> The problem with this type of sanctions is that they are only going to work once, no country on the periphery of "polite society" is going to put their faith

> The problem with this type of sanctions is that they are only going to work once, no country on the periphery of "polite society" is going to put their faith on any of these institutions going forward. The strength of these types of global payments systems is that they are global and neutral. If they stop being neutral soon enough they will stop being global. The problem with your type of thinking is that it can lead someone to sit on its tools until they're rusty and useless, out of fear of "using them up." It's probably an inevitability that these "global payment systems" stop being global, because globalization never brought the political unity it promised. Countries will inevitably recognize the vulnerabilities created by dependence on rival's systems, and if they're big enough, they'll eventually build alternatives to solve that. Honestly, I think the main problem with sanctions is they let political leaders delude themselves into thinking they're doing something to solve a problem, when they really aren't. Sanctions aren't going to get Putin to leave Ukraine: that's an immediate military problem that requires an immediate military solution. There's a small chance they'll destabilize the Russian regime over the long term, but I think the more likely outcome is they'll push Russia deeper into Chinese orbit, solidifying an alliance of rivals. Just look what happened to Belarus very recently.