However, sanctions do have a symbolic value. And I also can't think of anything else short of military action to express displeasure.
I don't know the answers to those questions, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was "yes".
https://washingtondc.jhu.edu/news/do-sanctions-actually-work...
Sanctions or lack thereof definitely impacts quality of life, but Putin put everything on a war economy footing pretty quickly anyway, and in that environment (especially in Russia), it’s suffering all the way down. And Russia excels at Suffering. Russia has oil too, and plenty of minerals, so if anything I expect by now they’re just getting stronger (economically), barring Ukraine wrecking their shit from time to time with a well placed drone strike.
Iran/Israel is an interesting question, but near as I can tell, Iran doesn’t really want to destroy Israel. They just want to make them as miserable as possible, and show they can ‘do harm’ to them when they need to prop up domestic support among the hardliners.
Israel provides a good scapegoat for the Iranian leadership.
With Israel gone, who is the Ayatollah going to use as the big bad? The Great Satan (USA) isn’t as tractable a target when they don’t have a designated ‘local’ they can go after, and if Iran actually meaningfully hurt the US (nuked the White House?), Iran is glass regardless of how otherwise strong they are.
NK got sanctions because they love playing the crazy-dude-with-a-gun-that-just-wants-a-handout, which is also why they eventually got nukes. They might have gotten nukes a little faster without sanctions, but sanctions definitely gave the hardliners huge leverage in the country. Hard to be friendly with the west (as a civilian!) when the west is literally openly starving the country, even if the leadership of your country is egging them on eh?
Near as I can tell, the USSR fell because of jeans and rock and roll. So yes, I think the ‘good guy’ sanctions BS is ultimately self defeating.
It can work if someone is either a) in a tenuous economic position, and b) the ‘sanctioningish’ behavior is not existential.
But any good authoritarian would rather throw their entire population under the bus ‘for the greater good’ than give in on something important for them…
And countries know how to deal with being at war (generally), even if it’s a weird only-semi-economic one.
Counterpoint: South Africa.
> If the West is expecting any revolution due to sanctions, I have not seen it.
You have now.
I can certainly understand, as a matter of foreign policy, not wanting our companies to be propping up or supplying such regimes, but I don't really get how anyone can think that sanctions are effective at promoting change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during...
And many more similar examples. Sanctions will hurt Russia in long term but not now. Because good sanctions requires to understand the country culture + execute only that hurt countries, which didn't do western countries.
Trying to use sanctions against another major power isn't guaranteed to work as they can take the hit and pivot to internal industry(which happened), or trading with other major powers that do not sanction them(China).
Or some countries get around sanctions - like buying Russian gas/petroleum products through India - in a way this bypasses sanctions making them worthless.
Is it better than doing nothing? yes, of course. But Russia unfortunately is a major power - just due to sheer access to natural resources - and you can't just bully it into submission with weak sanctions that some EU countries ignore(petroleum case).
That sounds like a positive, though: if Russia's advance into Ukraine has been slowed by sanctions, but everyday Russians aren't affected too much, I'd consider that a huge win. We shouldn't be punishing regular people for the actions of a their dictatorship government that they can't control.
It's working all right. These things take decades. Look at North Korea (first few years they grew faster than South Korea, and they had the more wealthy parts). Now their GDP per capita is around 600-1700 USD vs 33 000 USD in South Korea.
Russian industry is operating at only 81% capacity, largely due to labor shortages, which make sense considering that about 1% of its labor force join the military every other month. Russia is losing tank barrels, artillery barrels, and infantry fighting vehicles more than 10 times faster than it can manufacture new ones. It will likely never be able to obtain a third rotary forge, required for barrel manufacture, to expand its capacity. It has almost entirely cannibalized its old, defunct Soviet era stock. They are being kept afloat by China, NK, and Iran, but with a much-reduced capacity, and often much lower quality. For example, Russia relies on China for 70-80% of its microchips, but China is dumping defective microchips on them with a 40% failure rate.
Sanctions have absolutely had significant, direct, measurable impacts on Russia’s ability to wage war and sustain war. As for regular people, it is hard to think it hasn't affected then, given that last year inflation was 9%, interest rates are 21%, and disposable income is down 20-30%. That feels like a lot of belt tightening.
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2024/11/21/half-of-russias-ai... https://jamestown.org/program/russia-exhausts-soviet-era-arm... https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/what-where-are-russias-... https://archive.ph/c17pk https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/is-202... https://www.csis.org/analysis/how-sanctions-have-reshaped-ru... https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/comme... https://osintforukraine.com/publications/microchips https://www.theregister.com/2022/10/18/russia_china_semicond... https://www.economicsobservatory.com/what-is-the-current-sta...
Did you speak with folks from Moscow or St Petersburg or from different regions? Life in the top 2 cities is kept as normal as possible at all costs; that is part of the Putin's approach to handling the elites (you can keep living your comfortable lives as long as you stay out of politics).
But elsewhere the quality of life took a big hit. Even in second tier cities. At least that is what I am hearing. My 2c.
Anecdotally I have also heard that many factory towns are booming because the factories are re-opened or expanded to fulfill all those military orders.
