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

Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

scholars-stage.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 88 posts

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#51

Post by praptak »

turtledove wrote: post #3
praptak wrote: post #2

So what's wrong with sanctions as an instrument of attrition?

You are punishing people for rolling poorly on the parental lottery. Some kid starving to death because of sanctions doesn't understand what's happening. Their parents will be too poor and hungry to meaningfully fight back against their leaders. It's only going to hurt the vulnerable people in a country - militaries and oligarchs will not be impacted unless you target them specifically and narrowly . Imagine if China…

> You are punishing people for rolling poorly on the parental lottery.

If you accept this argument, you are letting the dictator hold his population hostage. Also the same argument applies to killing the invading soldiers.

Also it's not like Russian people are dying from hunger.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#52

Post by codeflo »

jmyeet wrote: post #36
codeflo wrote: post #35

I have two issues with this reasoning. First, as a German (!), I always have a hard time with articles that claim bombing Germany in WW2 somehow wasn’t justified. What would have been the alternative? Leave the regime in power? Concede half or more of Europe? Shrug your shoulders and accept the industrial scale genocide? Note that almost the entire population was part of this murderous machine in some capacity, and t…

> I always have a hard time with articles that claim bombing Germany in WW2 somehow wasn’t justified. What would have bern the alternative? There's a distinction between military action and indiscriminate bombing of civilian population centers (eg Dresden, Tokyo). "Strategic bombing" here specifically refers to a policy of total destruction that intentionally leads to massive civilian death. It's the same policy that…

I have no illusions about the effect, I hope my last sentences made that clear. But I disagree about framing the cause the way you do. Let’s say I somehow depend on you, and I want food and Pokemon cards, but you don’t give you enough money to buy both, just one of the two. And I go and buy the Pokemon cards. Is it really your fault that I’m hungry?

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#53

Post by KptMarchewa »

newrotik wrote: post #50
deepsun wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, they are good policy. Speaking as one affected. Those who can move -- move out of the country (usually the most economically active people), weakening the regime ability to make weapons. Those who starve have nothing to lose, so they start fighting the regime. Revolutions never happen in well fed society.

What evidence do you have to support your claim? Many countries have been subjected to sanctions for years, yet their military power hasn't diminished significantly (NK, Iran, ...). The misery of the poor and disenfranchised, which you dismiss as people not "having anything anyways", has however been much exacerbated.

You must be joking if you think both countries military power haven't been effectively diminished. Only thing NK has going for them are nukes.

Iran too - they've been focused on reverse engineering cold war tech, which they did with mixed results.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#54

Post by codeflo »

robrorcroptrer wrote: post #30
alar44 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, ffs.

Free will and the self does not exist. Edit: with this I only meant to say that it is unfair to judge or blame - policies still need to be enforced which is in line with the established consensus of moral philosophy.

That’s a non-sequitur. If free will in the strict philosophical sense doesn’t exist (and I believe it might not), then we need to judge and blame to influence the decision process of current and potential offenders.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#55

Post by jmyeet »

praptak wrote: post #2

So what's wrong with sanctions as an instrument of attrition?

Three reasons:

1. They're highly ineffective in that they've almost never led to regime change;

2. "Economic sanctions" is a euphemism. They are violence that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable. The article correct likens them to strategic bombing; and

3. They're a form of collective punishment. In many circumstances this constitutes a war crime.

Let me give you an example of (3). Imagine there are a spate of burglaries in your area. The police have good cause to believe the suspects are in your ZIP code. They decide to confiscate $100,000 collectively and spread evenly over each resident of that ZIP code. Why? Because this will motivate the residents to figure out who the burglar is and turn them in while making restitution to the victims.

That is collective punishment.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#56

Post by KptMarchewa »

neilwilson wrote: post #34
glogla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Where do you think the Chinese get food from? Where do you think the Russians get food from? The belief in sanctions is the belief that the dollar is the one world currency - the silver coin. It’s fixed exchange rate thinking long after that went away All that needs to happen for people to be fed is for there to be a circular economy in agriculture that produces a vast surplus. Both China and Russia can do that inter…

You believe in fairy tales if you think that China-Russia trade matters at all.

Russia is below 2% of Chinese trade and decreasing. Netherlands, 10 million people country matters more for Chinese trade than Russia.

China only wants Russia to sold cheap raw resources, and will squeeze them until they fold like Iran. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93China_25-year_Coo...

Being a net importer is great. Net exporters sell their goods, getting way less than they produced and sold. What happens with your foreign currency reserves in times of high inflation like now? They rapidly devalue.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#57

Post by jmyeet »

codeflo wrote: post #52
jmyeet wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I always have a hard time with articles that claim bombing Germany in WW2 somehow wasn’t justified. What would have bern the alternative? There's a distinction between military action and indiscriminate bombing of civilian population centers (eg Dresden, Tokyo). "Strategic bombing" here specifically refers to a policy of total destruction that intentionally leads to massive civilian death. It's the same policy that…

I have no illusions about the effect, I hope my last sentences made that clear. But I disagree about framing the cause the way you do. Let’s say I somehow depend on you, and I want food and Pokemon cards, but you don’t give you enough money to buy both, just one of the two. And I go and buy the Pokemon cards. Is it really your fault that I’m hungry?

This is too binary.

Consider instead that 10,000 people collectively want food (necessities), Pokemon cards (luxuries) and electronics for military equipment (materiel). Before sanctions they bought all of these things. With sanctions they cannot. What will be the impact? The military will still get their requipment and the military as well as the rich and powerful will still get food (and probably their Pokemon cards) while the poor and vulnerable will starve.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#58

Post by KptMarchewa »

landemva wrote: post #19
glogla wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

If sanctions don't work, is there hypothetically a number of years after which USA should drop the sanctions? How many more years of sanctions on the people of Cuba?

Cuba sanctions exist only because Cubans living in USA want them to continue.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#60

Post by codeflo »

fuoqi wrote: post #49
sofixa wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 faul…

Quoted post unavailable.

> look like a clear propaganda to me

This somehow tickled my funny bone. I mean, who can deny that you’re an expert on the subject?

Post reply on HN