

Saying the obvious fact Russian army rapes shouldn't amplify hatred, because the Russian army should already be hated and despised for it's brutality. To an extent it's not their direct fault because many of soldiers are just poor young guys acting on primal instincts with nobody to teach them better ( on the contrary, their war crimes are encouraged).