Reynolds: I gather you think that sanctions leveled by the government are inadequate to address this much larger threat?
Hill: Absolutely. Sanctions are not going to be enough. You need to have a major international response, where governments decide on their own accord that they can’t do business with Russia for a period of time until this is resolved. We need a temporary suspension of business activity with Russia. Just as we wouldn’t be having a full-blown diplomatic negotiation for anything but a ceasefire and withdrawal while Ukraine is still being actively invaded, so it’s the same thing with business. Right now you’re fueling the invasion of Ukraine. So what we need is a suspension of business activity with Russia until Moscow ceases hostilities and withdraws its troops.
Reynolds: So ordinary companies…
Hill: Ordinary companies should make a decision. This is the epitome of “ESG” that companies are saying is their priority right now — upholding standards of good Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance. Just like people didn’t want their money invested in South Africa during apartheid, do you really want to have your money invested in Russia during Russia’s brutal invasion and subjugation and carving up of Ukraine?
This is also why sanctions are targeted - you need a carrot and a stick.
However the suggestion you make at the end, that we should only sanction Putin & co., is exactly the type of measure that would work in a democratic regime but not in an authoritarian one.
I can't think of a single case where a large authoritarian regime was handed off gently to a democratic one as a result of sanctions on the dictator.
I live in Serbia which was under heavy sanctions in early 90s: those in power have only gotten richer and more powerful during the time. Only after economy started recovering in late 90s, and people could afford to worry about "freedom" instead of basic survival did people get enough democratic momentum to vote incumbents out (sprinkled with a bit of West-supported protests to avoid a possibly rigged second round with 47% votes for opposition to 32% for incumbents in the first round iirc).
But sanctions did nothing to hurt those in power. They did plenty to hurt the rest of us.
In these situations, for republics like the United States, the best way to encourage the country to improve the standard of living for the citizens is via sanctions since it forces the country to sell these commodities at lower prices to a smaller group of potential buyers. If enough countries limit trade to where the country has to primarily rely on its own citizens for economic stability, they'd be further pressured into at least partially building schools and infrastructure and other things we/the United States believes should be a bare minimum for life.
National animosity will remain and it will be a political tool that can be easily put to use, but as long as there's money to be gained to improve life for your local population, trades will start happening.
I think that the government of a country is a lagging metric of the value of its people.
You will note how many Western governments over the past few days have been saying explicitly: "These sanctions are not meant at the Russian people, we see that they did not want this war". It doesn't seem like this is even true from polling, but it's calculated messaging, and it's important.
But my argument is different. If because of sanctions Russians people start to think a little bit and question their government, that will be a start. That may not happen to be honest because as I said, the government of a country is a reflexion of the values of that country. And I am not sure for Russia.
I have family in Moldova and in far-east Russia. I was talking to a cousin in the far-east and I can't even believe the discussion we had few weeks ago.
It's pretty evil to expect a populace to do that. In fact it is scarily similar to the ideas within early soviet governments, that mass death now is worthwhile and acceptable to allow for a promised utopia later.
This somehow reminds me of how Putin, in his ridiculous speeches, cited NATO involvement in Serbia and Iraq as a reason to attack Ukraine. Of course, the western politicians responsible for those decisions are now gone, because unlike Putin, they respected term limits.
The US hasn't had a perfect track record in the "wars of choice" department. The US voter does have some moral responsibility for it. The flaw, however, would be in saying as Putin does that the US political system is totally invalid for this, or justifies bad behavior elsewhere.
i say this as someone living in US borders and citizenship
A happy population doesn't riot and revolt. You need a miserable population to get something like that to happen.
Throughout history, revolutions only succeeded when there were enough privileged people on "their" side (eg. those with money, status...). I am not sure where the idea that sanctions work to this effect came from, but I have yet to see it: miserable population is scrambling to survive, not to fight ideological battles.
As an example, Serbia, where I am from, has been under heavy sanctions in early 90s: you'd be buying car fuel in 1.5l bottles smuggled from neighbouring countries, inflation was so bad that the day after paycheck, I'd be getting half of my parents salary for pocket money... Economy started recovering in late 90s after sanctions were abolished, and regime change happened in year 2000.
Here's a topical example: Russia threatened Ukraine with sanctions if Ukraine signed a free trade deal with the EU [1] [2]. It effectively stalled free trade talks between Ukraine and the EU.
That happened in late 2013. In a twist of irony, this enraged ordinary Ukrainians and kicked off the Euromaidan protests that forcibly deposed Ukraine's president at the time - Viktor Yanukovych - and toppled his regime. This led to the annexation of Crimea and, well, the rest is history.
[1] https://www.reuters.com/article/ukraine-eu-russia/russia-ste...
Counterpoint: what about the French revolution?
You are absolutely right that it's easier to have revolts led by the privileged - the American revolution was one. I'm sure there were plenty of others.
As for sanctions causing regime change, you may be right. But that's also not the goal here - the goal is to tank Russia's war effort and generally cause pain for him and his cronies. Of course plenty of people are probably hoping regime change will result but I doubt it'll be a direct consequence, if it happens at all.
Broad based sanctions assume, completely wrong, that Putin’s (or any dictator’s) power comes from the common Russian people. Wrong! And that’s why sanctions will only hurt the common Russians and keep Putin and his cronies in power for decades. In reality, he draws his power, like all other dictators, from an inner circle. These would be the oligarchs, heads of military and police and some others. This is where the sanctions should be targeted if the intention is to effectively change the regime. Hurting the population does not mean the pain will trickle up to the inner circle.
https://learnodo-newtonic.com/french-revolution-leaders seems to disagree: most, if not all, of them come from privileged backgrounds.
