The West has imposed gigantic financial and economic sanctions on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine. Should sanctions now be a way to end the war? Are they a way to punish Russia for its bad behavior? Or are they just the expression of a moral scandal?
This is the second time in less than a decade that Russia has been sanctioned for violating international law: After annexing Crimea and invading eastern Ukraine in 2014, the United States imposed economic sanctions with the aim of “effectively turning the country into a pariah to transform state. Obviously, this did not have the desired effect of changing the Kremlin’s stance. Now a fresh spate of measures in response to the attack on Ukraine has pushed sanctions to unprecedented levels.
Current restrictions on Russia include a ban on trade in critical technologies, comprehensive asset freezes and travel bans, denial of major Russian banks access to international capital markets, travel bans and asset freezes on certain individuals, and banning Russian aircraft from flying international flights airspace. With the confiscation of foreign exchange reserves at the Central Bank of Russia and the promised exclusion of Russia from the global financial and trading system, oil and gas remain the country’s lifelines in the global economy.
All of this may seem like a necessary moral response to Russia’s anarchic stance. But when relatively fine sanctions give way to a violent economic blitz, we should ask ourselves two key questions. First, when will sanctions become a route to war rather than an alternative route? Second, what are these measures intended to achieve and how effective could they be? So far, these questions have hardly been asked, let alone answered.
Demonstration against the Russian invasion of Ukraine in the Swiss city of Lausanne
LAURENT GILLIERON v EFE
Governments should consider the first question carefully before imposing sanctions on a major power, especially a nuclear power. When this power perceives a threat to its ability to survive, there is a strong chance that it will fight to overcome the limitations.
For example, when the United States imposed an embargo on oil and gas exports to Japan in August 1941 after Japan seized oil fields in Indochina, the Japanese responded by attacking Pearl Harbor. And after OPEC subjected the United States to an oil embargo in 1973 in retaliation for US military aid to Israel during the Yom Kippur War, President Richard Nixon’s administration threatened to invade and occupy oil fields in OPEC member states. The embargo ended.
The sanctions imposed on Russia so far do not yet threaten the survival of the Russian state. But President Vladimir Putin may see a Western attempt to write off what remains of Russia’s international trade, particularly in the energy sector, as an existential threat.
The West can only help Ukraine by threatening war
As for the second question, the goal of economic sanctions is fairly clear: to prevent or end wars by imposing unacceptable costs on the aggressor state. But while there is no doubt that sanctions against Russia have greatly increased the cost of Putin’s war to the Russian people, no one expects this to end the conflict.
The West, on the other hand, hopes that the cost of sanctions against Russia’s elite will achieve that result. Rather than lose their wealth, the argument goes, the elites could overthrow Putin or force him to end the war. That’s the only justification for the current sanctions that makes sense.
Now, the likelihood of Putin’s ouster, or even a drastic change in Russian policy, is far less than most assume. In essence, it depends on Russia’s defeat in Ukraine, a protracted unresolved conflict, or a growing perception among Russia’s military that Putin has failed them. Much more likely is a ceasefire and at least some semblance of a Russian victory. In this case, economic sanctions would have neither ended the war nor guaranteed peace.
A 2007 report by the UK House of Lords concluded that “economic sanctions used in isolation from other policy tools are unlikely to force a target into major policy changes”. Even the extraordinary success of the sanctions that forced South Africa out of apartheid depended on two special circumstances that do not apply to Russia today: a worldwide execution and South Africa’s inability to fight back. Turkey, India and China are the most prominent states that have not sanctioned Russia, and possible Russian countersanctions include cutting oil and gas supplies on which much of Europe depends.
But that’s not all. Among the “other policy instruments” mentioned in the House of Lords report, the most important is “the threat of the use of force or its actual use”. In other words, the ineffectiveness of economic sanctions alone in changing a state’s behavior implies a high risk of contributing to escalation. Because of this, Western countries have so far not agreed to Ukraine’s request to impose a nofly zone.
Economic sanctions against Russia are supposed to be an alternative to war, but they should only reasonably change the behavior of the Kremlin if they become tactical components of the conflict. The sad reality is that Western countries cannot help Ukraine except by threatening war against Russia. But to admit this is to question the whole logic of his sanctions policy.
In general, economic sanctions have become an overused tool of preventive diplomacy. By closing off parts of the world from international trade, they encourage the formation of antagonistic blocs and destroy any promise that globalization holds.
The ineffectiveness of sanctions harbors the risk of promoting an escalation
Samuel Johnson illustratively remarked that “there are few ways a man can be more innocently employed than for money.” His French contemporary Montesquieu spoke of the sweetness of trade. It is true that much of the trade is criminal and largely benefits corrupt and oppressive governments. But forcing countries to return to premodern economic conditions is not a formula for progress.
Robert Skidelsky, a member of the House of Lords and Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, was nonexecutive director of private Russian oil company PJSC Russneft from 2016 to 2021.