Another thing to consider:

Do sanctions help other countries stay nice?

I'm afraid that if it came out that you could do what you wanted and it wouldn't have consequences then we'd see a lot more bad behavior.

So, while it hasn't worked on NK who knows what other countries would have tried if they could get away with it (and, I'd say, just look at history to get an idea).

Well the US didn't stay nice when there were sanctions all around them.

I anticipated this coming up but you kind of see why I guess.

If there was an even bigger superpower ready to punish them they might have behaved a whole lot better.

Reuters ran an interesting debate last month on the motion "Sanctions are fair and effective", each side had a senior lawyer and a politician speaking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtfSheVScFc

South Africa would like you to hold their beer.

It's kind of futile to give an example of sanctions working to someone who clearly stated that they some times work.

That's quite accurate - instead of trying to state any reasoning that would be refutable your statement above doesn't guarantee anything while implying a lot - thus it's pretty unassailable by logic. The implication is rested on a very relaxed statement and will continue to imply even while counter examples are raised.

Actually, I made a very refutable statement:

> Successful sanctions are the exception.

To refute, you just need to look at all sanctions, and enumerate the successful ones, and show the proportion is at least half.[0]

If "all" sanctions is onerous, a decent sample (e.g. "sanctions in the last 30 years") would still have weight.

But simply giving an example of something that the claimant clearly agrees with - that's not even close to a refutation.

[0] Clearly one can disagree on what success means, but then nothing in society can yield to logic

Reduction of foreign military expenditure by Gorbachev, political settlement in South-West Africa/Namibia, and the eventual fall of the Soviet Union arguably did more to remove any remaining rationale of the segregated government.

In any case, sanctions/disinvestment caused many foreign companies to sell their South African divisions at a great discount to white industrialists. These industrialists in turn greatly benefited by opening up in the 90ies.

I told my mom this (among other things) and we’re going on year two of not speaking.

It’s like when parents say they hit you because they love you. But they “love” you regardless. They’re just hitting you because they’re mad.

Are you saying that you told your mother this because you were explaining why you are imposing 'sanctions' on her, or are you saying the two of you had an argument about politics and are therefore not speaking? (Or something else?)

"Mom I'm imposing sanctions on you." That's a thing, but saying so is generally not a good idea ;-)

That's like saying "war did not change anything" . Sure , but the possibility that it might change something is why they re done. What's the alternative, assuming diplomacy has been exhausted?

>Sure , but the possibility that it might change something is why they re done.

Don't consider possibilities in one direction only. Consider the possibility that the change may exacerbate the situation. And then compare with the "no action" alternative.

in almost all cases, the "no action" option has already been deemed unpalatable

One person's decision is not "sanctions," it's deciding not to work with a bad client.