Autoritarian regimes with a lot of money can do more damage than those with few. As witnessed this week.
Throughout the history, trade happened with partners. Western world made it seem like taking it away is a sanction instead of having it as a "gift to improve each others country".
This could be reversing because of Russia now.
Yes, the Soviet Union.
So much so, that there wasn't much trade to sanction.
We have integrated economies now, there's a lot to directly sanction, we didn't back then.
Where was IKEA, Toyota, Nike, Apple, Intel etc. and their 1970's peers doing in Russia?
They were not. There just wasn't brand commercial integration. Same thing for information, services, travel, finance etc..
We'd have to shut down most of our trade now to reach the level of de-facto 'sanction' of the Soviet Union.
Still not sure that changes in attitude will come about by making life more miserable for ordinary Russians; and even if the majority disapproves of Putin, there is not much they can do about it [2].
[1] https://www.levada.ru/en/ratings/
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/23/world/europe/russia-ukrai...
> And yet there is desperately little that Russians can do to change their country’s trajectory.
Additionally, that report is from 23/02. I believe that opinion should have shifted quite a lot already.
I was brainwashed by Kremlin propaganda and believed in their holy mission until I was about 18 or so. Then I got a proper permanent internet connection and started looking up information from alternative sources. I could not in good conscience support what's been going on in the region since at least 2008.
Now we're basically fucked because of what's happening. Again, I am not from Russia, but our economy will be buried along with theirs because they're highly intertwined. And I'm pretty sure they'll invade us sooner or later.
This may be, but it begs the question: who is most responsible, then? Certainly not the people outside of Russia, yes? If the Americans invaded Russia, for the sole purpose of arresting Putin, this would result in worldwide, humanity ending nuclear devastation, including in Russia. It simply must be the Russian people that hold the most culpability for holding Putin to account then.
Is it fair? No, certainly not, but tell that to the Ukrainians being murdered by Russian people right now.
But since Putin does have fairly high approval, the population is somewhat responsible too.
- Putin's popularity jumped up during the invasion to 69% - which is a lot.
- Only 5% of Russians believe that Russia is responsible for the incursion, while 50% believe that the problem is NATO (I understand at least part of this is due to heavy propaganda)
- While the choice for war is a bit ambiguous and probably errs one way or the other depending on how much propaganda buy in there is, the fact of the matter is that Russians will ultimately, proudly accept the annexation of Ukraine as their vassal state and buy into the notion of that broader destiny of Neo Russia that Putin is pushing for. The 'We Are One People' is enough to elicit the cultural chauvinism among the population so that while they may not support conflict, they will accept, and possibly promote the outcome without any regard for the self-determination of the Ukranians.
(Obviously, this is due to a lot of propaganda and lack of real exposure to other information, but it is what it is.)
- Chinese citizens are broadly happy to see the crackdowns in Hong Kong (i.e. "Why do those they believe they should have special rights, especially when they are attacking China!"), and fully accept the 'regional internment' of the Uyghurs, including re-education prisons for many specific individuals purely on the basis of their ethnicity. Similarly the eradication of Tibet as an entity. And of course, the possible invasion of Taiwan that we might see in the coming years.
There is a degree of complicity among the population, at least for the nationalist claims, especially to the extent they look past the materiality of some of the violence etc.
Second, is that the citizens probably need to be informed of the issue. While the sanctions might form a bit of a blip in the Ruble, it's not going to affect most people's lives particularly dramatically, it may just slow the economy down in largely imperceptible ways to the general population. Many will blame 'NATO' for their disinvitations to sporting events.
It's dramatic for a Western-connected software developer who has the means to get a flight, and who cares about Ruble/USD exchange, but not likely for most of the plebes.
Therefore - it might be a good idea to do 'populist sanctions' - like shutting down all the Starbucks, McDonald's, IKEAS, Netflix, Hollywood films, Nikes, NBA games, televised football of all kinds - all those things and more.
I'd say include iPhones/Android but probably we want to maintain for them an outlet for information from the outside, and frankly to collect data if we need it. But we could dramatically reduce what's available in the App Stores, stop selling a bunch of variations and product lines etc.
None of that is hugely material at all, it's not going to harm anyone frankly, it won't hugely affect the economy, but it's a 'really strong daily reminder' of the fact that 'they are excluded' from the system. No more 'nice lattes', because 'we don't like you right now'.
Every Russian economist I'm reading is in mourning (you can see it in their faces) and is promising a severe commodity deficiency and high prices on consumer goods in the near future.
I think they expect something like the beginning of the 90s, but even more severe, close to zero outside help, and low chances for recovery.
All of my Russian friends have been in panic since the 24th. I am too, honestly, I have already lost 25% of my income (which was not very high even before) for not doing anything wrong and just being close to Russia.
(I support Ukraine and the Western response, but we'll be collateral damage nevertheless.)
- in a democracy, the population is responsible for what the government does. Conversely, the more authoritarian the regime, arguably the less culpable the population is. (Of course, people shouldn't have allowed an authoritarian figure to gain power... indeed. But frankly, those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.)
- it is imperative to distinguish between the government and the people, in particular in very authoritarian regimes. Sometimes the population is behind their government, sometimes they aren't.
- here, it seems to me that many Russians (and quite possibly the majority) are increasingly critical and sick of Putin, and, as far as I can tell, most are, like the rest of the world, against this war.
- who suffers most from this war are ordinary Ukrainians, obviously. However, I venture to say, most ordinary Russians suffer, too.
- thus, as far as possible, our sanctions should be laser focused at targeting Putin and his collaborators, the inner circle, government, and companies close to the government.