7 ms·

I used to believe strongly in financial sanctions over war but I'm becoming more skeptical. Markets and industry are a very hard thing to constrain at a global

by dmix 1y ago

I used to believe strongly in financial sanctions over war but I'm becoming more skeptical. Markets and industry are a very hard thing to constrain at a global scale. To do it effectively you basically encourage a giant financial surveillance state and need put huge pressure on partner countries - who often don't even implement it meaningfully. You make business harder for everyone and create lucrative black market organize crime business. Military action is appearing more preferable to that. For example: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxk454kxz8o https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cdxk454kxz8o > In the wake of the February 2022 invasion, Ukraine's allies imposed sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons. The US and UK banned Russian oil and gas, while the EU banned Russian seaborne crude imports, but not gas. > Despite this, by 29 May, Russia had made more than €883bn ($973bn; £740bn) in revenue from fossil fuel exports since the start of the full-scale invasion, including €228bn from the sanctioning countries, according to the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA). > The lion's share of that amount, €209bn, came from EU member states. Meaning 3 years into the war Europe is still sending more $$ to Russia for gas than they send Ukraine in aid

beauzero 1y ago
The only other options are psychological or kinetic.
- mindslight 1y ago
  Why not tariffs? Basically the continuous version of discrete sanctions, that wouldn't encourage as much routing around. Tax Russian oil/gas at the max point in the Laffer (-esque) curve, with all the revenue flowing as direct aid to Ukraine. (I know 'tariff' has become a dirty word these days to due the obvious abuse, but I swear I'm making this comment in good faith)
  - jltsiren 1y ago
    Europe kept buying Russian oil and gas, because other sources could not come online quickly enough. Tariffs would have only made energy even more expensive than it already was. Now it's mostly Hungary and Slovakia buying Russian energy, as well as some LNG imports. Those two countries are not too keen on sanctioning Russia, especially in ways that would hurt their economy. Any attempts to impose tariffs on energy imports from Russia would have led to a major internal crisis in the EU.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      > Europe kept buying Russian oil and gas, because other sources could not come online quickly enough They did do sanctions, so I don't know what you're trying to argue. > Tariffs would have only made energy even more expensive than it already was. Not as expensive as outright sanctions, of course. As I said - sanctions are discrete (yes or no), whereas tariffs are a continuous knob.
      - jltsiren 1y ago
        There were essentially no sanctions impacting Russian energy exports to Europe. Those would have hurt Europe much more than Russia. If you can't export something, the damage is proportional to the volume of the exports. But if you don't have enough energy, your entire economy suffers. The increases in energy prices mostly came from voluntary attempts to find alternatives to Russian energy and from Russia constraining the supply.
        Kbelicius 1y ago
        Why would Russia voluntarily give up money by constraining the supply during the war? That makes absolutely no sense.
        Sabinus 1y ago
        Coersion. A comparatively small amount of revenue being given up could scare Europe away from supplying Ukraine with materiel. The Russians put out ads about how Europe would be freezing through winter.
    - petre 1y ago
      The US already started to pressure these two. We'll see how it goes. Ukraine could always blow up or sabotage the pipelines or some of the pumping stations if they think it's appropriate, either in Russia or on their own territory.
      - 1y ago
  - Terr_ 1y ago
    > Why not tariffs? Basically the continuous version of discrete sanctions There are still some qualitative differences: With sanctions, you'll know something dodgy has occurred when you find a pallet of My Little Putin dolls traveling through the port, you don't need to call up a bunch of lawyers and accountants. That said, I readily admit that oil is a lot more disguise-able and fungible.
  - magicalhippo 1y ago
    Because suddenly the oil isn't Russian anymore but Indian or something like that. Here's[1] an article going into how after the 2014 sanctions suddenly a lot of tropical fruits started growing in Belarussia, or how the landlocked country suddenly started exporting tons of Belarusian shrimp. [1]: https://east-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Belarus-Embargoed-Food-Re-export-EU-Russia.pdf https://east-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Belarus-E...
onpointed 1y ago
Or encourage buying from alternative hydrocarbon suppliers, like Canada, Australia and the U.S.
- xienze 1y ago
  Russia is the third largest oil producing country, this plan was never going to work because oil is a fungible resource. Sure you can stop buying from Russia and buy from someone else, but that just kicks off a game of musical chairs where everyone is backfilling from someone else and eventually _someone_ is buying from Russia to make everything whole. If Russia was some insignificant player the world could have frozen them out entirely but they simply produce too much oil for the world to absorb the loss of all of it.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Everyone is aware that Russian crude oil will still enter the market through various channels regardless of sanctions. The point of sanctions is just to slightly reduce Russian government revenue. In combination with other measures this provides some leverage in negotiations over a peace settlement.
