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Comment by jim-jim-jim | Hacker News Reader

> The major variable here is political will; consequently if you are a citizen of one of those Western countries, one thing you can do here is signal to your representatives that you, in fact, are willing to accept a degree of economic pain in order to send the message to Russia that wars of conquest will not be tolerated.

I know armchair generals are peeved about what's going on right now, but suggestions like this are psychotic. I urge anybody on HN who might be entertaining this idea to look at some of the numbers in this article.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq

Putin will be fine if the Russian economy is deliberately tanked. Normal Russians won't.

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Following your logic sanctions are useless. I think this is ok because nothing will affect Putin. Russian people should eventually not reelect him or somehow remove this government. And for others I think its very reasonable to not do business with such an unpredictable/hostile country.

Has a brutally sanctioned populace ever overthrown its government?

This is an honest question; I don't have enough samples to draw upon. In the case of Iraq, North Korea, Venezuela, it seems like the misery just trickles down.

Yes. Czechoslovakia.

Thank you. Do you honestly expect them to have a similar effect on Russia? I imagine there's key geographic, cultural, and temporal differences at play.

Czechoslovakia isn't even a country any more, which says something.

Do I expect that masses of people getting fed up with autocracies that pick fights they suffer from will react like masses of people getting fed up with autocracies that pick fights they suffer from? Yes.

"You only have power over people as long as you don't take everything away from them. But when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power—he's free again." -Solzhenitsyn

Czechoslovakia is two countries. They not only gained independence, they did it twice.

Why do you think sanctions will have this stimulating effect among the Russian people when they've done the opposite in Iraq and North Korea? Practically speaking, is there something the Western world should do differently this time around? I'm keen to hear the implementation details, because without them, we're actually just speaking out of bloodlust here.

Russians have access to the broader Internet. North Koreans and most Iranians don't.

Russians have become accustomed to developed Western standards of living. North Koreans and most Iranians haven't.

And in line with Solzhenitsyn... Putin isn't a Grand Ayatollah or a flawless all-benevolent Juche godhead. Iran and North Korea still have something they can take away from their people.

Nobody chooses economic sanctions over armed conflict out of bloodlust.

Have a good day.

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