Sanctions on Russia Will Fail Without Diplomacy | Hacker News Reader

Sanctions on Russia Will Fail Without Diplomacy

newsweek.com

7 pointsbarry-cotter5 comments

Sanctions are also a political tool used by countries to gain economic advantages over other countries. In this case it is naive of you to think they are been applied to punish Russia for its military operations. They are being applied by the United States so they can sell their energy supplies to the EU, by eliminating Russia as a market competitor. Ukrainian lives are the collateral damage created by the US. It’s really that simple. Just follow the money.

> In this case it is naive of you to think they are been applied to punish Russia for its military operations.

No, they are being applied because we're so scared of Russia in the marketplace. /s

People are concerned about Russians not being able to access more reliable information, personally I'm more concerned about the fact that the ones that do have access to more reliable information willfully choose to ignore it because they can't believe that their country is committing these atrocities.

I've often seen that line that sanctions does not work. It is like saying that quarantine does not cure the disease. Sure. However, it definitely diminishes the ability of the issue to spread and makes sure that some really nasty people don't enjoy all benefits of being evil and being accepted in the wider world at the same time.

To be clear, sanctions are not related to justus or proportionality and they are definitely not served to anyone who deserves them, but they are better than nothing and much better than war.

some really nasty people

There is an old saying: "One man's 'terrorist' is the other man's 'freedom fighter'."

It all depends on your own viewpoint.

Don't forget also that sanctions are a two-edged sword. Many people are quick to apply sanctions without realising that they are shooting themselves badly in the foot. The Europeans are about to lose their industrial advantages to China.

Applying moral relativism here is as wrong as it is in most other situations.

The arguments for industrial leadership are also rather weak. Russia is a rather small market and in exchange they didn't spend much time in sending millions of refugees across the boarder. Belarus was a good example how having a puppet regime is a national security issue, so you either do sanctions and deny nasty people economic capability for further wars, or you postpone your issues a few years until he starts with a new round of threads while putting new demands.

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