I talk very often about sanctioning Russia, and just assume the ‘why’ is understood. For people new to the topic it is helpful to dig into the reasons behind sanctions. I think of sanctions against Russia as having 3 main purposes:
Disrupt Russia’s ability to wage the current war
Pressure the Russian regime to change course
Weaken the Russian ability to wage future wars
Disrupt
Sanctions on Russia, especially the industrial import sanctions, impact their ability to provide the needed supplies for war. For instance, the Russian main battle tank factory was completely shut last summer. While it has since reopened, it is not making new tanks. Instead it is retrofitting old tanks so they are ready for battle. Cold War era tanks often need completely new optics, but the old supply lines are long gone. Commercial grade Chinese optics appears to be their solution. The struggle to produce new tanks is related to the sanctions on Russia.
Current Russian industry is not like the Soviet Industrial complex that preceded it. The post-Soviet Russian industry is run like a mob cartel. It can only be successful in simple, extractive industries and it is destructive to more complex industries.
There is no longer a large number of skilled industrial workers in Russia as in the Soviet Union (aside: Ukraine does still maintain this legacy of skilled industrial workers). Items that require skilled manufacturing such as ball bearings were produced by foreign plants who have shut their doors, leaving Russia without critical components needed to build and repair most of their industrial economy.
Corruption helps get many sanctioned goods into Russia, but be at higher prices, often lower quality, and with disruption to supply chains. The substitution effect is showing not to be in the quantity or quality that the Russian industrial and military is used to having–sanctions are resulting in shortages across their military industrial complex, weakening Russia’s war making abilities.
Pressure
Sanctions pressure the Russian regime by affecting the lives of Russians across the socioeconomic strata. Food inflation, lack of car parts, and a plummeting economy all affect everyday Russians. This can make society less stable and cause internal stakeholders to consider that this war may not be in their best interests. Almost nobody expects sanctions to bring Russia to the realization that the war must end, sadly, but it is still ratcheting up internal pressure. Many things are breaking and pretty much every Oligarch and even most of the senior security service members realize they would personally do better should Russia no longer be at war.
Sanctions also provide good postwar bargaining chips. Ukraine and her allies look to get Russia to accept responsibility for its horrific actions, return kidnapped Ukrainians, and possibly pay reparations. A future Russian leader will want to return his country (or at least his power base) to prosperity and removing sanctions will be one part of that puzzle that Russians.
Weaken
Want a quote that aged TERRIBLY?
“I predict that China will move increasingly toward political freedom if it continues its successful move to economic freedom.” ~Milton Friedman, 2003
In 2023, it is safe to say that this quote has turned out to be pure bullshit. From the 1970s to the early 2000s, belief and policy followed the hope that free trade would lead to free people. That turned out to be very wrong. The consequences are unfortunately quite high with an empowered China committing atrocities on internal peoples and pursuing aggressive neocolonial strategies in places like Sri Lanka. The worse consequences are how trade with Russia directly led to the increased Russian military build up and their successful military actions around the world — including the current bloody attempt to genocide Ukraine.
Trade caused neither China nor Russia to embrace human rights. Instead, free trade has turned the China of today into a wealthier, technologically advanced nightmare. It is now empirically true that free trade does not lead to authoritarian regimes switching to regimes that bring freedom, human rights, and agency to their people. Trade emboldens dictatorships to embrace new levers of external corruption, enriches and empowers horrific oligarchs, and enables Authoritarians to have stronger economies and militaries.
Nations that act like North Korea need to be treated like North Korea.