Also worth noting that no one expected the US to impose sanctions of this severity. Even a month ago, President Biden himself would not have thought we would react this way. But Twitter hysteria struck again and imposing harsher and harsher sanctions—and in the private sector, voluntarily withdrawing from the Russian economy even when sanctions did not require it—became a way to demonstrate your holiness. Rational calculation and self-preservation, out the window. We live in a Twitter world order now.

You can tell this was unplanned because back in January, with the invasion looming, US officials said (even if they did not completely mean it) that sanctions would be narrowly targeted to hurt the Russian elite but not the common people. Now, the explicit goal of the sanctions is to cripple the Russian economy and cause mass suffering sufficient to collapse support for the Russian government. If this was the plan all along, we would have said so. Deterrence only works if the other guy sees it coming.