While I think the post itself is written in a way that’s uncharitable towards proponents of sanctions, if the only argument for them was the “collective guilt/responsibility” argument you give here, I would have to say that sanctions are indeed both ineffective and immoral.
Western leaders have said again and again that they believe this is the war of the regime currently in control of the Russian government, and not of the Russian people. Boris Johnson went on television to say to the Russian people “I believe this war is not in your name” in Russian. That’s flatly inconsistent with the idea that they bear some “partial responsibility” for failing to stand up to Putin’s regime (what are they even supposed to do?)
The post is correct about one thing: sanctions have a very poor empirical record of affecting regime change. Japan didn’t undergo regime change because of US sanctions on it leading up to the Pacific War. Saddam wasn’t toppled as a result of the crippling sanctions placed on Iraq throughout the 1990s. The regime in Iran is still as strong as ever, and shows no signs of being toppled by a popular revolution triggered by Western sanctions on the country. In contrast, I can’t think of a single example in which sanctions led to regime change in a country. Maybe this is my lack of imagination—can you think of such a case?
Better arguments have been offered in favor of sanctions. For example, the Biden administration said that one of the primary purposes of the sanctions they have placed on Russia is to hurt the Russian economy in order to undercut Russia’s ability to project hard power, and sanctions can indeed be successful at doing this.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find this language of “collective responsibility” to be repugnant. You’re responsible for something if you could have taken actions which had a substantial influence over whether it happened or not. Ordinary people simply don’t have any such influence over the actions of their government. It’s true they have the power to affect change if they can coordinate their actions, but it’s hardly reasonable to blame individual players in a game with millions of players for getting stuck in a bad equilibrium that they can’t climb out of. If we applied these same moral standards to ourselves, all of us would be condemned without an exception.
What we should think of is how to provide the right kind of stimulus from the outside to change the situation, not cast blame at people for doing what’s best for themselves, their family and their friends.
While I think the post itself is written in a way that’s uncharitable towards proponents of sanctions, if the only argument for them was the “collective guilt/responsibility” argument you give here, I would have to say that sanctions are indeed both ineffective and immoral.
Western leaders have said again and again that they believe this is the war of the regime currently in control of the Russian government, and not of the Russian people. Boris Johnson went on television to say to the Russian people “I believe this war is not in your name” in Russian. That’s flatly inconsistent with the idea that they bear some “partial responsibility” for failing to stand up to Putin’s regime (what are they even supposed to do?)
The post is correct about one thing: sanctions have a very poor empirical record of affecting regime change. Japan didn’t undergo regime change because of US sanctions on it leading up to the Pacific War. Saddam wasn’t toppled as a result of the crippling sanctions placed on Iraq throughout the 1990s. The regime in Iran is still as strong as ever, and shows no signs of being toppled by a popular revolution triggered by Western sanctions on the country. In contrast, I can’t think of a single example in which sanctions led to regime change in a country. Maybe this is my lack of imagination—can you think of such a case?
Better arguments have been offered in favor of sanctions. For example, the Biden administration said that one of the primary purposes of the sanctions they have placed on Russia is to hurt the Russian economy in order to undercut Russia’s ability to project hard power, and sanctions can indeed be successful at doing this.
Maybe it’s just me, but I find this language of “collective responsibility” to be repugnant. You’re responsible for something if you could have taken actions which had a substantial influence over whether it happened or not. Ordinary people simply don’t have any such influence over the actions of their government. It’s true they have the power to affect change if they can coordinate their actions, but it’s hardly reasonable to blame individual players in a game with millions of players for getting stuck in a bad equilibrium that they can’t climb out of. If we applied these same moral standards to ourselves, all of us would be condemned without an exception.
What we should think of is how to provide the right kind of stimulus from the outside to change the situation, not cast blame at people for doing what’s best for themselves, their family and their friends.