[jmyeet]

Three reasons:

1. They're highly ineffective in that they've almost never led to regime change;

2. "Economic sanctions" is a euphemism. They are violence that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable. The article correct likens them to strategic bombing; and

3. They're a form of collective punishment. In many circumstances this constitutes a war crime.

Let me give you an example of (3). Imagine there are a spate of burglaries in your area. The police have good cause to believe the suspects are in your ZIP code. They decide to confiscate $100,000 collectively and spread evenly over each resident of that ZIP code. Why? Because this will motivate the residents to figure out who the burglar is and turn them in while making restitution to the victims.

That is collective punishment.

[throwawayffffas]

> 1. They're highly ineffective in that they've almost never led to regime change;

The inability of the Soviet Regime to freely trade with the west greatly contributed to it's demise, so sanctions have been proven to contribute to regime change, for a counter example see China or Vietnam, they opened their markets and their Regimes are very much still in power. Additionally the aim of these sanctions is not regime change but hindering the Russian offensive.

> 2. "Economic sanctions" is a euphemism. They are violence that disproportionately affects the most vulnerable. The article correct likens them to strategic bombing;

I don't believe I have to say this, but dropping bombs on cities (strategic bombing) and refusing to buy natural gas (sanctions) is not the same thing.

> 3. They're a form of collective punishment. In many circumstances this constitutes a war crime.

That makes no sense. First of all most of the sanctions are not "punishment", they prohibit certain transactions and are not aimed at people. i.e. The EU decided to stop buying petroleum from Russia, that cannot be possibly construed as punishment. In the cases where the sanctions are actually "punishment" seizing of assets and such, it is very targeted to people and organizations with actual decision making power and influence in Russia or somehow connected with the regime or the Russian State (Oligarchs, banks, etc).

An example of how I view sanctions. Let's say Bob goes to a bank and takes a loan, then Bob proceeds to buy a gun with that loan and rob another bank, sanctions are equivalent to the bank refusing to loan more money to Bob until he stops robbing banks.

[jmyeet]

> The inability of the Soviet Regime to freely trade with the west greatly contributed to it's demise

Ah yes, the demise of the USSR is everyone's pet reason for [insert policy here], be it sanctions, military build-up (by Reagan predominantly), Afghanistan, economic factors and even cultural influence. Sanctions against the USSR lasted ~50 years and had limited effectiveness [1]

> When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a major debate broke out over the contribution that the campaign of economic sanctions had made toward the fall of the Soviet empire. Many former officials in the Reagan administration credited sanctions with a significant role in the disintegration of the Soviet economy and therefore of the Soviet Union itself. On the other hand, the leading work on the effectiveness of economic sanctions—Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered (vol. 1, p. 137)—concludes that although the United States did succeed in denying some arms and key technologies to the Soviets, the collapse stemmed from internal inefficiencies rather than U.S. economic sanctions.

> That makes no sense. First of all most of the sanctions are not "punishment".

Of course they're punishment. Or do you want to play semantics and argue it's mere "coercion"? Here's an exercise: set up a store selling whatever. I'll put a cordon around it and say no one can buy from you or sell to you because you don't pay your workers enough. Then tell me it's not "punishment".

[1]: https://www.americanforeignrelations.com/E-N/Embargoes-and-S...

[maxst]

> That makes no sense. First of all most of the sanctions are not "punishment", they prohibit certain transactions and are not aimed at people

Visa and MasterCard suddenly blocked all transactions for all credit/debit cards issued in Russia, and you claim such actions "not aimed at people"? Come on.

[scotty79]

Economic sanction are just saying we are not playing with you (in the game called trade) if you can't behave.

You are not doing anything to anybody. You are just withdrawing your participation from mutually beneficial activity because of your principles. You always have right to do that.

[codeflo]

1. It’s a bit of a straw man to claim that’s the only reason or measurement of success for sanctions.

2. The violence on the vulnerable is inflicted by the sanctioned regime, not the sanctioners. As another commenter noted, these regimes effectively hold their population hostage. They could feed their population, they just prefer to pour everything into the military.

3. In your example, are the residents following the orders of those burglars?