Five years seems pretty mild when you consider the chief purpose of sanctions is to provide an alternative to war as a means of settling disputes. And this man is willfully undermining the ability of his country to levy sanctions.
Surely actively undermining the security of ones country is a serious offense.
Someone recently explained their view, that sanctions are akin to siege warfare in days of old. Whether you agree with that analogy or not, there is an underlying valid point that not all warfare requires physical violence. We use the term cyber warfare as another example.
> there is an underlying valid point that not all warfare requires physical violence.
All warfare requires physical violence. If it's not physically violent, “warfare” is being used as a loose metaphor, not a factual description.
> We use the term cyber warfare as another example.
Cyberwarfare not directed at or effectuating physical destruction of materiel and/or persons is merely metaphorical rather than actual warfare, or is part of the information component of a broader war. (OTOH, cyberwarfare can be, in fact, a direct means of achieving physical destruction of materiel and/or persons.)
Cyber-warfare is in most instances comparable to sabotage as used in warfare.
I can see the point you're making about sanctions being similar to siege warfare. The main difference being that sieges separate you from your own forces and allies in a way that sanctions don't.
I mean, they're really more like trade embargoes, which have existed for hundreds of years. Thomas Jefferson reacted to the Chesapeake affair, for example, by cutting off all international US trade. In retrospect, probably a pretty ineffective foreign policy choice, since it tanked the US economy and didn't particularly hurt the Brits, who were happy that France could no longer trade with the US. (This occurred during the background of the Napoleonic wars and the Royal Navy impressing US sailors).
Yes, but when people say war in isolation, the vast majority of the population take that that, rightfully so, to refer to the conventional bullets flying tanks rolling, literally death dealing war.
Axlees post above reads in amazingly bad faith. It's just a "oh, you're not using this nonstandard definition you fool" type sarcastic response to dismiss the point, contributing nothing in itself.
Yes, but when people say war in isolation, the vast majority of the population take that that, rightfully so, to refer to the conventional bullets flying tanks rolling, literally death dealing war.
They can be analogous to war, but the whole response about"oh no, what sanctions are also war" is just playing rhetorical games.
When people say war, the vast majority of the population will take it to mean boots on the ground, military involved, bullets flying war. The sarcastic
When intended to harm one party, yes. When the US technically and financially supported the groups that caused the illegal removal of the previous elected Brazilian president, it was warfare.
When Putin financially supports the French far-right, it’s also warfare.
The sanctions imposed on South Africa in the 1980s absolutely crippled the country and are widely seen as a successful contribution in the efforts of bringing down Apartheid.
> The sanctions imposed on South Africa in the 1980s absolutely crippled the country and are widely seen as a successful contribution in the efforts of bringing down Apartheid.
They played a role, but Western institutions are biased to exaggerate it and gloss over the fact that the sanctions regimes were only adopted after the reinvigoration of the armed struggle fueled by stepped up material and training support from the USSR brought into serious doubt the survival of the South African regime even with continued active support.
The West didn't want South Africa to lose, and wouldn't concede to it losing until the alternative was it losing anyway and armed struggle and support of the Communist bloc being the entire narrative for why, which they didn't like for either international or domestic political optics.
Sanctions have absolutely wrecked many hostile countries aconomy, crippling their ability to conduct war. There's a reason why North Korea's army is 50s technology held together by duct tape.
Does that matter? If someone tried to sell state secrets to another country and their buyer turned out to be a CIA agent undercover and the secrets were fake info planted for them to sell, they still likely will be prosecuted for treason despite all that.
This is a dumb statement every time it's asserted. Sanctions are not an act of war in any sense. Not in theory nor in a pragmatic sense. The distinction between war and other modes of interstate hostility is an important one which we should not abandon. "Sanctions are war" is the same sort of statement as "speech is violence": it's sophistic, and it collapses nuance instead of encouraging it.
It really depends on the particularities of the sanctions, the target of the sanctions, the degree of willingness of other states in the sanctioning process, and how the sanctions are enforced. A blockade that leads to starvation and enforced by the threat of overwhelming force against blockade runners is -- and always has been -- an act of war.
None of that nuance is necessary in this case. To be clear, kids: helping a despotic regime with ICBM ambitions evade currency controls so its ruling class can enjoy luxury and fund WMD weapons programs while its citizens literally starve is A Bad Thing.
"Go beat/kill this guy" is violence, yet it's just words. Putin haven't killed people with his bare hands(at least for a few years...)But who wouldn't call him violent?
If your sanctions cause people to die, of hunger, sickness or anything else, it's violence.
I'm not against sanctions depending on the circumstances, but you're just wrong
1. "Go beat/kill this guy" is specific targeted incitement.
2. Sanctions are not the same as a blockade. What you're describing is a blockade. To be more specific, suspending trade is not the same an active blockade. I haven't seen any indication to see the current sanctions could even function as a blockade.
The same as the guy in the article was imprisoned by the United States?
EDIT: Putin puts people in jail for not following marching orders. The U.S. puts people in jail for not following sanctions. It doesn't seem logical to draw a distinction on what is or is not warlike (bullets vs sanctions) based on who jails people, since they both jail people who disobey orders. I assume other factors would be more relevant?
You can't force someone to trade with you - while being able to trade within your state is a right, international trade is a privilege. This privilege is negotiated at the state level. If you decide to thumb your nose at your trading partners they can stop trading with you, because they don't owe you trade.
If you built an economy entirely dependent on foreign trade for the survival of your own citizens it's best not to bite the hand that feeds, eh? But making sure your citizens survive is your responsibility and yours alone - not that of your trading partners.
I'm going to have to disagree there. Sanctions once enacted are definitely an alternative to war, after all, bullets all by themselves don't constitute an act but sanctions are an act.
Sanctions aren't an alternative to war. We like to imagine dropping bombs on someone is less polite than starving them to death, but it's just an illusion.
Surely actively undermining the security of ones country is a serious offense.