25 years ago, IR scholar Dan Drezner wrote the book _The Sanctions Paradox_ which tried to explain, in an IR theory sort of way, why sanctions are used so often and achieve so little- they don't overthrow governments, they rarely even manage to make governments stop doing the things we don't like.

He recently revisited that in FP magazine (https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/10/sanctions-paradox-russi...) arguing for keeping sanctions on Russia even though they clearly aren't going to coerce Russia into abandoning their war in Ukraine. The first reason is to re-enforce the global norm against territorial expansion. We've managed to go 80-odd years with a reasonable global norm against redrawing borders, and it is worth a lot to demonstrate that we- the global community- do not acquiesce. And the other reason is to weaken their economy for the grinding war of attrition that is currently happening, and not make territorial expansion easy for them.

> 25 years ago, IR scholar Dan Drezner wrote the book _The Sanctions Paradox_ which tried to explain, in an IR theory sort of way, why sanctions are used so often and achieve so little- they don't overthrow governments, they rarely even manage to make governments stop doing the things we don't like.

Sanctions are a negative-rate compounding system. Sarah Paine from the US Naval War College:

> People look at sanctions and go, “Oh, they don't work because you don't make whoever's annoying you change whatever they're doing.” What they do is they suppress growth so that whoever's annoying you over time, you're stronger and they're weaker. And the example of the impact of sanctions is compare North and South Korea. It's powerful over several generations.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcVSgYz5SJ8&t=29m03s

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarah_C._M._Paine

The thing is, sanctions damage both the sanctioned nation and the sanctioner.

I'm not really optimistic about western Europe's willingness to absorb damage in it economy in order to damage Russia. France's government expenditures are 55% of GDP, much of it financed by borrowing. That's the level maintained by major powers in the world wars. Can the French state demand more from a private sector that's funding the equivalent of a total war?

Worse yet, western European politics gives you the strong impression all these expenditures are necessary to prevent the election of a pro-Russian government or a bloody revolution.

Hence why sanctions seem to be something of a joke.

> and it is worth a lot to demonstrate that we- the global community- do not acquiesce

The “global community” you’re referring to consists of America and its client states—only around 1/8th of the world’s population.

Yeah, it seems hard to say military intervention is preferable to increased accounting and recordkeeping requirements. Or maybe sheltered is a better way to put. Which is a good thing! For most people alive on Earth right now haven't had to deal with wars of territorial expansion. Yes wars exist, and yes territorial expansion by military might conitnues, and military occupations from the US certainly don't help. But overall we're in a point of relative stability.

The same Dan Dexter that pushed for the Iraq war? Should we treat his opinions as such?

>> We've managed to go 80-odd years with a reasonable global norm against redrawing borders

What are the current borders of Yugoslavia?

Did anybody in the west argue that redrawing the borders of Yugoslavia was against global norms?

Did you?

> We've managed to go 80-odd years with a reasonable global norm against redrawing borders, and it is worth a lot to demonstrate that we- the global community- do not acquiesce

The previous Russian imperial project, the Soviet Union, ended 35 years ago, not 80. It's easy to overlook that they forcibly redrew borders and kept them redrawn for decades (and still to this day do keep some territories they conquered in imperialist wars when they were still allied with Nazi Germany).

It's not like ww2 where you have increasingly fewer people who were old enough to consciously experience it. It's very likely that most people on this forum were around for the fall of the Soviet Union and the liberation of Eastern Europe from Russian imperialism.

There is no 80-year norm against redrawing borders. 80 years ago, Crimea was a part of the Russian SSR - now it's part of a free and independent Ukraine.

Eastern Europe looks a heck of a lot different, as did British India.

In all fairness, 80 years ago, the world was on the cusp of a massive border redraw, but the Phillipine Islands were still a US territory.

> We've managed to go 80-odd years with a reasonable global norm against redrawing borders, and it is worth a lot to demonstrate that we- the global community- do not acquiesce.

Cool story bro. Almost like Kosovo never happened.

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