Current sanctions on Belarus are somewhere between light and negligible.

There are a lot more things that could be taken away.

Expanding the sanctions to affect the entire country / citizenry has the side-effect of pushing populism there even closer to Russia, materially and emotionally, without having much effect on the actual bad actors beyond what the current sanctions do.

Traditionally a next step would be political, then material, support for an organized internal opposition, but there doesn't seem to be an obvious one in this case.

Economic sanctions can be aimed at Belarusian elites and state enterprises: ban on direct export to Belarus of luxury goods, advanced technology, ban on certain imports etc. At the same time freedom of movement with transit routes via Russia or Ukraine should be encouraged, to support low-volume trade and grey market. The bigger is shadow economy and the less concentrated is private sector, the more difficult is it for the regime to control it. It stimulates low level corruption and reduces loyalty of the law enforcement, increasing the chances of the opposition in the future.

> Economic sanctions can be aimed at Belarusian elites and state enterprises

Yes, this is already happening since last year, and was already scheduled to be expanded for a fourth time in June. I assume this clinches that, and probably more.

But the fact nobody seems to know there's been sanctions since last year suggests my other point - they're woefully ineffective as long as they can get other support.

Sanctions are almost always too weak. Any sanction that the government can withstand is too weak and will have the affect you describe. A strong sanction that says "release the prisoner immediately" will be short and not affect citizens long enough to create such a sentiment.

What kind of sanction do you have in mind?

No use of airspace and no trade with NATO countries until the prisoners are released. It would take a week.

No use of airspace is already being discussed and likely going to happen.

NATO is a military alliance, not a trade union. There's no way for them to organize what you're suggesting.

> It would take a week.

Fidel might like to have a word with you...

NATO members do talk to each other over a lot of different channels. It will take more than a week to organize, but it can be done.

But it will be as e.g. an EU action, not a NATO action. (I have doubts they will get anyone on the west side of the Atlantic to sign on, but I hope I'm wrong.) And the EU has already been acting.

My point is: There's a lot of people in this thread demanding a vague "something" be done, but it's really not clear whether there is "something" between what the EU's plan has already been for months and a hot war, other than some ill-considered immediate panic.

Was Fidel being offered sanctions to end by releasing a specific hostage? Or was he being asked to relinquish power?

Not so. Sanctions can be devastatingly effective applied by a significant majority of the world over a length of time. Sanctions were the instrument that brought an end to the Apartheid regime in South Africa: sanctions, having brought the South African economy to its knees, were a key factor in forcing the ruling regime to the negotiating table.

Yes, in some fairytale world the ruling National Party could have continued "doing whatever they want". Here in reality things would certainly have got worse, and the National Party government could see that the end-game was inescapable. Sanctions worked then, and they'll work again.

I know a little about this; it's pretty controversial, historically, whether Western sanctions, vs. decades of civil war and violent insurrection (often backed by subvert support from the Kremlin with the CIA playing defense) in SA and neighboring states were the catalyst. There are plenty of historians / economists who would argue that sanctions made things worse for the people of South Africa (much the same is said today about sanctions against Iran). In any event, that sanctions where "the" instrument that brought an end to apartheid should not be stated as if it were a universally accepted fact.

Let's ignore how ridiculous it is to give the West the credit for ending apartheid and that the economic growth of South Africa really doesn't back up your claim that sanctions were the key.

Even assuming you're right about the cause, the success story of sanctions would be a South African economy that never recovered leading to the suffering of millions. That's what happens when they "work."

What about Cuba? North Korea? Iran? They’ve been sanctioned for decades with devastating human consequences and little to no sign of those sanctions spurring any meaningful change.

I don't disagree with you but I do wonder whether for sanctions to be successful relies a lot on the way the population is feeling about the regime at the start. If they population decides to dig in, then the sanctions start to have a negative effect (in terms of getting a desired outcome).

If on the other hand the population is already angry at the regime, maybe it has the desired effect.

Idle musing without supporting evidence.

Only the US sanctioned Cuba and while it was pretty harmful, they were still able to trade with most other countries. North Korea has China right next door as a big trade partner, and can trade with many non-US countries as well. As for Iran, from what I can tell UN sanctions really only started to ramp up in the 2010s and those did have an effect in getting Iran to suspend its nuclear program.

Edit: But to be clear, I think the US sanctions on Cuba are gratuitous and cruel. Cuba is not some rogue state and there are many worse dictatorships that aren't sanctioned. However, I think it reinforces the point that "sanctions can be devastatingly effective applied by a significant majority of the world" because in the Cuba case the rest of the world didn't agree.

> Only the US sanctioned Cuba and while it was pretty harmful, they were still able to trade with most other countries.

There were considerable limits (particularly on foreign investment in Cuba) because parts of the US sanctions regime include retaliatory sanctions on entities making use of certain property in Cuba (some of these were suspended for a while, but restored under Trump in 2017.)

The impact of sanctions against apartheid SA get talked about a lot because it's a good example of international cooperation for non-violent activism.

Unfortunately talking only about sanctions ignores that plenty of governments resisted and watered down the sanctions because the apartheid regime's anti-communist ideology.

The negotiations to phase out apartheid for a democracy began mere months after the fall of the Berlin wall. At that point the collapse of the USSR was imminent, and the apartheid regime's utility as an anti-Communist outpost had expired.

>, knowing that things can't really get any worse.

But also knowing that things can get better. The incentive to do the "right" thing doesn't disappear. It only can't be increased further.