The point of sanctions is as a disincentive against bad behavior at a national level. The bad behavior here is invading a sovereign country. If the sanctions worked it would cause internal pressure and shorten the war.
Of course no one wants hardship for everyday Russians, but we should be able to say the same about everyday Ukrainians, many of whom have had their whole lives upended.
The war is continuing because of only one man on the planet, and since violent options are off the table, functioning sanctions are the next best thing.
>The point of sanctions is as a disincentive against bad behavior at a national level.
There is an argument to be made that sanctions don't work. Maybe they used to in the long distant past, but they don't now.
Russia doesn't give even half a fuck, Iran gives negative fucks, North Korea gives no fucks, and China is turning the sanctions back against us, to name some prominent examples.
I appreciate the west's desire to settle diplomatic problems using something other than war, but sanctions aren't the solution (anymore?).
To the extent that they don’t work, a lot of that is because of bitcoin. North Korea steals enough bitcoin to cover half of their military budget.
Given that this thread concerns whether the legitimate use cases of Bitcoin outweigh the illegitimate ones, I think this is an argument strongly against the position.
You claimed this based on vibes without citing any sources. Do you really think North Korea is thriving right now? How about Iran’s booming economy? The mighty Russian bear is so crippled by sanctions that China effectively owns them, with Russia entirely dependent on them to for everything besides oil.
Every day that these sanctions against Iran, North Korea, and Russia are in place those countries fall further and further behind. Every day their economies become less and less competitive
You say that, but Iran keeps on war merchanting, North Korea keeps on lobbing missiles, Russia keeps on warmongering, and China keeps on owning the world.
Sanctions as they are right now don't work, and that is a problem.
The same ordinary Russians that voted for the person that was clearly a dictator on the raise? Or the same ones that are cheerfully sending their children to kill innocent people in Ukraine? Or the same ones that were completely apathetic to the political opposition being arrested, poisoned or killed?
I’d say yes. That’s the point of the sanctions. And somebody should be tracing that Russian money on the ledger and getting the ill gotten properties traced and arrested.
I don’t think many people would agree that Russia has free and fair elections. Russia declares political opponents to be terrorists, effectively narrowing the Overton Window to be perfectly Putin sized.
Of course Russians don’t deserve economic hardship, but they don’t deserve to live in an autocracy either. And Ukrainians don’t deserve to be invaded. The lesson here is probably that the “great man” theory of history kind of ignores the everyday people whose lives were ruined by leaders who didn’t have to deal with the worst consequences of their decisions.
It’s the people that empower and enable. They are given guns, tanks, military aircrafts, missiles. They are manufacturing the weapons.
It doesn’t look like any of these get accidentally launched onto Kremlin. Or turned against conscription. Or used in any kind of resistance.
There are people there that are sacrificing their lives. Only for some reason, they are sacrificing these lives on the wrong side. On the side of supporting the dictatorship.
I wish to remind you that many everyday Russians participate in the war in a variety of ways, from diffusing propaganda, to a variety of associations with the Russian military complex, to being on the frontlines themselves.
Those many everyday Russians punish people (Ukrainians mainly, Europeans in general) for someone else’s decision (Putin’s power trip).
I also wish to remind you that hardship in Russia does not compare to hardship in Ukraine right now.
I say this as someone with relatives in both countries today.
Someone else's decision, and you are just following the orders?
It doesn't work that way. Putin is not working in a factory building tanks and artillery shells. He is not in an office programming which cities ballistic missiles will hit. He is not piloting bombers or manning guns shooting at Ukraine. He is not sitting in tanks ravaging through Ukrainian countriside, he is not in cellars raping and torturing civilians, he has not personally committed any of the tens of thousands documented war crimes in Ukraine. Millions upon millions of "ordinary Russians" choose to do this every day. Without the majority of Russian society actively working to carry out Putin's ideas, or passively sitting on their asses and trying to pretend they have nothing to do with it, Putin would be just a raving madman without any influence on the world like Hitler in his final days.
USSR collapsed when "ordinary Russians" simply stopped following orders. They were told to go there and do this, and they said NO in large enough numbers that the leaders were simply unable to do anything, because eventually even police and military stopped listening them. Russia has not yet reached this breaking point, and millions upon millions remain Putin's willing executioners, and bear the guilt that comes with it.
Every day, Ukrainians put their lives on the line, and hundreds die, in a desperate attempt to stop the curse on the world that Russia has become, while "ordinary Russians" are unwilling to even stage a large protest.
There's an enormous separation between those "ordinary Russians" who are in survival mode and do all the things you said, and those other "ordinary Russians" like me who are actually affected by sanctions and have passports and care about traveling abroad and speak English and are against the war.
The sanctions target the wrong ones.
As for "unwilling to even stage a large protest", there's simply no one left to organize it. Those people who could do it are either in jail, in exile, or dead.
Do you think the world is a better place if ordinary Russians are nuked along with ordinary people all over the world?
Why beat around the bush? The reason we’re playing the sanctions game, or the proxy war game, or any other bullshit games nations are playing is because the alternative is worse.
Just wait until their home banks interrogate them about how they want to spend their local currency they wish to withdraw or banks shut off withdrawals entirely due to systemic issues.
Bitcoin may not be the end all solution, but it's a great current option.