    - xienze 1y ago
      > The point of sanctions is just to slightly reduce Russian government revenue. In combination with other measures this provides some leverage in negotiations over a peace settlement. How's that working out? Apparently someone miscalculated.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - Kbelicius 1y ago
        Great. Russian revenue from gas and oil fell considerably since the start of the war.
mandevil 1y ago
25 years ago, IR scholar Dan Drezner wrote the book _The Sanctions Paradox_ which tried to explain, in an IR theory sort of way, why sanctions are used so often and achieve so little- they don't overthrow governments, they rarely even manage to make governments stop doing the things we don't like. He recently revisited that in FP magazine (https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/10/sanctions-paradox-russia-united-states/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/10/sanctions-paradox-russi...) arguing for keeping sanctions on Russia even though they clearly aren't going to coerce Russia into abandoning their war in Ukraine. The first reason is to re-enforce the global norm against territorial expansion. We've managed to go 80-odd years with a reasonable global norm against redrawing borders, and it is worth a lot to demonstrate that we- the global community- do not acquiesce. And the other reason is to weaken their economy for the grinding war of attrition that is currently happening, and not make territorial expansion easy for them.
- SpicyUme 1y ago
  Yeah, it seems hard to say military intervention is preferable to increased accounting and recordkeeping requirements. Or maybe sheltered is a better way to put. Which is a good thing! For most people alive on Earth right now haven't had to deal with wars of territorial expansion. Yes wars exist, and yes territorial expansion by military might conitnues, and military occupations from the US certainly don't help. But overall we're in a point of relative stability.
- username332211 1y ago
  The thing is, sanctions damage both the sanctioned nation and the sanctioner. I'm not really optimistic about western Europe's willingness to absorb damage in it economy in order to damage Russia. France's government expenditures are 55% of GDP, much of it financed by borrowing. That's the level maintained by major powers in the world wars. Can the French state demand more from a private sector that's funding the equivalent of a total war? Worse yet, western European politics gives you the strong impression all these expenditures are necessary to prevent the election of a pro-Russian government or a bloody revolution. Hence why sanctions seem to be something of a joke.
  - 1y ago
thinkingtoilet 1y ago
>Military action is appearing more preferable to that. Great call. Feel free to head to the front lines and put your life on the line. Or should only other people do that?
hkpack 1y ago
The reason for that is simple - Russia started its invasion _after_ making Europe dependent on its gas. In Ukraine a lot of people predicted that the war is inevitable after the latest north stream is finished. The reduction of purchase of gas from Russia did significantly impacted energy prices across EU to the point of populist far-right pro-russia governments rising in popularity (even though that is not the only reason). So Russia and China has a long term strategy of subverting the west and we are just reacting when there are no good options available. But, sanctions do work. The problem is that the economic power of the west is comparable these days to "global north".
- Mountain_Skies 1y ago
  Russia did not make Europe dependent on them for gas. Europe freely made that choice, even going so far as to do away with existing alternatives like nuclear in Germany. Trump even warned them. They had a wonderful time laughing at him while proclaiming the ignorant orange buffoon didn't understand Europe. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Everyone then pretended Europe didn't make itself vulnerable while also ridiculing anyone who dared sound an alarm about the potential danger. Europe wasn't forced. Europe chose and chose freely. Europe chose poorly.
  - asciii 1y ago
    If you're referring to the Nordstream pipeline, then Biden approved to have it blown as a calendestine operation. The EU parliament has admitted this. Europe did choose poorly, but it's not like the U.S. is an amicable partner. They want to sell their gas at their preferred prices as well.
    - nradov 1y ago
      The EU parliament has "admitted" no such thing. But it would be great if the US provided some clandestine support for destroying Russian infrastructure. Burn it all. https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-real-story-da24839c https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explos...
  - 1y ago
somat 1y ago
I don't know what the situation is now. but one of the more surreal aspects of the war was how the gas pipelines through Ukraine were kept open. Ukraine desperately needed the transit fees. and Russia desperately needed to sell it's gas. So here they were, in the middle of a war, still doing business with each other.
- supertrope 1y ago
  They also could not anger donor EU countries sucking on the far end of the pipe. So time was provided for them to switch to LNG from the US and Qatar.

