Questioning Usefulness of Sanctions

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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https://original.antiwar.com/Daniel_Larison/2022/02/22/bewar…
The US and its allies are used to waging economic war against states that cannot effectively fight back, but truly severe sanctions that seek to strangle Russian revenues would cause real economic harm to Europe, the US, and the rest of the world. While hawks like to dismiss Russia as nothing more than a glorified “gas station,” Russian energy and mineral resources are considerable and cutting them off from the global economy would drive up prices and contribute to economic slowdowns around the world.

The main reason to reject broad sanctions is that it will punish the people that had no say in setting Russian policy, and it could prove to be a political boon for Putin and his allies. Experience shows that a heavily sanctioned country is one in which authoritarianism and repression grow stronger, and that means that economic war against Russia could serve mainly to tighten the current leadership’s hold on power.

Imposed sanction upon China 3 years ago by the previous administration & continued under the present administration does not seem to cause China to modify its behavior. The author analyzes that sanction are ineffective against major nations. But does reck havoc upon smaller nation ruining their economies. Venezuela & Afghanistan are current examples. Though Maduro & the Taliban remain in power.

Are sanctions feel good measures?

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Plenty of stories regarding the billion of $ of impact upon Russia due to sanctions. But what about impact on the sanctioning nations?
Economic cost of sanctions on Russia:oil, wheat, metals & minerals, & rising interest rates to fight inflation. Increase cost of goods to the representative governments of the West. Could populace displeasure lead to change of Western governments? A threat unlikely to occur within Russia.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stake-global-economy-russia-s…
fears of an escalation have sent prices of everything from oil and gas to wheat, fertilizer and industrial metals soaring in recent weeks.

In Europe, which gets more than half its oil and gas from Russia, households are already paying higher bills for power and heating.

Developing economies, where food and energy weigh more heavily in household budgets, have already been slower to recover from the pandemic than their rich-world peers. They’ve also had to raise interest rates faster, to rein in inflation and prevent capital flight.

Metals are another area of risk. Military conflict or more punitive sanctions could disrupt Russian exports of palladium – used to make the catalytic converters that lower car emissions – or aluminum and steel, according to a recent report by Rabobank.

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Imposed sanction upon China 3 years ago by the previous administration & continued under the present administration does not seem to cause China to modify its behavior. The author analyzes that sanction are ineffective against major nations. But does reck havoc upon smaller nation ruining their economies. Venezuela & Afghanistan are current examples. Though Maduro & the Taliban remain in power.

Are sanctions feel good measures?

Targeted multilateral sanctions can work. Broad unilateral sanctions almost never work and often back fire.

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Are sanctions feel good measures?

Depends, if you are a home builder or buyer of a new home are you feeling good about 20% tariffs on Canadian lumber?

How about tariffs on Aluminum made with hydro power rather that fossil fuels?

Anymouse

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At the risk of agreeing with a certain New York con man, Russia has lots of oil and Ukraine has a lot of grain. And the western Democracies are about as unified as they were on September 3, 1939. Plus half the country is siding with Putin against their political rivals in their own country.

Not looking good.

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Are sanctions feel good measures?

Economic sanctions are like inflation, they hurt the little people. The rulers can skim enough off the top of even rotting economies to live like kings. Castro, Maduro, and Fatso RocketBoy never faced hunger since they took power, they never had to eat out of trash cans.

The Captain

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But what about impact on the sanctioning nations?

Plenty of US media nattering about soaring gas prices, soaring prices for anything that requires wheat, soaring prices for cell phones because some use semiconductors make in Ukraine.

I get the sense that most in the US, outside of the 50,000-odd Ukrainians living in metro Detroit, would be fine throwing Ukraine under the bus, to get the stuff they want cheaper, the rope seller syndrome Lenin talked about.

One of the local TV stations felt the need to put together a piece explaining why we need to support Ukraine.

Devin Scillian: Why you should care about what’s happening in Ukraine
‘A dramatic reshuffling and destabilization of the current world order does not feel like a reach’

https://www.clickondetroit.com/features/2022/02/22/devin-sci…

Seems most USians act like spoiled babies now, always crying they want more stuff, for less money, and they’ll stab anyone in the back to get what they want.

What are the choices?

-give Putin what he wants, Ukraine vulnerable to being overrun by him? Then what? He’s already demanded Romania and Bulgaria also be removed from NATO. Where does he stop, the English Channel? The Atlantic Ocean?

-Get into a shooting war, directly with Russia? Both parties have huge nuclear arsenals. The rule that prevented such a confrontation for decades was that, if one superpower engaged directly, the other side used proxies.

-or sanctions, which do inconvenience the other party, and pay a domestic political price, from all the crybabies throwing a hissyfit.

Steve

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What are the choices?

Perhaps giving the Ukraine as much ammunition, anti-tank & anti-aircraft systems & medical supplies as we can to make the cost to Russia higher than Putin anticipated. Russian has a serious demographic issue. Bleeding the supply of young fit men could possibly change the risk-reward equation?
https://www.rand.org/pubs/issue_papers/IP162.html
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2021/02/03/moment-of-truth-russia…
https://population-pyramid.net/en/pp/russian-federation

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Bleeding the supply of young fit men could possibly change the risk-reward equation?

Bodybags didn’t defeat North Vietnam. Does Putin care any more than Ho Chi Minh, Stalin, or Mao?

The Captain
thinks not

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Bleeding the supply of young fit men could possibly change the risk-reward equation?

Bodybags didn’t defeat North Vietnam. Does Putin care any more than Ho Chi Minh, Stalin, or Mao?

The Captain
thinks not

You do have a point. Ho Chi Minh was willing to depopulate the nation fighting the American invaders.
But he had many young men & high birth rate in the then N Vietnam. While Putin likely doesn’t care any more than Ho Chi Minh; he has a less abundant supply of young men & Russia has a declining population. More deaths than births since 1992-Rand link.

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