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Sanctions are generally a stopgap measure. They can't create any meaningful gap for a very long time. I live in a country which has experienced some hard and s

Sanctions are generally a stopgap measure. They can't create any meaningful gap for a very long time. I live in a country which has experienced some hard and soft embargoes over the years, and let's look what has it done. - We wanted to buy drones, and denied. Now we are one of the biggest drone manufacturers in the world. - We denied air defense systems. We are developing a whole arsenal of missiles and rockets now, incl. standoff/cruise missiles. - We denied planes. Our 4.5th generation fighter program got a great speed boost. - We denied advanced naval technology. We built stealth ships, fast coastguard boats and all navigational systems which goes inside them. - We denied optical pods for drones and aerial vehicles. We built our own in 6 months. etc. etc... Sanctions and embargoes are the biggest catalyst for a country to advance their tech at tremendous velocity.

gabrielgio 1y ago
> They can't create any meaningful gap for a very long time. That highly depends on the size and natural resource available to the country.
sillystu04 1y ago
To play devils advocate, a lack of sanctions also allows countries to advance technology at a tremendous velocity. The Ford Motor Company's dealings in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union significantly helped the adoption of mass production in those countries.
heavyset_go 1y ago
They work for countries that kneecap themselves by being at the whims of capital and the market. Countries that don't constrain themselves like that can laugh at sanctions because they don't matter in that context.
- sigmoid10 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - coldtea 1y ago
    >Who cares about 35% inflation when you got your own drones to bomb Kurds, am I right? Orthogonal. You can have 35% inflation AND no drones or good arms in general. Which is worse, especially if this lack makes it easier to get invaded or "regime changed" into a failed style. >Which btw. was the original reason why Obama didn't want to give Turkey combat capable drones. The welfare of the Kurds, or using them as a proxy force against Syria, Iran, and abandoning them whenever convenient?
    - sigmoid10 1y ago
      >You can have 35% inflation AND no drones or good arms in general. I guess you can always be worse off as a country, no argument there. >if this lack makes it easier to get invaded or "regime changed" into a failed style. I don't understand what you mean. Are you saying it would be better if a country gets US weapons while being under threat of being "regime changed" into an enemy? Because that somehow seems even worse. And that's literally what the US was afraid of in Ukraine. >The welfare of the Kurds I suppose they don't care if the bombs are dropped by Turkish or US drones. But at least the sanctions delayed it by ~half a decade, so there's that.
      - coldtea 1y ago
        You said "who cares about 35% inflation when you got your own drones" Based on the parent you were replying to, I take it to imply: "don't make drones to avoid sanctions (even if it means not having arms), lest you get inflation", the latter of which you paint as the worse outcome. So, the point I made above is that if not having drones/arms etc makes it easier to be regime changed/turned into failed state, then, yes, 35% inflation would still be a small cost to pay to avoid it.
        sigmoid10 1y ago
        I still don't get it. Are you saying that we also shouldn't send weapons to Ukraine because there is a real threat that they will end up in the enemy's hands? Or are you saying we should definitely send weapons because the opposite is a guaranteed regime change? It's kind of a lose-lose from a US POV (just like Turkey) and it still misses the actual point: Both Ukraine and Turkey will do anything to achieve their goals, they don't care what it takes to get there, even if it comes at enormous cost to their own population.
- roenxi 1y ago
  > They work for countries that kneecap themselves by being at the whims of capital and the market. Typically it actually looks like the opposite. When I look at, eg, North Korea or Iran - if I were going to try and make them wealthy it is mostly internal policies that are the problem and not external ones. If North Korea set itself up with single digit % company and income tax combined with a strong rule of law, local education programs and a liberal economy it would barely matter what sanctions were imposed on them. A tide of money would flow in and they'd eventually be wealthy under their own power anyway if not. Although it isn't obvious why anyone would sanction a small well run country; there is a correlation between sanctions and incompetent governance.
  - kingkawn 1y ago
    This is the most profoundly arrogant thing I’ve read in a while, kudos! It’s hard to stand out on the internet these days
  - anticodon 1y ago
