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Brilliant move, but don't think for a second that it would accomplish anything significant other than giving us a misleading sense of justice. Economic sanction

Brilliant move, but don't think for a second that it would accomplish anything significant other than giving us a misleading sense of justice. Economic sanctions are the only way to change things over there. Of course Belarusian government would arrange things so that only the population will suffer from them, then use propaganda to divert the blame to the external world for economic collapse, loss of jobs etc. but that is normal; the idea behind sanctions isn't just to grab money form the king's wallet but also to light people's discontent so that they're a lot more motivated to revolt.

phtrivier 5y ago
I have to ask the candid question : is there any data to back the efficiency of financial sanctions ? Don't get me wrong, I find them preferable to military actions "in general" (although specific cases will differ, and military actions has not been extraordinary effective either...) I'm probably negativly biased by not having seen many dictators fall in the recent years, and a bunch of autocratic government flourish, while the US and EU are enacting sanctions all the time. That being said, maybe the effect can't be spectacular, and it's one of those "sit by the river..." things where you have to surrender to time and biology.
necovek 5y ago
Are you implying you can arrange for sanctions that would not have the population suffering from them (only the "government would arrange things so"): how would you achieve that? Perhaps you only meant that the ruling party will be protected from the financial downturn? I've found sanctions to have only reinforced the us-vs-the-world mentality in Serbia in the early 90s, and I don't think they achieved the goal of the Western countries at the time (which I have no idea what it was, but if it was to get people to dissent enough to overthrow the government, they didn't succeed). It was similar in the NATO bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in 1999, whereas NATO resorted to bombing civilian targets (like TV station, power plants and bridges in cities) to increase discontent, which did get the government to agree to some sort of surrender (which was only partial compared to the original demands), but this was basically sanctions++ (you not only stop external trade, but destroy things country has already built). Even then, government was overthrown a full year later mostly in parliamentary elections with some election-fraud drama sprinkled in. And people were already much better off than in the low times of early 90s (even outstanding foreign currency debts by banks to people from before the 90s financial collapse were being paid off at the time), so economic downturn was not the driver for the change. I think the core missing part in these "developing democracies" is the skill to compromise (as hundreds of registered political parties in Serbia would attest). As such, I would posit quite the contrary, that helping the population increase wealth would drive them to want to protect that wealth more through democratic and civil means, thus eventually overthrowing the government (I am sure we'll see that in China soon enough, even if it gets masqueraded as not switching away from "communism", though it's so huge that it is a special case). It's not as dramatic as war or sanctions, and might take a decade or two, but I am not sure sanctions have done a better job anywhere either.
- squarefoot 5y ago
  > Are you implying you can arrange for sanctions that would not have the population suffering from them Of course not. My point was that the elite will continue to enjoy most of their privileges while common people will struggle to buy a loaf of bread, which is more or less what happens with sanctions. International laws prohibit any other type of intervention, so the change has to come from the inside, and in my opinion the only way to facilitate it is to use sanctions to push the difference between ruling and poor class to the extreme so that it could ignite public revolt. It stinks, badly, but that's how politics works. I don't think the Serbia example applies here, back then there was a war, and I recall one of my school teachers, who was from Friuli (north east Italy) just meters from the then Yugoslavia, telling the then 10 years old me in the mid 70s about the mutual hatred between various ethnic groups in the area, like they were just waiting for a chance to go at war against each other. In Belarus, unless I missed something (corrections welcome) there is "just" people against their corrupt decades old oppressive government.
  - necovek 5y ago
    The hatred you are describing does not exist: it was manufactured and pushed by minorities with an agenda. How and why in the world would those mutually hating ethnicities ever unite into a single country (first Kingdom of Croatians, Serbians and Slovenes after WW1, after WW2 again into Yugoslavia). As for any other interventions, why not just give each person a donation of 100k euros to see if that works? Otherwise, people under sanctions would rather you not help them. As has been indicated previously, what are the examples of where sanctions have worked?

phtrivier 5y ago

I have to ask the candid question : is there any data to back the efficiency of financial sanctions ? Don't get me wrong, I find them preferable to military actions "in general" (although specific cases will differ, and military actions has not been extraordinary effective either...) I'm probably negativly biased by not having seen many dictators fall in the recent years, and a bunch of autocratic government flourish, while the US and EU are enacting sanctions all the time. That being said, maybe the effect can't be spectacular, and it's one of those "sit by the river..." things where you have to surrender to time and biology.

necovek 5y ago

Are you implying you can arrange for sanctions that would not have the population suffering from them (only the "government would arrange things so"): how would you achieve that? Perhaps you only meant that the ruling party will be protected from the financial downturn? I've found sanctions to have only reinforced the us-vs-the-world mentality in Serbia in the early 90s, and I don't think they achieved the goal of the Western countries at the time (which I have no idea what it was, but if it was to get people to dissent enough to overthrow the government, they didn't succeed). It was similar in the NATO bombing of Serbia and Montenegro in 1999, whereas NATO resorted to bombing civilian targets (like TV station, power plants and bridges in cities) to increase discontent, which did get the government to agree to some sort of surrender (which was only partial compared to the original demands), but this was basically sanctions++ (you not only stop external trade, but destroy things country has already built). Even then, government was overthrown a full year later mostly in parliamentary elections with some election-fraud drama sprinkled in. And people were already much better off than in the low times of early 90s (even outstanding foreign currency debts by banks to people from before the 90s financial collapse were being paid off at the time), so economic downturn was not the driver for the change. I think the core missing part in these "developing democracies" is the skill to compromise (as hundreds of registered political parties in Serbia would attest). As such, I would posit quite the contrary, that helping the population increase wealth would drive them to want to protect that wealth more through democratic and civil means, thus eventually overthrowing the government (I am sure we'll see that in China soon enough, even if it gets masqueraded as not switching away from "communism", though it's so huge that it is a special case). It's not as dramatic as war or sanctions, and might take a decade or two, but I am not sure sanctions have done a better job anywhere either.

squarefoot 5y ago
> Are you implying you can arrange for sanctions that would not have the population suffering from them Of course not. My point was that the elite will continue to enjoy most of their privileges while common people will struggle to buy a loaf of bread, which is more or less what happens with sanctions. International laws prohibit any other type of intervention, so the change has to come from the inside, and in my opinion the only way to facilitate it is to use sanctions to push the difference between ruling and poor class to the extreme so that it could ignite public revolt. It stinks, badly, but that's how politics works. I don't think the Serbia example applies here, back then there was a war, and I recall one of my school teachers, who was from Friuli (north east Italy) just meters from the then Yugoslavia, telling the then 10 years old me in the mid 70s about the mutual hatred between various ethnic groups in the area, like they were just waiting for a chance to go at war against each other. In Belarus, unless I missed something (corrections welcome) there is "just" people against their corrupt decades old oppressive government.
- necovek 5y ago
  The hatred you are describing does not exist: it was manufactured and pushed by minorities with an agenda. How and why in the world would those mutually hating ethnicities ever unite into a single country (first Kingdom of Croatians, Serbians and Slovenes after WW1, after WW2 again into Yugoslavia). As for any other interventions, why not just give each person a donation of 100k euros to see if that works? Otherwise, people under sanctions would rather you not help them. As has been indicated previously, what are the examples of where sanctions have worked?