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Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

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Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#61

Post by KptMarchewa »

jmyeet wrote: post #40
gsatic wrote: post #7

So what's the plan when China takes Taiwan?

The plan is we suck it up because there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. Why? Because China is a nuclear power. And unlike Russia, we are absolutely dependent on Chinese exports to a degree it would cripple us completely to place sweeping sanctions on China. Yes we have a law saying we will defend Taiwan. No we actually won't. Because we can't. It is worth noting that it isn't that easy to invade Taiwan. At i…

>The plan is we suck it up because there's absolutely nothing we can do about it. Why? Because China is a nuclear power.

No, China sucks it up because US is a nuclear power.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#62

Post by codeflo »

jmyeet wrote: post #57
codeflo wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 card…

But again, who is it that makes that call?

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#63

Post by rhn_mk1 »

KptMarchewa wrote: post #59
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we always blame people for their opinions? Can we blame the mentally underdeveloped, like children?

Quoted post unavailable.

Are you advocating punishing children for the rapes committed by adults?

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#64

Post by codeflo »

jmyeet wrote: post #55
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 spat…

1. It’s a bit of a straw man to claim that’s the only reason or measurement of success for sanctions.

2. The violence on the vulnerable is inflicted by the sanctioned regime, not the sanctioners. As another commenter noted, these regimes effectively hold their population hostage. They could feed their population, they just prefer to pour everything into the military.

3. In your example, are the residents following the orders of those burglars?

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#65

Post by throwawayffffas »

The main flaw of the article is this assumption right here.

> "We imagine that the pain these civilians experience will translate into political change—either a change in regime, or a change in regime behavior."

The aim of the sanctions is not regime change, but the degradation of the Russian military's ability to wage war.

I think the author is observing the current sanctions in the same lens as the sanctions imposed after the occupation of Crimea, where there was a very hand wavy reasoning about integrated deterrence and how the pain of sanctions would make Russia pull out or at least not go forward with further aggression.

In my mind there is a very clear distinction in the aim of sanctions before and after beginning of the current Russian offensive, as I said before the aim now is clearly to hinder the offensive, before it was deterrence. I don't believe these particular sanctions are aimed at regime change.

Furthermore, as has been noted in the comment section of the article, while the strategic bombing -> low morale/regime change reasoning has been shown false, I think there is a still a lot of room to investigate how much the strategic bombings affected the targets ability to deploy it's forces. It's clear that to achieve victory in the context of the second world war there had to be boots on the ground, but that doesn't mean that the strategic bombing did not contribute.

Similarly because sanctions are not enough to achieve the argued final goal (regime change) that doesn't mean they don't have an effect.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#67

Post by yorwba »

glogla wrote: post #32
yorwba wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine dropping a bomb on a shipping container of iPhones. What's the point? What objective does it serve? How does it contribute to the war effort? Considering the cost of the bomb, I think the expected value is rather likely to be negative.

In videogame lingo, sanctions are a debuff. You won't see it working directly, but it very much contributes.

Contribute to what objective? How? How much? At what cost?

I think sanctions should be applied based on answers to these questions, not some vague idea that they'll be like a debuff in a video game.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#68

Post by scotty79 »

jmyeet wrote: post #55
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 spat…

Economic sanction are just saying we are not playing with you (in the game called trade) if you can't behave.

You are not doing anything to anybody. You are just withdrawing your participation from mutually beneficial activity because of your principles. You always have right to do that.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#69

Post by eastbound »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #63
KptMarchewa wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Are you advocating punishing children for the rapes committed by adults?

Germany paid the war damages of WWI (1914-1918!) until the 1990ies. War damages hugely aggravated the economic crisis of 1932, leading to you-know-what; I’ve always been surprised that we didn’t take this as a lesson that punishing children for the faults of their parents was a double-edged idea. Imagine being 17 in 1934, having to pay and apologize for a war you never did, let alone a war that you could never have influenced or lobbied against.

I’m still torn about this approach. But OTOH, peace must be enforced and warmonging nations must be weakened until the lesson is learnt. And we equate citizen with their nation’s decisions.

Re: Sanctions and Strategic Bombing

#70

Post by scotty79 »

ikrenji wrote: post #27
fuoqi wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither Taiwan, nor Ukraine are about economic value. It's about "historic justice" and protecting vital long-term national interests as seen by rulers of China and Russia respectively (e.g. in the Chinese case the latter is about breaking the first island chain). The economic aspect certainly plays a major limiting role, but it has limits as we can see today with Russia.

one could say it was in the vital long-term national interest of russia NOT to invade ukraine. taiwan / ukraine is just megalomania of a few men

Are you kidding? What about all the natural resources of Ukraine? And huge arable land?

If Russia managed to control Ukraine, even at terrible but temporary cost in 100 years Russia would be much better off with Ukraine than without. It would make Russia even more serious player on so many markets.

They never drew their economic power from people. They could exterminate all Ukrainians and still come on top economically in the long term if they controlled the land.

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