4 ms·

just a little salt here. the reason Lipsky doesnt want you to consider Iran, Venezuela, or even Cuba is precicely because these type of direct sanctions couldn

just a little salt here. the reason Lipsky doesnt want you to consider Iran, Venezuela, or even Cuba is precicely because these type of direct sanctions couldn't kill these countries. these sanctions alone didnt drive the capitulation of the CCCP either. eventually globalism wins out. the idea of an untapped or taboo market is simply too offensive not to engage on some level. US companies get persistently caught with their hand in the $axis(evil) trading cookie jar and ITAR generally rewards them with a slap on the wrist.

rosndo 5y ago
Iran, Venezuela and Cuba are and were shitholes compared to todays Russia. The immediate QoL impact on the average Russian will be far bigger than it was for the average citizens of those countries.
- nopcode 5y ago
  > QoL impact on the average Russian What is the "average" Russian exactly? Moscow and St. Petersburg is only ~10% of the population. ~20% is completely rural (Boratesque) and the remainder (from what I've seen from vloggers) is _extremely_ depressing isolated small cities.
  - rosndo 5y ago
    You’re absolutely right, I definitely abused “average” there. Really I meant the middle classes and up. I mean the places which matter, big cities like Moscow, St Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don. The Boratesque villagers won’t be the ones who might overthrow the government, but the city-dwellers could.
    - alisonatwork 5y ago
      Iran, Venezuela and Cuba had/have a decent middle class too, if you ignore the rural peasants and people in other places that "don't matter".
  - telchior 5y ago
    This surprised me, so I checked. Moscow + St. Petersburg metro areas are 25+ million. They're actually 17% of the population, which is still pretty low considering their importance; Moscow's GDP alone is listed as $1 trillion, while Russia as a whole is $1.48 trillion. So the 20 million people in Moscow hold a lot more power, relatively, than the far-scattered 120 million
ceejayoz 5y ago
Sanctions on Iran worked pretty well until Trump torpedoed the nuclear deal. They're understandably leery of restarting it now. Venezuela's economy got pretty well demolished. Cuba's only blocked off from the US; they've been happily trading with pretty much everyone else.
- theteapot 5y ago
  > Sanctions on Iran worked pretty well until Trump torpedoed the nuclear deal. They're understandably leery of restarting it now. Reminds me of an article I read this morning (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/war-on-ukraine-where-did-americas-great-power-go/100859774 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/war-on-ukraine-where-...): > [Under Obama] Iran made a fortune out of its nuclear deal — halting but not abandoning its pursuit of nuclear weapons — and used the windfall to fund terrorism in the Middle East. I'm sure they'd love a restart under the same terms.
  - ceejayoz 5y ago
    That article's clearly an op-ed: > The Trump presidency. A man who exploited the worst of America, trashed alliances, cosied up to despots yet was a symptom of a system already poisonous. "Made a fortune" describes the lifting of sanctions as part of the deal; Iran got a variety of its frozen assets back. That we wasted that leverage (and years of multi-national diplomacy) by blowing up the deal unilaterally for no good reason is not Iran's fault.
    - theteapot 5y ago
      An op-ed is a type of article. The relevant paragraph was describing Obama's time in office. Do I have to qualify there is plenty of bad things said about Trump [and other x-presidents] in the article too?
      - ceejayoz 5y ago
        > The relevant paragraph was describing Obama's time in office. Deceptively so.
lentil_soup 5y ago
One detail in the case of Venezuela is that most sanctions were to individual people and companies associated with the government, not to the entire population.

rosndo 5y ago

Iran, Venezuela and Cuba are and were shitholes compared to todays Russia. The immediate QoL impact on the average Russian will be far bigger than it was for the average citizens of those countries.

nopcode 5y ago
> QoL impact on the average Russian What is the "average" Russian exactly? Moscow and St. Petersburg is only ~10% of the population. ~20% is completely rural (Boratesque) and the remainder (from what I've seen from vloggers) is _extremely_ depressing isolated small cities.
- rosndo 5y ago
  You’re absolutely right, I definitely abused “average” there. Really I meant the middle classes and up. I mean the places which matter, big cities like Moscow, St Petersburg, Rostov-on-Don. The Boratesque villagers won’t be the ones who might overthrow the government, but the city-dwellers could.
  - alisonatwork 5y ago
    Iran, Venezuela and Cuba had/have a decent middle class too, if you ignore the rural peasants and people in other places that "don't matter".
- telchior 5y ago
  This surprised me, so I checked. Moscow + St. Petersburg metro areas are 25+ million. They're actually 17% of the population, which is still pretty low considering their importance; Moscow's GDP alone is listed as $1 trillion, while Russia as a whole is $1.48 trillion. So the 20 million people in Moscow hold a lot more power, relatively, than the far-scattered 120 million

ceejayoz 5y ago

Sanctions on Iran worked pretty well until Trump torpedoed the nuclear deal. They're understandably leery of restarting it now. Venezuela's economy got pretty well demolished. Cuba's only blocked off from the US; they've been happily trading with pretty much everyone else.

theteapot 5y ago
> Sanctions on Iran worked pretty well until Trump torpedoed the nuclear deal. They're understandably leery of restarting it now. Reminds me of an article I read this morning (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/war-on-ukraine-where-did-americas-great-power-go/100859774 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-27/war-on-ukraine-where-...): > [Under Obama] Iran made a fortune out of its nuclear deal — halting but not abandoning its pursuit of nuclear weapons — and used the windfall to fund terrorism in the Middle East. I'm sure they'd love a restart under the same terms.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  That article's clearly an op-ed: > The Trump presidency. A man who exploited the worst of America, trashed alliances, cosied up to despots yet was a symptom of a system already poisonous. "Made a fortune" describes the lifting of sanctions as part of the deal; Iran got a variety of its frozen assets back. That we wasted that leverage (and years of multi-national diplomacy) by blowing up the deal unilaterally for no good reason is not Iran's fault.
  - theteapot 5y ago
    An op-ed is a type of article. The relevant paragraph was describing Obama's time in office. Do I have to qualify there is plenty of bad things said about Trump [and other x-presidents] in the article too?
    - ceejayoz 5y ago
      > The relevant paragraph was describing Obama's time in office. Deceptively so.

lentil_soup 5y ago

One detail in the case of Venezuela is that most sanctions were to individual people and companies associated with the government, not to the entire population.