This is my question as well; sanctions may well be a humanitarian catastrophe, but so is a naked war of aggression. My intuitive sense is that criticizing sanctions here, without suggesting an alternative, is insufficient for LW.
I don’t think the “sanctions must have specific offramps” is a good argument against a naked war of aggression, unless you contend that Russia’s transparently bad-faith casus belli is legitimate. It seems like “sanctions will end, if you withdraw all troops from Ukraine” is a likely end-state result of peace negotiations, so making the subtext obvious is of little moral relevance. Putin is not stupid.
There’s also the complex question of moral culpability/collective punishment (as Jonnston mentions). I know that the 17,000 anti-tank Javelin missiles the U.S. has sent to Ukraine (NYT, paywall, sorry) will be used to kill Russian soldiers. Should I oppose that step because many of the soldiers killed are conscripts? Suppose all of them are conscripts and would be conscientious objectors except that there is no such objection allowed under Russian law; suppose commissars await behind the front lines to kill deserters. Must I not destroy an invader’s war materiel because arguably innocent people, who happen to be required to carry rifles, will die? Should my moral calculus be affected by the other side’s imposition of rules that force me to make difficult moral calculations about people who might be my friends otherwise? Has war ever not done this? Christmas Truce, anyone?
Suppose Putin believes that sanctions would be the West’s only plausible option here (other than total capitulation to a naked war of aggression) and invades anyway. Putin is forcing me to calculate the human cost of sanctioning Russia versus the human cost of not doing anything. Is my moral calculus affected by this? Maybe I should ask some Ukrainians if they think they should have value in my moral calculus, as the nation of non-aggressors?
Godwin’s Law: Suppose it was 1943 and I knew the Holocaust was happening. Would I be justified in imposing similar sanctions on Nazi Germany? If not, would I be justified in declaring actual war? Is war more defensible than sanctions? What if I know that my army will commit some war crimes no matter how hard I train it out of them?
Or, would not sanctioning Russia here be tantamount to appeasement, which, I note, we also have evidence to believe is not effective?
I agree with OP’s position re the sanctions against Venezuela and Iran, by the way. Both situations have been disastrously handled. I think we’ve mishandled North Korea as well, but sanctions are only a piece of that.
“Sanctions must have specific offramps” is an argument against sanctions without them. It is unrelated to whether a war of aggression was initiated. Yes Putin is not stupid and subtext may be obvious, but I still support making subtext manifest.
It is legitimate to worry sanctions will continue. For example, sanctions against Iran in fact had a clear stop condition. IAEA will do verification and sanctions will be lifted. IAEA did verification in 2018. Four years have passed, and sanctions against Iran are continuing.
Thanks for the feedback. I will do better to try and meet LW’s standards for posting. I agree that I should have offered an alternative. I think targeted sanctions against Putin and his regime are fine, as are weapon shipments. It’s hard to do a good cost benefit analysis on this but I think sending weapons has much lower costs and much greater ability to deter/limit russian aggression than does collapsing the Russian economy. Also, while I dont think killing 23 year old Russians should be a primary goal, I am more comfortable with this than sanctions which will harm millions of Russian and non Russian civilians.
The thesis in the original post was that sanctions do not work for achieving their aims. If that’s in fact the case, then “don’t impose sanctions” seems like a superior alternative.
If sanctions don’t work at all, ever, then you shouldn’t use them ever. But the OP seems to be defending less sweeping claims , like “sanctions are wrong when the US does them” or “sanctions are wrong without clear start and stop conditions”.
The post suggests two: sanctions should have been precommitted to have any deterrence effect (this seems obviously true), and sanctions should have a clear stop condition to encourage de-escalation.
I support lifting SWIFT sanctions immediately if Russia reverts to status quo ante bellum (that is, Crimea is still annexed and Donbas is under Minsk agreements), but if that is not politically feasible, any stop condition would be better than the current situation. For example, a stop condition could be territorial integrity of Ukraine as of Budapest memorandum, that is, returning Crimea and Donbas to Ukraine control.
