Hacker News Reader

Comment by woofcat | Hacker News Reader

>What exactly is the plan? Are we expecting that individuals who disagree with their regimes would leave their country and their families? It just feels like cold blooded retribution with no care for the regular every day population.

That it will impact the country economically and hopefully result in the Government changing coarse or for the People of the country to not want to live in a shitty place with a poor economy.

I find sanctions vastly better than the alternative at that level, which would be some sort of blockade or other military intervention.

View on HN

That sounds good in theory, but in reality you end up with worse outcomes than doing nothing:

a) The target country just allows their citizens to feel the brunt of the sanctions while the ruling class hoards resources for themselves.

b) The target country starts a propaganda campaign to blame the sanction-issuer for all their problems, which the citizens mostly believe.

So ultimately you end up with regular-Joe citizens in the target country having a worse quality of life, while also being led to believe that your country is the evil one.

Another poster hit the nail on the head: the politicians in the sanction-issuing country need to be seen as doing something by their populace, regardless of what the result of that something is.

> The target country starts a propaganda campaign to blame the sanction-issuer for all their problems, which the citizens mostly believe

Because it's at least partly true. They are the ones issuing the sanctions.

Heh, an excellent point. Obviously the sanctioner's goal is for the sanctionee's citizens to understand why the sanctions are in place, and ultimately blame their own government, but that can be a hard sell, even without a propaganda campaign.

Sanctions are part of a war or often a preparation. You could also call it blackmailing. If people die from not having access to medical goods etc because of sanctions it just cheaper than sending troops.

Ostensibly.

But the reality is probably more like the top levels of governments bullying, and they don’t give a flying fuck about the impacts on the average citizen.

Sounds good in theory but the evidence is lacking.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com