Are sanctions against Russia working?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/05/2023 (1185 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As the war in Ukraine surpasses 14 months, it is worth contemplating what impact international sanctions are having on Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Are the punitive measures “biting” enough to deter Moscow from continuing on with its inhumane and ruinous war efforts?

The nature and scope of the sanctions applied to a major power like Russia are in many ways unprecedented. It is most assuredly an important test case of the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of economic warfare by the advanced economies of the West.

The concept of sanctions is often characterized as a punishment or penalty for international wrongdoing and misconduct. They can take many forms and modalities — taking into account diplomatic, economic, military, financial and even sport dimensions — while being implemented either unilaterally or multilaterally.

It is also instructive to acknowledge that going the sanctions route is typically a less risk-averse substitute for deploying “boots on the ground.” Moreover, it is a favoured option by most countries and political leaders because it creates the perception — in the absence of going to war — of actually doing something against an international outrage.

So in late February, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the world community to intensify its sanctions campaign against Russia’s aggression. In a tweet in English, Zelenskyy noted emphatically: “The pressure on Russian aggressor must increase.” And there is some indication by the West that it will.

The laundry list of economic, security and financial penalties against Russia is too long to identify here. And we should also note that the target list is being added to periodically and tweaked for maximum impact.

But Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the United States, recently took a swipe at Western sanctions and efforts to isolate Russia. “We have learned to live under economic and political pressure,” he said. He then went on to add pointedly: “The experience of previous sanctions has shown that they harm the world market to a greater extent, worsen the situation of ordinary citizens in states that initiate or support reckless sanctions.”

Of course, the critical question of whether punishing sanctions actually “work” is almost always a contested issue. The length of time that sanctions need to be in place to truly work their magic is also a point of sharp debate.

For some, sanctions are seen as a reliable and impactful means of altering the behaviour of an offending state such as Russia. But others view sanctions as a blunt instrument and mostly underpinned by the flawed thinking that wrongdoing by countries can be reversed via compel lance or stringent punishment.

Clearly, sanctions are not a silver bullet or a guaranteed supplier of leverage against Russia. As the Cuban government has come to learn over 60-plus years, there are many ways to circumvent U.S. sanctions, to produce your own substitute products and to take advantage of myriad “sanctions-busters” around the world.

Indeed, Putin’s Russia, like other sanctioned countries, has sought to find ways to insulate its economy from punitive measures — what with friends such as China, India Turkey and Argentina, to name a few. These steps do not always weaken the impact of sanctions on its citizenry immediately, but they can have a minimizing effect over time.

In addition, there is always the risk that damaging the living standards of ordinary Russians could serve as a rallying point for the regime. As a master of disinformation, Putin has sought to blame or scapegoat the West for what currently ails the Russian economy. Nor does the West want to precipitate the outright collapse of Russia’s economy and thus trigger a global economic downturn.

For the moment, though, the cohesiveness of the West’s sanctions alliance has held. But for how long can this unity of purpose remain in place? In some ways, that staying power will be a function of how much alliance members are willing to pay in attendant negative costs to their own economies.

A key part of the problem for the West, then, is a failure thus far to define exactly what a successful sanctions campaign looks like. Stated differently, there does not appear to be any Western consensus on what sanctions are intended to achieve (or not achieve) in the case of Russia. And without a clear answer to this question, it is difficult to assess the effectiveness of the West’s overall sanctions regime.

I’m not suggesting here that comprehensive sanctions are necessarily the wrong the way to go. But I do think that the rationale that underpins them is principally politically in nature and likely geared to impose the least costs on the sanctioning countries themselves. This, in turn, makes it hard to assess just how effective sanctions have been in forcing Putin to rethink his savagery in Ukraine.

It’s true that sanctions have clearly inflicted some harm on Russia’s citizens and economy. But they are a long way from precipitating a withdrawal of Russian or proxy forces from Ukrainian territory. Maybe time will tell a different story, but I’m not entirely convinced.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island in Charlottetown.