    Most of the sanctions are whac-a-mole game played by the West (mostly by USA): as soon as one of the peripheral countries starts developing its economy, gains more wealth, starts to produce something the competes with products of Western companies, or attempts to avoid use of USD (because it allows immense enrichment of USA simply by printing it in whatever quantities), soon there starts: - firstly, media attack ("they're dictatorship!", "they're genociding someone", etc), preparing population for stricter measures - secondly, color revolution, which, if successful, puts puppet malleable government in power, and makes the country ultra-poor (most of the countries, where color revolutions staged by US/West succeeded, became significantly poorer) - if color revolution didn't work, there's always an option to just bomb the country, because it's always ignored if all the international treaties and laws are ignored if USA or Israel bomb any other nation.
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      The US has a strong record of interfering with foreign countries in way that advantage their interests, but at the same time the fact that you bring the “color revolution” phrase is a strong marker that you are reading way too much Russian (imperialist) propaganda disguised as anti-imperialism, which really is no better than feeding on the neoconservative narrative.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Y_Y 1y ago
I presume you're talking about Turkey/Türkiye. If so, do you think it makes a difference that Turkey is a NATO member, and on (relatively) good terms with the Western powers? For all the ideological differences and geopolitcal nervousness I don't think the US or EU see themselves as potentially fighting against Turkey, and so they don't feel the need to go to the trouble of strict sanctions or sabotaging local tech.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  > and on (relatively) good terms with the Western powers? In recent years the relationship between Turkey and Western countries has been OK-ish (though far from stellar, see the S-400-related tensions or the French-Trukish tension in the Mediterranean). But if you look at it on a longer perspective, the relationship used to be very tense, first there was the Cyprus crisis leading to pretty harsh western sanctions on military equipment, and then the cold war between Turkey and Greece in the Aegean see, with occasional real fire air combat and casualties.
firesteelrain 1y ago
What country? Your website is out of Germany. Germany is in NATO.
- sofixa 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - bayindirh 1y ago
    I have never been judged so hard in a very long time, thank you. You get extra points for making assumptions about my location, living conditions and political views from a single IP address. That was really great. Kudos. BTW, you can't be more wrong about me than that comment, even if you tried harder(er). We normally don't talk about that here, but seriously, prejudice is running high in this instance.
    - firesteelrain 1y ago
      To be fair, it wasn't discussed until you made it part of your identity in your GP.
      - bayindirh 1y ago
        I intentionally left the county name out in the beginning, actually. I also semi-knowingly didn’t answer direct comments about country, either. To not devolve it into politics too much. On the other hand, I’m not bothered by it. I just wanted to point out that making assumptions from my homepage’s IP address is wrong. We all say rude things sometimes, and that’s OK. We’re human. No hard feelings here. Lastly, to be honest, I neither flagged nor downvoted that comment.
        firesteelrain 1y ago
        It’s in your profile and pretty easily inferred from your comment when you compile the two or more pieces of information together. We can’t blame people for that
seydor 1y ago
Turkey chose to develop a large defense industry. There were restrictions on them acquiring some US weapons (even though they are NATO member) but that wasn't the motivating factor, it was a political choice to develop large defense sector. Other countries like Iran however, do develop their own drones because of sanctions
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  The strict tensions imposed after Turkey's intervention in/invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974 played a key role in the development of the Turkish defense industry.
corimaith 1y ago
If this was true then countries could just impose import restrictions if they wanted to "advance their tech at tremendous velocity".
- zorked 1y ago
  This is called "import substitution" and was incredibly popular in the age before neoliberalism. If your country is rich today you probably did a lot of that in the past.
- randomNumber7 1y ago
  It also depends if the country has a realistic capability to catch up with their own tech. So for Congo it would probably be a bad move. China is a different story imho.
- buyucu 1y ago
  Which they do all the time. Import substitution is a thing. It works.

