11 ms·

Aren't sanctions rather used to punish the people, until they rise up against the leader we want to get rid of?

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
In the specific case of Russia, and other examples in the last several decades, there have been specific attempts to direct most of the pain at the rich and powerful classes in the target countries. You could argue (somewhat cynically but perhaps correctly) that these represent the only demographic capable of pushing change.
- unfocussed_mike 5y ago
  Put more succinctly than I managed!
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Yes and no -- current sanctions against Russia are aimed at illicit wealth, and they likely still will be. Western governments will probably try not to use sanctions that primarily hurt the Russian people, because there is little hope that will work; Putin has spent a decade building an explicitly backward-looking, history-whitewashing kind of nationalism, and people might tire of that, sure, but he's also been very good at very publicly helping his opponents more fully experience the view from high windows. Remember Don Jr's meeting with the Russians that was supposedly about adoption? It was actually the Magnitsky Act the Russians really wanted to talk about (they want it gone). He said as much himself, and it's clear that even the people advising the Trump campaign were decidedly chilly on the idea of getting rid of it. Global Magnitsky legislation is why Russia is upping the ante. While I'm no scholar of it, I would expect the West to start with strengthened Magnitsky-type sanctions that prevent oligarchs from getting their money out before things go bad. Because it is the oligarchs who can uproot Putin most quickly. Putin is personally weak and isolated at this point -- clearly either clinically vulnerable or otherwise terrified of catching Covid, and distrustful of everyone around him. He's clearly acting more emotionally and less rationally. Sanctions that target -- or isolate -- the wealth of his closest circle of oligarchs are more likely to get somewhere, because they will gnaw away at his sense of invulnerability.
sofixa 5y ago
Yes, and that has never actually worked, so recently there's been a change of tactic and new sanctions mostly target rich and powerful people and organisations.

In the specific case of Russia, and other examples in the last several decades, there have been specific attempts to direct most of the pain at the rich and powerful classes in the target countries. You could argue (somewhat cynically but perhaps correctly) that these represent the only demographic capable of pushing change.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Put more succinctly than I managed!

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

Yes and no -- current sanctions against Russia are aimed at illicit wealth, and they likely still will be. Western governments will probably try not to use sanctions that primarily hurt the Russian people, because there is little hope that will work; Putin has spent a decade building an explicitly backward-looking, history-whitewashing kind of nationalism, and people might tire of that, sure, but he's also been very good at very publicly helping his opponents more fully experience the view from high windows. Remember Don Jr's meeting with the Russians that was supposedly about adoption? It was actually the Magnitsky Act the Russians really wanted to talk about (they want it gone). He said as much himself, and it's clear that even the people advising the Trump campaign were decidedly chilly on the idea of getting rid of it. Global Magnitsky legislation is why Russia is upping the ante. While I'm no scholar of it, I would expect the West to start with strengthened Magnitsky-type sanctions that prevent oligarchs from getting their money out before things go bad. Because it is the oligarchs who can uproot Putin most quickly. Putin is personally weak and isolated at this point -- clearly either clinically vulnerable or otherwise terrified of catching Covid, and distrustful of everyone around him. He's clearly acting more emotionally and less rationally. Sanctions that target -- or isolate -- the wealth of his closest circle of oligarchs are more likely to get somewhere, because they will gnaw away at his sense of invulnerability.

sofixa 5y ago

Yes, and that has never actually worked, so recently there's been a change of tactic and new sanctions mostly target rich and powerful people and organisations.