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I've seen in HN itself that some Russians complain that the sanctions are inconveniencing them even though they have "nothing to do" with the war. Good. That's

by smt88 5y ago

I've seen in HN itself that some Russians complain that the sanctions are inconveniencing them even though they have "nothing to do" with the war. Good. That's the point. Their country started a war, and they're the only ones who can stop it without triggering a nuclear crisis. They have to care. And since they don't care, sanctions and boycotts are making it personal for them in a non-deadly way. In the past, if your country's fascist dictator invaded another country, you got bombed. Now you just have a drop in quality of life. It seems like a much better type of warfare.

native_samples 5y ago
How exactly do they "stop" it? Remember that in the USA, private sector sanctions on Israel for the policies of its democratically elected people are deeply controversial and sometimes even illegal (BDS), even though there's an obvious way Israelis could stop those actions. There's a lot of naivety being bandied about in the last week. Everyone seems to agree Putin isn't really democratically elected (though are vague on the details of how he rigs this, beyond controlling TV channels), at the same time, somehow he's a dictator only because ordinary Russians just can't be bothered getting rid of him. This is a contradiction. Dictators stay in power even if almost everyone in a country wants to get rid of them because they have set things up that way. This is why sanctions never seem to work.
- witrak 5y ago
  It doesn't matter how difficult the change of Russia's government can be for Russians. Nobody else can do it. And history teaches us that nothing except very strong and overwhelming rage can induce heavily indoctrinated, brainwashed people to topple - forcibly or peacefully - a government. Thus we - the civilized world - have no choice. Sanctions influencing the living conditions of regular Russians are our sole weapon.
- smt88 5y ago
  > Everyone seems to agree Putin isn't really democratically elected (though are vague on the details of how he rigs this, beyond controlling TV channels) People are not vague about this. You just haven't bothered reading the details, it seems. Putin: - arrests and kills innocent political opponents - controls the media - kills journalists - kills whistleblowers - controls the (opaque) ballot-counting process, allowing him to change vote counts without any chance for an audit - monopolizes poll workers This has been covered extensively by the Carter Center, every major news publication in the US and Western Europe, and (I'm sure) quite a few blogs and comment sections. > at the same time, somehow he's a dictator only because ordinary Russians just can't be bothered getting rid of him. This is a contradiction. Most dictators in history were overthrown by their allies or their citizens. It's not a contradiction. With today's technology, you still can't quite have 100% control over a populace. If every adult suddenly decided to overthrow you, you'd still lose. This may change with improved autonomous warfare, but for now, it's possible for civilian uprisings to win. That doesn't make someone not a dictator. You're using an extreme definition of "dictator" if it must be someone who cannot be overthrown. Just as we had tyrant kings who were sometimes killed by lynch mobs, so too are there dictators who are overthrown by popular uprisings.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - native_samples 5y ago
    "Most dictators in history were overthrown by their allies or their citizens" Very few dictators in history have been overthrown by their autonomous citizen uprisings, and even when that has occurred the result is often ... more dictators. See: Egypt. Syria. Revolutionary France. China. And of course, Soviet Russia. "Just as we had tyrant kings who were sometimes killed by lynch mobs" I can't think of any examples of this happening in all of English history, but there were a lot of kings so maybe I missed one. The most famous similar event, the Peasant's Revolt, seemed at first to succeed but then ended with the rebels all being killed by the King. Mostly, tyrant kings stayed on the throne until they died of other causes like war or disease. In the case of Cromwell overthrowing the king, that's another example of one dictator being replaced by another. This whole idea that it's easy to create a stable democracy, that all you need to do is get rid of one guy at the top, is the basic failing of understanding that led to the west's mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The USA spent 20 years and untold amounts of resources trying to turn Afghanistan into a modern democracy, and literally the same week they left it went back to being a dictatorship of the Taliban. I don't think anyone knows how to reliably create stable democracies. Arguably even west Europe doesn't: see the massive 'elite' convulsions over Brexit, an act largely justified by the fact that the EU is itself a dictatorship (try to find out how and why exactly chief lawmaker von der Leyen got her job, and see for yourself). Where was all the outpouring of international support for democracy, self-determination and the ordinary people overthrowing foreign dictators then? Hmm, there wasn't any.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Remember that in the USA, private sector sanctions on Israel for the policies of its democratically elected people are deeply controversial and sometimes even illegal (BDS), even though there's an obvious way Israelis could stop those actions. That’s because supporting the policies targeted by those sanctions is policy supported by the people writing those laws, not because they don't think sanctions work. If they didn't believe sanctions (and boycott/divestment, which is the same thing without government mandate) worked, they wouldn't blatantly violate free speech and association rights to suppress them, and advocacy for them.
ashwagary 5y ago
>Ive seen in HN itself that some Russians complain that the sanctions are inconveniencing them even though they have "nothing to do" with the war. >Good. That's the point. You think it's good that roughly 1 million children in Iraq died due to US sanctions too? In my opinion, thinking collective punishment is valid is a sign of moral bankruptcy.
- smt88 5y ago
  This is nothing at all like Iraq. - A million Russian children are not going to die. Not even 1,000 will. - Putin, unlike Hussein, has thousands of nuclear weapons. - Russia, unlike Iraq, invaded a sovereign, democratic country in order to subjugate it under a violent dictator. > In my opinion, thinking collective punishment is valid is a sign of moral bankruptcy. Economic punishment for Russians is better than death for Ukrainians. Those are the options. If Putin were unchecked in his conquest of Ukraine, he would take other countries and kill thousands more people. You say you think collective punishment is morally bankrupt without saying what a more moral alternative is to stop Putin (or perhaps you think tens of thousands of Ukrainians should be left to die instead?)
  - ashwagary 5y ago
    Most of what you said is irrelevant and deflects from the core point. This scenario is why SWIFT's % of total international transactions has been declining for years. Sanction powers will be removed from western countries shortly by routing around them. A large % of our economy is financial services, the market will inevitably crash when alternate routes are chosen.