by dmix 1y ago

beauzero 1y ago

The only other options are psychological or kinetic.

mindslight 1y ago
Why not tariffs? Basically the continuous version of discrete sanctions, that wouldn't encourage as much routing around. Tax Russian oil/gas at the max point in the Laffer (-esque) curve, with all the revenue flowing as direct aid to Ukraine. (I know 'tariff' has become a dirty word these days to due the obvious abuse, but I swear I'm making this comment in good faith)
- jltsiren 1y ago
  Europe kept buying Russian oil and gas, because other sources could not come online quickly enough. Tariffs would have only made energy even more expensive than it already was. Now it's mostly Hungary and Slovakia buying Russian energy, as well as some LNG imports. Those two countries are not too keen on sanctioning Russia, especially in ways that would hurt their economy. Any attempts to impose tariffs on energy imports from Russia would have led to a major internal crisis in the EU.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    > Europe kept buying Russian oil and gas, because other sources could not come online quickly enough They did do sanctions, so I don't know what you're trying to argue. > Tariffs would have only made energy even more expensive than it already was. Not as expensive as outright sanctions, of course. As I said - sanctions are discrete (yes or no), whereas tariffs are a continuous knob.
    - jltsiren 1y ago
      There were essentially no sanctions impacting Russian energy exports to Europe. Those would have hurt Europe much more than Russia. If you can't export something, the damage is proportional to the volume of the exports. But if you don't have enough energy, your entire economy suffers. The increases in energy prices mostly came from voluntary attempts to find alternatives to Russian energy and from Russia constraining the supply.
      - Kbelicius 1y ago
        Why would Russia voluntarily give up money by constraining the supply during the war? That makes absolutely no sense.
        Sabinus 1y ago
        Coersion. A comparatively small amount of revenue being given up could scare Europe away from supplying Ukraine with materiel. The Russians put out ads about how Europe would be freezing through winter.
  - petre 1y ago
    The US already started to pressure these two. We'll see how it goes. Ukraine could always blow up or sabotage the pipelines or some of the pumping stations if they think it's appropriate, either in Russia or on their own territory.
    - 1y ago
- Terr_ 1y ago
  > Why not tariffs? Basically the continuous version of discrete sanctions There are still some qualitative differences: With sanctions, you'll know something dodgy has occurred when you find a pallet of My Little Putin dolls traveling through the port, you don't need to call up a bunch of lawyers and accountants. That said, I readily admit that oil is a lot more disguise-able and fungible.
- magicalhippo 1y ago
  Because suddenly the oil isn't Russian anymore but Indian or something like that. Here's[1] an article going into how after the 2014 sanctions suddenly a lot of tropical fruits started growing in Belarussia, or how the landlocked country suddenly started exporting tons of Belarusian shrimp. [1]: https://east-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Belarus-Embargoed-Food-Re-export-EU-Russia.pdf https://east-center.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/Belarus-E...

onpointed 1y ago

Or encourage buying from alternative hydrocarbon suppliers, like Canada, Australia and the U.S.

xienze 1y ago
Russia is the third largest oil producing country, this plan was never going to work because oil is a fungible resource. Sure you can stop buying from Russia and buy from someone else, but that just kicks off a game of musical chairs where everyone is backfilling from someone else and eventually _someone_ is buying from Russia to make everything whole. If Russia was some insignificant player the world could have frozen them out entirely but they simply produce too much oil for the world to absorb the loss of all of it.
- nradov 1y ago
  Everyone is aware that Russian crude oil will still enter the market through various channels regardless of sanctions. The point of sanctions is just to slightly reduce Russian government revenue. In combination with other measures this provides some leverage in negotiations over a peace settlement.
  - xienze 1y ago
    > The point of sanctions is just to slightly reduce Russian government revenue. In combination with other measures this provides some leverage in negotiations over a peace settlement. How's that working out? Apparently someone miscalculated.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - Kbelicius 1y ago
      Great. Russian revenue from gas and oil fell considerably since the start of the war.

