[themacguffinman]

People talk about the "overthrow" outcome a lot but overthrowing the regime is like the biggest outcome you can get, you don't have to overthrow the whole regime for sanctions to be effective. Regime leaders respond to economic threats like anyone else, it may not cause a revolution but if the threatened sanctions are sufficient, it affects their behavior.

Here's a topical example: Russia threatened Ukraine with sanctions if Ukraine signed a free trade deal with the EU [1] [2]. It effectively stalled free trade talks between Ukraine and the EU.

That happened in late 2013. In a twist of irony, this enraged ordinary Ukrainians and kicked off the Euromaidan protests that forcibly deposed Ukraine's president at the time - Viktor Yanukovych - and toppled his regime. This led to the annexation of Crimea and, well, the rest is history.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-eu-russia/russia-ste...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-25401179