gabrielgio 1y ago

> They can't create any meaningful gap for a very long time. That highly depends on the size and natural resource available to the country.

sillystu04 1y ago

To play devils advocate, a lack of sanctions also allows countries to advance technology at a tremendous velocity. The Ford Motor Company's dealings in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union significantly helped the adoption of mass production in those countries.

heavyset_go 1y ago

They work for countries that kneecap themselves by being at the whims of capital and the market. Countries that don't constrain themselves like that can laugh at sanctions because they don't matter in that context.

sigmoid10 1y ago
[flagged]
- coldtea 1y ago
  >Who cares about 35% inflation when you got your own drones to bomb Kurds, am I right? Orthogonal. You can have 35% inflation AND no drones or good arms in general. Which is worse, especially if this lack makes it easier to get invaded or "regime changed" into a failed style. >Which btw. was the original reason why Obama didn't want to give Turkey combat capable drones. The welfare of the Kurds, or using them as a proxy force against Syria, Iran, and abandoning them whenever convenient?
  - sigmoid10 1y ago
    >You can have 35% inflation AND no drones or good arms in general. I guess you can always be worse off as a country, no argument there. >if this lack makes it easier to get invaded or "regime changed" into a failed style. I don't understand what you mean. Are you saying it would be better if a country gets US weapons while being under threat of being "regime changed" into an enemy? Because that somehow seems even worse. And that's literally what the US was afraid of in Ukraine. >The welfare of the Kurds I suppose they don't care if the bombs are dropped by Turkish or US drones. But at least the sanctions delayed it by ~half a decade, so there's that.
    - coldtea 1y ago
      You said "who cares about 35% inflation when you got your own drones" Based on the parent you were replying to, I take it to imply: "don't make drones to avoid sanctions (even if it means not having arms), lest you get inflation", the latter of which you paint as the worse outcome. So, the point I made above is that if not having drones/arms etc makes it easier to be regime changed/turned into failed state, then, yes, 35% inflation would still be a small cost to pay to avoid it.
      - sigmoid10 1y ago
        I still don't get it. Are you saying that we also shouldn't send weapons to Ukraine because there is a real threat that they will end up in the enemy's hands? Or are you saying we should definitely send weapons because the opposite is a guaranteed regime change? It's kind of a lose-lose from a US POV (just like Turkey) and it still misses the actual point: Both Ukraine and Turkey will do anything to achieve their goals, they don't care what it takes to get there, even if it comes at enormous cost to their own population.
roenxi 1y ago
> They work for countries that kneecap themselves by being at the whims of capital and the market. Typically it actually looks like the opposite. When I look at, eg, North Korea or Iran - if I were going to try and make them wealthy it is mostly internal policies that are the problem and not external ones. If North Korea set itself up with single digit % company and income tax combined with a strong rule of law, local education programs and a liberal economy it would barely matter what sanctions were imposed on them. A tide of money would flow in and they'd eventually be wealthy under their own power anyway if not. Although it isn't obvious why anyone would sanction a small well run country; there is a correlation between sanctions and incompetent governance.
- kingkawn 1y ago
  This is the most profoundly arrogant thing I’ve read in a while, kudos! It’s hard to stand out on the internet these days
- anticodon 1y ago
  Most of the sanctions are whac-a-mole game played by the West (mostly by USA): as soon as one of the peripheral countries starts developing its economy, gains more wealth, starts to produce something the competes with products of Western companies, or attempts to avoid use of USD (because it allows immense enrichment of USA simply by printing it in whatever quantities), soon there starts: - firstly, media attack ("they're dictatorship!", "they're genociding someone", etc), preparing population for stricter measures - secondly, color revolution, which, if successful, puts puppet malleable government in power, and makes the country ultra-poor (most of the countries, where color revolutions staged by US/West succeeded, became significantly poorer) - if color revolution didn't work, there's always an option to just bomb the country, because it's always ignored if all the international treaties and laws are ignored if USA or Israel bomb any other nation.
  - littlestymaar 1y ago
    The US has a strong record of interfering with foreign countries in way that advantage their interests, but at the same time the fact that you bring the “color revolution” phrase is a strong marker that you are reading way too much Russian (imperialist) propaganda disguised as anti-imperialism, which really is no better than feeding on the neoconservative narrative.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Y_Y 1y ago

I presume you're talking about Turkey/Türkiye. If so, do you think it makes a difference that Turkey is a NATO member, and on (relatively) good terms with the Western powers? For all the ideological differences and geopolitcal nervousness I don't think the US or EU see themselves as potentially fighting against Turkey, and so they don't feel the need to go to the trouble of strict sanctions or sabotaging local tech.

littlestymaar 1y ago
> and on (relatively) good terms with the Western powers? In recent years the relationship between Turkey and Western countries has been OK-ish (though far from stellar, see the S-400-related tensions or the French-Trukish tension in the Mediterranean). But if you look at it on a longer perspective, the relationship used to be very tense, first there was the Cyprus crisis leading to pretty harsh western sanctions on military equipment, and then the cold war between Turkey and Greece in the Aegean see, with occasional real fire air combat and casualties.

firesteelrain 1y ago

What country? Your website is out of Germany. Germany is in NATO.

sofixa 1y ago
[flagged]
- bayindirh 1y ago
  I have never been judged so hard in a very long time, thank you. You get extra points for making assumptions about my location, living conditions and political views from a single IP address. That was really great. Kudos. BTW, you can't be more wrong about me than that comment, even if you tried harder(er). We normally don't talk about that here, but seriously, prejudice is running high in this instance.
  - firesteelrain 1y ago
    To be fair, it wasn't discussed until you made it part of your identity in your GP.
    - bayindirh 1y ago
      I intentionally left the county name out in the beginning, actually. I also semi-knowingly didn’t answer direct comments about country, either. To not devolve it into politics too much. On the other hand, I’m not bothered by it. I just wanted to point out that making assumptions from my homepage’s IP address is wrong. We all say rude things sometimes, and that’s OK. We’re human. No hard feelings here. Lastly, to be honest, I neither flagged nor downvoted that comment.
      - firesteelrain 1y ago
        It’s in your profile and pretty easily inferred from your comment when you compile the two or more pieces of information together. We can’t blame people for that

seydor 1y ago

Turkey chose to develop a large defense industry. There were restrictions on them acquiring some US weapons (even though they are NATO member) but that wasn't the motivating factor, it was a political choice to develop large defense sector. Other countries like Iran however, do develop their own drones because of sanctions

littlestymaar 1y ago
The strict tensions imposed after Turkey's intervention in/invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974 played a key role in the development of the Turkish defense industry.

corimaith 1y ago

If this was true then countries could just impose import restrictions if they wanted to "advance their tech at tremendous velocity".

zorked 1y ago
This is called "import substitution" and was incredibly popular in the age before neoliberalism. If your country is rich today you probably did a lot of that in the past.
randomNumber7 1y ago
It also depends if the country has a realistic capability to catch up with their own tech. So for Congo it would probably be a bad move. China is a different story imho.
buyucu 1y ago
Which they do all the time. Import substitution is a thing. It works.