Sanctions bring no desired effect in a modern system

When diplomacy does not work, sanctions are put into force in order to avoid military intervention. Over the centuries, sanctions were being used as a “punishing” tool by larger and stronger states against smaller ones. Today such an odd method could hardly be used as an effective measure. And yet, international news is riddled with US economic sanctions against Russia, Iran and some Latin American states.

Eventually, today international sanctions have more of a political motivation. A political component of international sanctions starts from the destabilisation of a country’s current regime.

The Ukraine crisis is a perfect example to understand how the US scheme actually works. While creating chaos within the country with pro-Western armed groups threatening the civilians, Washington mounted a coup-d’etat and put its proxy leader into power.

However, considering the US interest in shale gas exploration, the true intentions of White House are exposed.

In 2014, the Ukraine’s largest natural gas producer Burisma Holdings granted the son of the current US Vice President, Hunter Biden, a seat in the company’s board of directors and entrusted him management of the company’s legal and international relations departments. The company was also joined by Hunter’s partner, Devon Archer, and Aleksander Kwasniewski, ex-president of Poland.

Obviously, the US government would be more than happy to implement such a scheme in Russia as well. Though, if it happens, the outcome could be much more disastrous for the world’s economic and political system.

The sanctions against Russia affected the Russian economy by cutting its trade relations with European countries and by getting the Russian currency to fall against the dollar and euro by almost double.

However, in today’s globalised economy, it is almost impossible to expect a one-side-only effect of economic sanctions.

The boomerang effect is clearly seen in the European Union: some European companies based in Germany, Italy and Finland that accounted for Russia as a major exporting partner are experiencing a decline and job cuts. According to Joe Kaeser, CEO of Siemens AG, the current geopolitical situation and the Ukraine crisis have put the growth of the European market at a large risk for the next two years.

— The reader is a Russian writer based in Moscow, Russia