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Comment by bayindirh | Hacker News Reader

Sanctions are generally a stopgap measure. They can't create any meaningful gap for a very long time.

I live in a country which has experienced some hard and soft embargoes over the years, and let's look what has it done.

- We wanted to buy drones, and denied. Now we are one of the biggest drone manufacturers in the world.

- We denied air defense systems. We are developing a whole arsenal of missiles and rockets now, incl. standoff/cruise missiles.

- We denied planes. Our 4.5th generation fighter program got a great speed boost.

- We denied advanced naval technology. We built stealth ships, fast coastguard boats and all navigational systems which goes inside them.

- We denied optical pods for drones and aerial vehicles. We built our own in 6 months.

etc. etc...

Sanctions and embargoes are the biggest catalyst for a country to advance their tech at tremendous velocity.

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Turkey chose to develop a large defense industry. There were restrictions on them acquiring some US weapons (even though they are NATO member) but that wasn't the motivating factor, it was a political choice to develop large defense sector.

Other countries like Iran however, do develop their own drones because of sanctions

The strict tensions imposed after Turkey's intervention in/invasion of northern Cyprus in 1974 played a key role in the development of the Turkish defense industry.

I presume you're talking about Turkey/Türkiye.

If so, do you think it makes a difference that Turkey is a NATO member, and on (relatively) good terms with the Western powers?

For all the ideological differences and geopolitcal nervousness I don't think the US or EU see themselves as potentially fighting against Turkey, and so they don't feel the need to go to the trouble of strict sanctions or sabotaging local tech.

> and on (relatively) good terms with the Western powers?

In recent years the relationship between Turkey and Western countries has been OK-ish (though far from stellar, see the S-400-related tensions or the French-Trukish tension in the Mediterranean).

But if you look at it on a longer perspective, the relationship used to be very tense, first there was the Cyprus crisis leading to pretty harsh western sanctions on military equipment, and then the cold war between Turkey and Greece in the Aegean see, with occasional real fire air combat and casualties.

> They can't create any meaningful gap for a very long time.

That highly depends on the size and natural resource available to the country.

They work for countries that kneecap themselves by being at the whims of capital and the market. Countries that don't constrain themselves like that can laugh at sanctions because they don't matter in that context.

> They work for countries that kneecap themselves by being at the whims of capital and the market.

Typically it actually looks like the opposite. When I look at, eg, North Korea or Iran - if I were going to try and make them wealthy it is mostly internal policies that are the problem and not external ones.

If North Korea set itself up with single digit % company and income tax combined with a strong rule of law, local education programs and a liberal economy it would barely matter what sanctions were imposed on them. A tide of money would flow in and they'd eventually be wealthy under their own power anyway if not. Although it isn't obvious why anyone would sanction a small well run country; there is a correlation between sanctions and incompetent governance.

This is the most profoundly arrogant thing I’ve read in a while, kudos! It’s hard to stand out on the internet these days

Most of the sanctions are whac-a-mole game played by the West (mostly by USA): as soon as one of the peripheral countries starts developing its economy, gains more wealth, starts to produce something the competes with products of Western companies, or attempts to avoid use of USD (because it allows immense enrichment of USA simply by printing it in whatever quantities), soon there starts:

- firstly, media attack ("they're dictatorship!", "they're genociding someone", etc), preparing population for stricter measures

- secondly, color revolution, which, if successful, puts puppet malleable government in power, and makes the country ultra-poor (most of the countries, where color revolutions staged by US/West succeeded, became significantly poorer)

- if color revolution didn't work, there's always an option to just bomb the country, because it's always ignored if all the international treaties and laws are ignored if USA or Israel bomb any other nation.

The US has a strong record of interfering with foreign countries in way that advantage their interests, but at the same time the fact that you bring the “color revolution” phrase is a strong marker that you are reading way too much Russian (imperialist) propaganda disguised as anti-imperialism, which really is no better than feeding on the neoconservative narrative.

To play devils advocate, a lack of sanctions also allows countries to advance technology at a tremendous velocity.

The Ford Motor Company's dealings in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union significantly helped the adoption of mass production in those countries.

If this was true then countries could just impose import restrictions if they wanted to "advance their tech at tremendous velocity".

This is called "import substitution" and was incredibly popular in the age before neoliberalism. If your country is rich today you probably did a lot of that in the past.

It also depends if the country has a realistic capability to catch up with their own tech. So for Congo it would probably be a bad move. China is a different story imho.

Which they do all the time. Import substitution is a thing. It works.

What country? Your website is out of Germany. Germany is in NATO.

Judging by his name, Turkey

Okay, in that case it’s not a good example because Turkey is a NATO country.

Which didn't stop the US and other western countries to embargo them after their invasion of northern Cyprus (yes it was in 1974, but it's when the Turkish domestic defense sector really started so it's not irrelevant even if it's 50 years old).

Survivor bias

Turkey’s defense advances took decades and came with major setbacks

Not to mention many NATO incompatibilities

Just look at all the other sanctioned countries

You're just moving the goalpost here.

And if you want to look at other sanctioned countries, just look at how NK or Iran's industry fares compared to their economic peers …

I’m not moving it just showing how Turkey is different when compared to other sanctioned non NATO countries.

inferred from username and stated facts, Turkey.

Sorry I didn’t pick up on it. Not familiar with Turkish names.

Hetzner is still a thing.

People can host websites in countries other than the one they live in.

It took me ~10 seconds to figure out the guy is Turkish and talking about Turkish defence industry.

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