by smt88 5y ago

native_samples 5y ago

How exactly do they "stop" it? Remember that in the USA, private sector sanctions on Israel for the policies of its democratically elected people are deeply controversial and sometimes even illegal (BDS), even though there's an obvious way Israelis could stop those actions. There's a lot of naivety being bandied about in the last week. Everyone seems to agree Putin isn't really democratically elected (though are vague on the details of how he rigs this, beyond controlling TV channels), at the same time, somehow he's a dictator only because ordinary Russians just can't be bothered getting rid of him. This is a contradiction. Dictators stay in power even if almost everyone in a country wants to get rid of them because they have set things up that way. This is why sanctions never seem to work.

witrak 5y ago
It doesn't matter how difficult the change of Russia's government can be for Russians. Nobody else can do it. And history teaches us that nothing except very strong and overwhelming rage can induce heavily indoctrinated, brainwashed people to topple - forcibly or peacefully - a government. Thus we - the civilized world - have no choice. Sanctions influencing the living conditions of regular Russians are our sole weapon.
smt88 5y ago
> Everyone seems to agree Putin isn't really democratically elected (though are vague on the details of how he rigs this, beyond controlling TV channels) People are not vague about this. You just haven't bothered reading the details, it seems. Putin: - arrests and kills innocent political opponents - controls the media - kills journalists - kills whistleblowers - controls the (opaque) ballot-counting process, allowing him to change vote counts without any chance for an audit - monopolizes poll workers This has been covered extensively by the Carter Center, every major news publication in the US and Western Europe, and (I'm sure) quite a few blogs and comment sections. > at the same time, somehow he's a dictator only because ordinary Russians just can't be bothered getting rid of him. This is a contradiction. Most dictators in history were overthrown by their allies or their citizens. It's not a contradiction. With today's technology, you still can't quite have 100% control over a populace. If every adult suddenly decided to overthrow you, you'd still lose. This may change with improved autonomous warfare, but for now, it's possible for civilian uprisings to win. That doesn't make someone not a dictator. You're using an extreme definition of "dictator" if it must be someone who cannot be overthrown. Just as we had tyrant kings who were sometimes killed by lynch mobs, so too are there dictators who are overthrown by popular uprisings.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- native_samples 5y ago
  "Most dictators in history were overthrown by their allies or their citizens" Very few dictators in history have been overthrown by their autonomous citizen uprisings, and even when that has occurred the result is often ... more dictators. See: Egypt. Syria. Revolutionary France. China. And of course, Soviet Russia. "Just as we had tyrant kings who were sometimes killed by lynch mobs" I can't think of any examples of this happening in all of English history, but there were a lot of kings so maybe I missed one. The most famous similar event, the Peasant's Revolt, seemed at first to succeed but then ended with the rebels all being killed by the King. Mostly, tyrant kings stayed on the throne until they died of other causes like war or disease. In the case of Cromwell overthrowing the king, that's another example of one dictator being replaced by another. This whole idea that it's easy to create a stable democracy, that all you need to do is get rid of one guy at the top, is the basic failing of understanding that led to the west's mistakes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The USA spent 20 years and untold amounts of resources trying to turn Afghanistan into a modern democracy, and literally the same week they left it went back to being a dictatorship of the Taliban. I don't think anyone knows how to reliably create stable democracies. Arguably even west Europe doesn't: see the massive 'elite' convulsions over Brexit, an act largely justified by the fact that the EU is itself a dictatorship (try to find out how and why exactly chief lawmaker von der Leyen got her job, and see for yourself). Where was all the outpouring of international support for democracy, self-determination and the ordinary people overthrowing foreign dictators then? Hmm, there wasn't any.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Remember that in the USA, private sector sanctions on Israel for the policies of its democratically elected people are deeply controversial and sometimes even illegal (BDS), even though there's an obvious way Israelis could stop those actions. That’s because supporting the policies targeted by those sanctions is policy supported by the people writing those laws, not because they don't think sanctions work. If they didn't believe sanctions (and boycott/divestment, which is the same thing without government mandate) worked, they wouldn't blatantly violate free speech and association rights to suppress them, and advocacy for them.

ashwagary 5y ago

>Ive seen in HN itself that some Russians complain that the sanctions are inconveniencing them even though they have "nothing to do" with the war. >Good. That's the point. You think it's good that roughly 1 million children in Iraq died due to US sanctions too? In my opinion, thinking collective punishment is valid is a sign of moral bankruptcy.

smt88 5y ago
This is nothing at all like Iraq. - A million Russian children are not going to die. Not even 1,000 will. - Putin, unlike Hussein, has thousands of nuclear weapons. - Russia, unlike Iraq, invaded a sovereign, democratic country in order to subjugate it under a violent dictator. > In my opinion, thinking collective punishment is valid is a sign of moral bankruptcy. Economic punishment for Russians is better than death for Ukrainians. Those are the options. If Putin were unchecked in his conquest of Ukraine, he would take other countries and kill thousands more people. You say you think collective punishment is morally bankrupt without saying what a more moral alternative is to stop Putin (or perhaps you think tens of thousands of Ukrainians should be left to die instead?)
- ashwagary 5y ago
  Most of what you said is irrelevant and deflects from the core point. This scenario is why SWIFT's % of total international transactions has been declining for years. Sanction powers will be removed from western countries shortly by routing around them. A large % of our economy is financial services, the market will inevitably crash when alternate routes are chosen.