Trying to think when this worked well. Iran and North Korea had sanctions imposed on them for quite a bit of time, and they seem to have a pretty stable leaders

Trying to think when this worked well. Iran and North Korea had sanctions imposed on them for quite a bit of time, and they seem to have a pretty stable leadership structure for years. Perhaps some of the colored revolutions or Arab Spring movements but not sure how much sanctions played into those... As long as Putin can re-interpret this as an external aggression from the $insert_pejorative West, and broadcast that better than Twitter, CNN, etc, I can see those sanctions having an opposite effect and further solidify his power. On the other hand, I can see attacking those who are closer to him being a lot more effective. His billionaire friends not being able to travel to south of France for vacation is a much more serious threat than a regular person who cannot use Apple Pay or watch Netflix any longer.