Comments by "Grenade Tennis" (@hughjass1044) on "In What State Is the Russian Economy?" video.
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The sanctions are effective, the sanctions are not effective..... I guess, depends entirely on how you choose to define effective.
Are they likely to do serious damage to the Russian economy? Most likely, yes though it may not be as harsh or as quick as some would like. Are they likely to alter Russia's behavior in any meaningful way? I doubt it.
Remember, Iran and North Korea have been under absolutely debilitating sanctions for decades and each has only gotten more dangerous and more aggressive. And like both of those countries, Russians have been propagandized and brainwashed into believing that their governments are the heroes in all this and that they have to pull together to overcome it.
People seem to forget that deprivations, shortages and a general reduction in living standards are nothing new for Russians. They've seen all of this many times before and in each instance, the government has played victim and turned up the nationalism meter.
I've always said that sanctions are what you do when you're too gutless to do anything else. The poorer you are, the more they hurt you. The wealthier you are the less they hurt you so in a place like Russia where the government cares not a jot for anything nor anybody but itself, and where they've got the country believing that the other side are the bad guys, sanctions are likely to be of pretty limited effect.
You want Russia to stop what it's doing? You're going to have to go in and make them stop.
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