The History of Sanctions | Hacker News Reader

The History of Sanctions

dissentmagazine.org

33 pointscacher56 comments

So… sanctions shouldn’t be used because they are too powerful? And this is argued almost exclusively with pre-1940 history? The specifics of what results of sanctions the author finds to be excessive are limited to mentioning deaths from famine. Does anyone believe the EU and US are capable of and willing to degrade the Russian economy to the point of mass famine?

I can discern exactly one testable hypothesis from this: that the US would be more willing than Europe to impose sanctions. This idea has already been proven to be wrong.

For an example that seems much closer than the current situation, including public pressure campaigns against individual companies, see South Africa, described in the same magazine: https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/when-polaroi...

> Does anyone believe the EU and US are capable of and willing to degrade the Russian economy to the point of mass famine?

Capable of yes, willing to no, but at this point it may not be up to them; if Russian logistics fails, people may starve before it's even known.

Why would Russian logistics fail?

Their military logistics have not worked well to date much to the surprise of many.

Yes, but that's very different from food logistics failing in Russia so "people may starve". That sounds extremely unlikely.

-What you are witnessing is not sanctions.

Per Kremlin new-speak, it is 'special economic operations'.

Putin said it's economic act of war

I don't think it's true to say that Europe and the US are equally willing to apply sanctions. The entire theme of the months before the invasion was that the US was willing to go fast and hard on sanctions whilst European countries were largely split. As it turns out Russia's actions were so extreme that essentially it collapsed that split. But that's also because Europe is far more affected by Russia's war on Ukraine than the US. You see this in the exceptions to the sanctions- gas & oil that Europe is dependent on, and the support the US is providing in terms of procuring LNG for Europe. The US has demonstrably been working to enable and encourage Europe to sanction Russia.

> Does anyone believe the EU and US are capable of and willing to degrade the Russian economy to the point of mass famine?

I think North Korea has some comparability - the West provides aid in spite of an antagonistic ruler. But in similar vein the West would prefer both rulers to spend more time working for their citizens’ economic wellbeing than on militaristic projects.

> But in similar vein the West would prefer both rulers to spend more time working for their citizens’ economic wellbeing than on militaristic projects.

Is there evidence of that?

Suppose for a minute that the NK regime was not crazy and only tried to pursue Communism. Then they would be similar to all the other Socialist/Communist states that the West wants to fail so that it can point to them and say that Socialism/Communism doesn’t work.

> I can discern exactly one testable hypothesis from this: that the US would be more willing than Europe to impose sanctions. This idea has already been proven to be wrong.

Incorrect - the US is more willing to impose a ban on Russian oil. This supports the hypothesis.

> Does anyone believe the EU and US are capable of and willing to degrade the Russian economy to the point of mass famine?

Famine WILL happen..... Russia and Ukraine produce much of the worlds grain.(And Russian gas is massively used to manufacture fertilizer)

Russia and Ukraine together account for around 30% of internationally traded wheat.

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60644376

If this war is not stopped immediately, the world will experience a drop of global supply between 10 per cent to 50 per cent of major agrarian products including wheat, barley, corn, rapeseed, and sunflower oil

Source: https://www.ft.com/content/02095093-329b-4b66-9f80-13d073500...

How can Russia replace all its lost equipment (tanks, supply trucks, helicopters, planes) when they've lost more than half of their economy in a week, and counting?

Their GDP was on par with Spain (a country of far smaller size and natural wealth), but is fast approaching that of Portugal.

I mean, look at the flight of skilled workers out of their country, and the ruble halving in value in the space of a month.

De facto slave labor, as always.

I mean if they had the people's support they would probably volunteer; when it comes down to it, as long as people's needs are met (a house, food, water, hygiene, free time etc), a wage becomes optional. I believe that's an oversimplification of the communist ideology.

Russia is big and I'm confident they have most resources needed to build their own tanks and the like without any foreign imports. But that's a gut feeling.

Sure, a Ruble buys you fewer international goods than a dollar, but has much more buying power in Russia.

The tank factories still exist, and the workers there still have jobs and can still make tanks. As long as they still get food and raw materials more tanks will come off the line, and Russia nowadays has enough food and plenty of raw materials.

