The US has wielded sanctions like a cleaver for decades. So the world by necessity built the tools necessary to work around them.
Why Haven’t Sanctions on Russia Stopped the War? The Money Is Still Flowing. | For decades, companies feared being on the wrong side of U.S. sanctions. That’s not always true anymore.
Submitted 3 days ago by silence7@slrpnk.net to nyt_gift_articles@sopuli.xyz
megopie@beehaw.org 3 days ago
Sanctions do not stop wars, nor do they outright stop trade, they inflict costs for doing trade and for doing a war. They are there to make it harder to prosecute and fund a war, not impossible. It was always understood by those making the calls that these sanctions would be subverted and worked around, but that this would increase costs and lower Russia’s capacity to divert resources to fight the war.
The idea that they stop wars or are some magic trick to destroy someone’s economy outright is absurd. No one implementing them ever claimed they did or would, although people in media outlets sure seemed to talk about them as if they would.
The sanctions have done what they were intended to do, and it is the fault of the writer for believing the media sensationalism around them, not the fault of the policy for failing to accomplish the unrealistic goals that were imagined for them.