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70 Opinion
bne December 2020
Learning lessons
There are several lessons here. The first is that sanctions
don’t happen in a vacuum and targeted countries can adapt their behaviour to mitigate them. For Russia, this has meant diversifying its economy away from Western markets towards Asia, rolling out a programme of import substitutions to drive self sufficiency, and triggering huge amounts of state intervention to support areas like banking. Add to that a well-managed central bank, currency devaluation, and attempts to financially shelter members of the Russian elite. The results have been mixed.
Another, perhaps more fundamental, lesson is that some countries, particularly more autocratic ones, are simply willing to endure the fallout and stigma of sanctions. They
see little benefit in restraining their behaviour and essentially factor their cost into decision-making. So while there may be economic consequences, political ones don’t necessarily follow – especially in the short- to medium-term.
Why then, are sanctions so popular? While they can certainly help pile on a degree of economic pressure, much of it
comes from their ability to communicate a sense of united action and solidarity. There is real value here. Sanctions can reaffirm norms and standards. They can create a platform to stigmatise and rally international pressure. There’s an element of performance too, especially for those who wish to be seen doing ‘something’. Of course, doing ‘something’ is sometimes all there is. When those wishing to take a stand against an aggressor feel they have few realistic options sanctions can be a powerful signal of moral outrage. For the West, they have provided a surprisingly consistent and public rallying point against Moscow despite other bubbling disagreements.
COMMENT:
Moscow's new rules
Dmitri Trenin director of the Carnegie Moscow Center
Simultaneous crises in Belarus, Nagorno-Karabakh
and Kyrgyzstan have demonstrated Russia’s maturing approach to its neighbourhood. Russia is learning to mind its limitations, to repel residual nostalgia and to think straight, putting issues before personalities, and staying focused on its own interests, leaving the empire farther and farther behind.
Russia’s recent behaviour in the former Soviet space has surprised people in Europe and America as appearing too timid and passive. The template that a lot of Western observers have been operating from since 2014 is that of an aggressive Kremlin dependent for regime stability on a constant supply
of new “Crimeas”: Donbas, Syria, Libya and so on. Now the picture has abruptly changed, and the Kremlin that looked threatening only a few months ago appears weak, challenged
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But sanctions are not a throwaway policy shortcut. They are a reactive tactic rather than strategic, and inflating their utility breeds unrealistic expectations of what they can achieve. The problem is not so much sanctions themselves. For the West, they can, and should be, part of a creative, wide-ranging approach towards Moscow. The problem is that they now dominate the West’s response.
Indeed, sanctions have become so sweeping and predictable that they risk undermining messaging in three ways. First
is that by using them to deal with a shopping list of very different behaviours they muddy Western policy goals and reduce sanctions to a blunt, catch-all punishment rather than anything selectively coercive.
Second is that instead of providing a platform for unity, they also amplify alliance tensions and cause distraction – Berlin’s public dismay at Washington's continued targeting of Nord Stream 2 being an example.
And third, despite claims that sanction are a long term policy tool, the more they are used in the short-term without tangible political impact the more they weaken Western attempts to display authority and credibility. One individual targeted in the recent Navalny sanctioning, FSB director Alexander Bortnikov, has already been under EU sanctions for six years.
Sanctions have a role in responding to Russia but they cannot replace the hard work of diplomacy or strategy. The West will eventually run out of things, and people, to target. What will it do then?
and indecisive. Contrasting views of Russia’s foreign policy
are nothing new, of course, and have historically led to wrong conclusions about what the country might or might not do. The actual situation is more nuanced, just as the developments around the second Nagorno-Karabakh war suggest.
Reconquista cancelled
Take the idea of an aggressive Kremlin bent on reconquering the lands lost in the downfall of the Soviet Union. In fact, Moscow’s policies in Ukraine in 2014 were essentially
a reaction to the surprise ouster of President Viktor Yanukovych in the Maidan protests. There was no plan for reconquest. Crimea was seized for strategic reasons as the main base of the Black Sea Fleet and incorporated into Russia as an opportunity not to be missed. The mirage of Novorossiya