The Ruble will buy less on international markets, but it still buys stuff within Russia. There will be severe inflation, sure, but that just means people will prioritise food and other essentials. As long as there are enough of those they can still work.

Tanks these days aren't raw steel, rubber and a few other things anymore.

They're advanced alloys, a ton of electronics, etc.

Russia can't make all of that at the same level as the rest of the world combined.

Similar story for almost every advanced military product. And for civilian products.

The Russian population is in for a world of hurt.

Unfortunately they are able to replace quality by quantity. Their tech in Ukraine is from 50s and 60s (I know by first hand experience) but they are just too many...

Depends on how China responds. The world is in a proxy war with Russia via Ukraine.

China might decide to have a proxy war with the west via Russia. Or maybe not. Since The world is coming together hopefully discouraged shenanigans.

This is kind of similar to how Vietnam was a proxy war between the US and Russia.

"The world" is not. The US and their allies are. The rest of the world is sitting this out at best. Go check some Indian, African, and South American coverage. It's very eye-opening.

I did follow Indian coverage for a while for that exact reason, but it didn't seem that different from BBC or CNN (except heavy focus on Indian students as you would expect) so I stopped. Had this changed?

They don't cover it that well, doesn't mean people across the World stopped despising Russians for what they are doing right now.

edit: actually even Western media aren't doing good job, reporters are scared and shit themselves afraid of Russian fire strikes and don't go into areas where most of the fighting happens, some Czech media and other small nations do but that's it.

One thing Indian media does better than Western media is not to rebroadcast Zelensky indiscriminately. Let's face it: it's a propaganda. They should extract informational content, not quote verbatim. Just as you would do so for Russian media.

Your not wrong. I wish news would try and put things In proper context.

That said.

He’s a symbol of freedom and hope against oppression that many people need right now.

Let the people have their hero for now.

Disagree. No one is obliged to be recipient of psyop by state actor.

> is not to rebroadcast Zelensky indiscriminately. Let's face it: it's a propaganda.

What is exactly? Most of the time he just asks the World for help, do you mean it's not genuine!?

China may also decide that the far east russian territories, which are already under heavy Chinese influence, may look cute under Chinese flag.

> Russia can't make all of that at the same level as the rest of the world combined.

Right now they don't have to, they just need to replace things at the level as Ukraine with just a little help from others. That is much more manageable than “the rest of the world combined”.

> The Russian population is in for a world of hurt.

Which Putin will blame on the rest of the world. While many in Russia are well aware that state run media (and anything else not banned) is often a pile of lies from on high, an awful lot of the general populace are not – disinformation from the top works (and not just in Russia & similar regimes, cf. the cult of Trump) and failing that many people who don't believe the official line will keep quiet about that for reasons of what continued quality of life is possible.

> The Russian population is in for a world of hurt.

The military will do OK for a while at least though. They haven't sent over the majority of their equipment, they'll have plenty in reserve and raw materials for making at least some more. Sales of oil & gas can be funnelled into buying more from outside if needed (massive exchange rate differences don't matter as much if export payments almost immediately go out on import payments, or they can start trading more directly if they have a willing trading partner (China perhaps?)).

> they haven't sent over the majority of their equipment,

Really? I thought they sent in like 75%. Here's their current reinforcements (see the Z letters): https://v.redd.it/qadkws73hwl81/DASH_720.mp4

Some of that is a locality issue. Due to a mix of bad planning and Ukraine resisting rather more effectively than expected, Russian forces don't have enough equipment near the front lines so are falling back on what they can find for now. There is better equipment available elsewhere, but Russia is fairly large and getting that reinforcing equipment from one part to another is not an instantaneous process.

I could be wrong of course. This isn't the first time I've heard the figure, but 75% seems rather a lot to have dedicated to this action at the outset. Do you have any reference for that figure?

CNN good enough? https://edition.cnn.com/europe/live-news/ukraine-russia-news...

Possibly, depending on who their source “a US official” actually is.

If so, I have given Russian military strength far too much credit.

> they'll have plenty in reserve

That's the big unknown. What part of their reserves is usable? We've already seen they are sending over 40 years old equipment from the Far East a few days ago.

> Russia can't make all of that at the same level as the rest of the world combined.

