> sanctions are how we discourage war

Sanctions are war. Although I'm not sure it's working. North Korea has been going for many decades and sanctions have not managed to do anything except stimulate urgency and motivation for them to continue the hegemony.

Anyway, in the cause sanctioning individuals such as criminals, then I have no problem with that. However, I think these should be under the control of decentralized systems where there's less opportunity to abuse, co-opt and involve the general consensus of the entire society rather than a few powerful individuals. We have to make sure that such tools are never turned around and used against us. Crypto gives us some hope to guard against that, as we transition to a cashless society.

I'm pretty sure they don't work. Citizens don't care why you are making their lives worse, they just know that you are making it worse. The authoritarian leader just needs to make some concessions and he has secured his voter base (assuming he pretends such a thing exists).