mandevil 1y ago

25 years ago, IR scholar Dan Drezner wrote the book _The Sanctions Paradox_ which tried to explain, in an IR theory sort of way, why sanctions are used so often and achieve so little- they don't overthrow governments, they rarely even manage to make governments stop doing the things we don't like. He recently revisited that in FP magazine (https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/10/sanctions-paradox-russia-united-states/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/10/sanctions-paradox-russi...) arguing for keeping sanctions on Russia even though they clearly aren't going to coerce Russia into abandoning their war in Ukraine. The first reason is to re-enforce the global norm against territorial expansion. We've managed to go 80-odd years with a reasonable global norm against redrawing borders, and it is worth a lot to demonstrate that we- the global community- do not acquiesce. And the other reason is to weaken their economy for the grinding war of attrition that is currently happening, and not make territorial expansion easy for them.

SpicyUme 1y ago
Yeah, it seems hard to say military intervention is preferable to increased accounting and recordkeeping requirements. Or maybe sheltered is a better way to put. Which is a good thing! For most people alive on Earth right now haven't had to deal with wars of territorial expansion. Yes wars exist, and yes territorial expansion by military might conitnues, and military occupations from the US certainly don't help. But overall we're in a point of relative stability.
username332211 1y ago
The thing is, sanctions damage both the sanctioned nation and the sanctioner. I'm not really optimistic about western Europe's willingness to absorb damage in it economy in order to damage Russia. France's government expenditures are 55% of GDP, much of it financed by borrowing. That's the level maintained by major powers in the world wars. Can the French state demand more from a private sector that's funding the equivalent of a total war? Worse yet, western European politics gives you the strong impression all these expenditures are necessary to prevent the election of a pro-Russian government or a bloody revolution. Hence why sanctions seem to be something of a joke.
- 1y ago

thinkingtoilet 1y ago

>Military action is appearing more preferable to that. Great call. Feel free to head to the front lines and put your life on the line. Or should only other people do that?

hkpack 1y ago

The reason for that is simple - Russia started its invasion _after_ making Europe dependent on its gas. In Ukraine a lot of people predicted that the war is inevitable after the latest north stream is finished. The reduction of purchase of gas from Russia did significantly impacted energy prices across EU to the point of populist far-right pro-russia governments rising in popularity (even though that is not the only reason). So Russia and China has a long term strategy of subverting the west and we are just reacting when there are no good options available. But, sanctions do work. The problem is that the economic power of the west is comparable these days to "global north".

Mountain_Skies 1y ago
Russia did not make Europe dependent on them for gas. Europe freely made that choice, even going so far as to do away with existing alternatives like nuclear in Germany. Trump even warned them. They had a wonderful time laughing at him while proclaiming the ignorant orange buffoon didn't understand Europe. Then Russia invaded Ukraine. Everyone then pretended Europe didn't make itself vulnerable while also ridiculing anyone who dared sound an alarm about the potential danger. Europe wasn't forced. Europe chose and chose freely. Europe chose poorly.
- asciii 1y ago
  If you're referring to the Nordstream pipeline, then Biden approved to have it blown as a calendestine operation. The EU parliament has admitted this. Europe did choose poorly, but it's not like the U.S. is an amicable partner. They want to sell their gas at their preferred prices as well.
  - nradov 1y ago
    The EU parliament has "admitted" no such thing. But it would be great if the US provided some clandestine support for destroying Russian infrastructure. Burn it all. https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explosion-real-story-da24839c https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/nord-stream-pipeline-explos...
- 1y ago

somat 1y ago

I don't know what the situation is now. but one of the more surreal aspects of the war was how the gas pipelines through Ukraine were kept open. Ukraine desperately needed the transit fees. and Russia desperately needed to sell it's gas. So here they were, in the middle of a war, still doing business with each other.

supertrope 1y ago
They also could not anger donor EU countries sucking on the far end of the pipe. So time was provided for them to switch to LNG from the US and Qatar.