海角大神

On Tuesday, President Obama announced a new round of coordinated sanctions that the United States and Europe would be imposing on Russia in connection with its actions in Ukraine:

Conspicuously absent from being impacted by this newest round of sanctions, of course, is Gazprom, Russia鈥檚 largest energy company and the supplier of natural gas and other energy sources. Notwithstanding that fact, though, these are far tougher sanctions than we鈥檝e seen imposed against Russia to date and, at least in some sense, answer the question I asked earlier this month about whether or not Europe would be willing to step up and take a stand against Russia in the wake of the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. In reality, the sanctions are not quite as tough as they appear to be on the surface, though. As noted, the sanctions won鈥檛 impact the massive energy deliveries from Russia to Europe, which bring huge amounts of hard currency into the Kremlin鈥檚 coffers. Additionally, the ban on military contracts only applies to future contracts and does not impact existing relationships. Arguably, this is consistent with the gradualist approach that the US and the West have taken on sanctions since the Ukraine crisis began nearly six months ago, but of course that gradulist approach has not done very much to restrain Putin鈥檚 actions so far, so it is unclear what these latest actions will accomplish.

That being said, there does seem to be some indication that Russia is starting to feel the impact of these sanctions:

What this all means for the future is hard to tell. Vladimir Putin does not strike me as someone who concerns himself very much with public opinion in general, and the unease that is expressed above doesn鈥檛 exactly rise to the level of serious dissent. Even if it did, the majority of Russians seem to be buying the line that the Kremlin is selling them and perfectly happy to go along with the Russian nationalism that Putin is using to justify his policies in Ukraine and potential threats to other nations in Eastern Europe. If there are going to be problems ahead for Putin, then, its not likely to come from the general populace but from the Russian oligarchs that are among his biggest political allies. This is at least part of the logic behind the sanctions that the US and Europe have adopted to date, namely the idea that if these oligarchs starting becoming unhappy with the impact sanctions are having on their heretofore comfortable lifestyles that included traveling the world at will, they will put pressure on Putin to stand down. Even if the first part is true, though, I鈥檓 not sure there鈥檚 much of any reason to believe that the second part will come to pass. After all, these sanctions aren鈥檛 going to sap the oligarchs of their fortunes, and it strikes me as being somewhat wishful thinking to base policy on the idea that making life less convenient for them is going to set in motion a course of events that will result in Putin backing down.

If it turns out that way, it would not be all that surprising. Historically, sanctions alone have not proven to be a very good means of getting nations to change a course of actions. Although sanctions have apparently played a role in bringing them to the negotiating table in Geneva, for example, sanctions have done little to deter Iran from continuing to develop a nuclear capability. The sanctions imposed by President Carter did little to deter the Soviets in their invasion of Afghanistan, and in some ways actually ended up hurting American farmers who had been selling wheat to the Soviet Union more than it did the Soviets themselves. The American embargo against Cuba hasn鈥檛 resulted in the end of the Castro regime. In no small part, of course, these sanctions haven鈥檛 worked because the authoritarian regimes that they were directed against didn鈥檛 really care very much about whatever economic pain might be inflicted on the general populace. Given that this seems to be true of Putin鈥檚 Russia, one has to wonder if these sanctions, or even a future round that is even tougher than what was announced Tuesday, will accomplish anything at all.

Doug Mataconis appears on the Outside the Beltway blog at http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/.