They are still trading with China, India, Brazil, Mexico and a few other large countries... it's not exactly the whole world against Russia (if you include China and India as at least being neutral, that's already more than half the world population NOT against Russia).

The CANZUK and EU economies put together are 60% or more. It's about economies, not population.

And if sanctions truly kick in, Mexico and Brazil especially won't be trading long with Russia...

Just before I went on lunch,I watched someone in Russia going to a shop with a camera and just filming some random stuff and how much it costs, like fruit,veg,etc. An average pensioner was sitting on probably $200-300 pension. Now it's more like $100. A kilograme of cucumbers was like $2 if converted from rubles..The video was shot during the weekend, when the exchange rate wasn't as bad as it is today.

> ruble halving in value in the space of a month

Could you please clarify if this has a meaning other than the mathematical meaning?

The ruble was 0.013 USD on Feb 7, and is 0.010 on Mar 8. Per my math, it has lost 23% of its value, not 50%.

It's 0.0071 as of Mar 8, 13:51 UTC. Was 0.0066 at one point yesterday.

Sanctions should be increased even further. Russia experienced the sanctions following the Crimea annexation and scoffed. Due to that, they have been emboldened and attacked Ukraine. Now the sanctions should be tough enough that Russia, with the prospect of changing the plutonium cores of 5000 weapons every 10 years, or doing something else, will decide to do something else. Painful enough that the engineers designing their air defense systems decide to move to other countries.

Russia has built up their currency reserves by shorting pensions of their retirees. The reserves were intended to survive the impending sanctions. Russia will be forced to fund their pensioners, drawing down that reserve.

Painful enough that the sick and poor can't get medicine and food?

Ask the people in Ukraine. Russia has a huge reserve. They can provide social services to their population.

Russia did not invade Ukraine because of sanctions. I don’t know why you think that.

The sanctions following Russia’s invasion of Crimea were not sufficient to deter Putin from attacking Ukraine. Russia calculated the pros/cons, and determined that the west would not impose significant sanctions, reducing the potential costs. The west should cut off all oil/gas from Russia, and sanction anyone who purchases oil/gas from Russia.

I don't understand how "specialists" keep talking about sanctions "failing"/being bad overall or other comparisons with Germany before WW II and other similar situations that happened 100! years a go.

And basically forget the last 4 countries the US sanctioned: Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, North Korea.

These countries are basically failed states and cease to exist international and have basically zero power over their neighbours, and all US goals were achieved with the sanctions:

South America didn't became communist, South Korea and Japan are still there and way better than North Korea, Iran didn't obliterate Israel, etc, etc... Venezuela doesn't have technology to extract half the oil anymore (check they oil production).

I hope Russia goes the same way.

And I really don't understand why no one talks about the sanctions in Venezuela and Iran, being Iran in population +- half the size or Russia, so not a small country.

More like 10% the size of Russia.

Sorry, I meant in population (edited now).

Anyway let's see what happens with the Russian economy after 10 years of sanctions.

The (stated) goal of sanctions on North Korea was denuclearization. North Korea continued to do nuclear tests and haven't returned to NPT yet.

The goal on North Korea is not to invade South Korea or attack Japan.

(And also to disable their ability to use nukes against USA).

I would say goals were accomplished. We really don't know the state of nuclear missiles there and I could bet they are not in any very good shape...

That's ridiculous. North Korea is not crazy, there is no conceivable reason why North Korea would use nukes against USA unless regime is attacked. If that was the goal, there was no reason for sanctions whatsoever.

Truly, "nukes against USA" is much more ridiculous than Russia's excuse of invading Ukraine, that it is threatened by NATO expansion.

> ridiculous than Russia's excuse of invading Ukraine, that it is threatened by NATO expansion.

Russia is threatened by NATO expansion as much as I am being threatened right now of being attacked by a rabid bear

Isn't the purpose of NATO to be prepared to fight a war with Russia?

not just Russia, any country or collection of countries

> North Korea is not crazy

Why do you think so?

NK and SK is still at war, they did not sign a peace contract.

I think so too.

The world is much more interconnected today, so sanctions have more power.

It's baffling how socialists can deny reality and working economic models in favor of their demonstrably and repeatedly failed theories of economy and state, even going as far as denying the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

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