What are the alternatives?
This is my question as well; sanctions may well be a humanitarian catastrophe, but so is a naked war of aggression. My intuitive sense is that criticizing sanctions here, without suggesting an alternative, is insufficient for LW.
I don’t think the “sanctions must have specific offramps” is a good argument against a naked war of aggression, unless you contend that Russia’s transparently bad-faith casus belli is legitimate. It seems like “sanctions will end, if you withdraw all troops from Ukraine” is a likely end-state result of peace negotiations, so making the subtext obvious is of little moral relevance. Putin is not stupid.
There’s also the complex question of moral culpability/collective punishment (as Jonnston mentions). I know that the 17,000 anti-tank Javelin missiles the U.S. has sent to Ukraine (NYT, paywall, sorry) will be used to kill Russian soldiers. Should I oppose that step because many of the soldiers killed are conscripts? Suppose all of them are conscripts and would be conscientious objectors except that there is no such objection allowed under Russian law; suppose commissars await behind the front lines to kill deserters. Must I not destroy an invader’s war materiel because arguably innocent people, who happen to be required to carry rifles, will die? Should my moral calculus be affected by the other side’s imposition of rules that force me to make difficult moral calculations about people who might be my friends otherwise? Has war ever not done this? Christmas Truce, anyone?
Suppose Putin believes that sanctions would be the West’s only plausible option here (other than total capitulation to a naked war of aggression) and invades anyway. Putin is forcing me to calculate the human cost of sanctioning Russia versus the human cost of not doing anything. Is my moral calculus affected by this? Maybe I should ask some Ukrainians if they think they should have value in my moral calculus, as the nation of non-aggressors?
Godwin’s Law: Suppose it was 1943 and I knew the Holocaust was happening. Would I be justified in imposing similar sanctions on Nazi Germany? If not, would I be justified in declaring actual war? Is war more defensible than sanctions? What if I know that my army will commit some war crimes no matter how hard I train it out of them?
Or, would not sanctioning Russia here be tantamount to appeasement, which, I note, we also have evidence to believe is not effective?
I agree with OP’s position re the sanctions against Venezuela and Iran, by the way. Both situations have been disastrously handled. I think we’ve mishandled North Korea as well, but sanctions are only a piece of that.
“Sanctions must have specific offramps” is an argument against sanctions without them. It is unrelated to whether a war of aggression was initiated. Yes Putin is not stupid and subtext may be obvious, but I still support making subtext manifest.
It is legitimate to worry sanctions will continue. For example, sanctions against Iran in fact had a clear stop condition. IAEA will do verification and sanctions will be lifted. IAEA did verification in 2018. Four years have passed, and sanctions against Iran are continuing.
Thanks for the feedback. I will do better to try and meet LW’s standards for posting. I agree that I should have offered an alternative. I think targeted sanctions against Putin and his regime are fine, as are weapon shipments. It’s hard to do a good cost benefit analysis on this but I think sending weapons has much lower costs and much greater ability to deter/limit russian aggression than does collapsing the Russian economy. Also, while I dont think killing 23 year old Russians should be a primary goal, I am more comfortable with this than sanctions which will harm millions of Russian and non Russian civilians.
The thesis in the original post was that sanctions do not work for achieving their aims. If that’s in fact the case, then “don’t impose sanctions” seems like a superior alternative.
If sanctions don’t work at all, ever, then you shouldn’t use them ever. But the OP seems to be defending less sweeping claims , like “sanctions are wrong when the US does them” or “sanctions are wrong without clear start and stop conditions”.
The post suggests two: sanctions should have been precommitted to have any deterrence effect (this seems obviously true), and sanctions should have a clear stop condition to encourage de-escalation.
I support lifting SWIFT sanctions immediately if Russia reverts to status quo ante bellum (that is, Crimea is still annexed and Donbas is under Minsk agreements), but if that is not politically feasible, any stop condition would be better than the current situation. For example, a stop condition could be territorial integrity of Ukraine as of Budapest memorandum, that is, returning Crimea and Donbas to Ukraine control.