Open ended economic penalties with ill-defined goals hardly ever change the behavior of their targets.
June 17, 2022
Written by
Daniel Larison
Sanctions usually fail to achieve any stated policy goals, and they frequently backfire and encourage more of the behavior that they are meant to stop.
The maximalist sanctions on Russia imposed in response to Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine are proving to be no different. A recent Bloomberg report called attention to the unwelcome but predictable consequences of broad Russia sanctions: “But some Biden administration officials are now privately expressing concern that rather than dissuading the Kremlin as intended, the penalties are instead exacerbating inflation, worsening food insecurity and punishing ordinary Russians more than Putin or his allies.”
These harmful effects of broad sanctions should not come as a surprise to anyone that has followed these issues closely, since this is what almost always happens when a country’s entire economy is targeted for punishment. The inability to change the behavior of a targeted government is even less surprising, since it is extremely rare for unfriendly authoritarian states to knuckle under in the face of U.S.-led pressure campaigns. The negative effects of these sanctions on Russia are bound to be greater and more far-reaching than in previous cases because Russia is a much bigger player in the global economy. The harsher the economic warfare becomes, the more it is going to harm the entire world.
Often sold as a “low-cost” alternative to military conflict, broad sanctions in practice are an indiscriminate attack on an entire nation. They inflict punishment on tens of millions of ordinary people while leaving the wealthy and well-connected mostly untouched. In some cases, they create humanitarian crises all on their own, and in others, such as Venezuela, they greatly exacerbate existing crises and make them far deadlier than they would be otherwise.
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