Can Even More Sanctions Beat Russia?

The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that the United States is proposing to the other G7 countries that they replace the current sector-by-sector regime of sanctions against Russia with a ban on all exports to Russia except for a few exemptions.¹  The EU and Japan are pushing back, but they trade more with Russia, so this kind of a ban would cost them more than it would the United States.

The frustrating part of this proposal is that it’s just another attempt to try to beat Putin with sanctions.  Too many people in our government seem to think Russia can be defeated in Ukraine if we just impose one more set of sanctions, if we just limit a few more things we sell to Russia or cut back a little more on what we buy from Russia.  It seems so easy – and cheap. Just impose enough sanctions and poof, Russia loses.  Except it doesn’t work that way, and it certainly hasn’t stopped Vladimir Putin so far.

Also, even if the U.S. gets the G7 to ramp up their sanctions against Putin, other countries aren’t going to do it.  The so-called Global South doesn’t care.  They see Russia’s attack on Ukraine as a European concern and don’t see why they should cut their trade, pay more for food, etc., over it.² 

If we really want Russia to lose and Ukraine to win (and we should³), there is just one way to do it: Provide lots more weapons and ammunition to Ukraine – and do it now.  Plus, we need to get rid of the unnecessary limits on how Ukraine can use the weapons we give them.  Some people worry that if we give Ukraine too many weapons, Vladimir Putin may escalate to nuclear weapons.  Well, if Putin is going to use nuclear weapons before he loses, it won’t matter how he is losing, whether because of sanctions or weapons. 

Other people say the only way this war, or any war, can end is through negotiations.  Well, that’s not how World War II ended.  That’s not how the U.S. Civil War ended.  I’m not saying Russia has to surrender unconditionally, like at the end of World War II.  I am saying, however, that Russia needs to lose in a way that Russia can’t re-start this war again in a few years, like it did in 2022 after taking Crimea and invading the Donbas in 2014.

Sanctions are fine, and they are appropriate, but they aren’t going to win this war (or pretty much any war).  They will only keep it going and going until too many people have died and, as so often happens with the United States, we stop caring and stop helping.  The way to succeed is to give Ukraine the weapons it needs to win – and to get this thing over as soon as possible.  Which also means fewer people will die.  Because the shorter the war, the lower the casualties.
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¹ Henry Foy, Kana Inagaki, and Demetri Sevastopulo, “Allied resist US plan to bar export for Russia,” Financial Times, April 25, 2023.
² There are plenty of Americans who feel the same way.
³ But that discussion is for another post.  While not exactly on point, this post from March 26, 2014, “Russia, Ukraine, the Baltics, and NATO”, might be of interest.  (It was written right after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014.)