Sanctions are about as disciplinarian as the naughty step

Now that physical punishment has been banned, options for disciplining children are limited to shaming on the naughty step, loud denunciation, or denial of privileges — no treats for the youngsters and grounding for teenagers.

So it is in international relations. NATO nations are reluctant to be drawn militarily into a conflict in Ukraine, so in spite of the existential stakes for that European nation, the Russian aggressor faces from us merely denunciation and punishment by sanctions. 

At this week’s Defence of Europe organised by Reaction and King’s College London, considerable scepticism was expressed about the efficacy of sanctions, including by the graduate students in their Bush House Declaration; “we concur that they are unlikely to change the course of the war”, they conceded. 

The students backed sanctions nonetheless because “their potential military impacts have been underplayed”. They argued that the complementary Western decision to increase the supply of defence equipment to Ukraine could materially affect the outcome of the conflict while Russia is forced to struggle for spare parts and funding. 

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace took up the theme, suggesting that the UK could and should go further in the strictures imposed on Russia. 

Separately from the UK, the European Union is attempting to reach a final agreement on a sixth round of sanctions which were supposed to come into force ten days ago.

At the conference session, which I chaired on the economic aspects of the conflict, nobody thought sanctions would “work” in the sense of bringing an end to the conflict, let alone lead to the overthrow of Putin’s corrupt and autocratic regime. All the panellists noted that the dictators of Cuba and North Korea endure despite decades of economic sanctions aimed at them.

Sanctions cost both the sanctioned and the sanctioner. Jacob Geer from the UK Space Agency pointed out that human progress in space so far had mainly been the result of cooperation between nations. 

In the next phases of exploration, there is a growing danger of destructive competition in what is largely an ungoverned realm. There are no binding international agreements governing the launch (or demolition) of satellites or, even, mining of the moon. 

Merryn Somerset-Webb from the Financial Times suggested that the widespread practice of making investment decisions ruled by corporate ESG (Environmental Social and Governance) box-ticking was ultimately hypocritical and self-defeating. 

Excluding Russia from the US Dollar based international finance and banking system, for example, could simply hasten the establishment of an alternative network out of the West’s reach dominated by China.

The lawyer and academic Dr Martin Navias, currently a senior visiting fellow at KCL, went further. He predicted that sanctions on Russia will not affect Putin’s decisions in the short term and will strengthen Putin’s internal position in the long run by fomenting resentment in the Russian population at large. 

In the long run, he argued, they will fail not least because sanctions seldom have a clear objective. For him, the clinching proof of the damage done by sanctions was the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, when many believe that onerous strictures placed on defeated Germany led to the rise of Hitler and the Second World War.

The diplomat, former chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee and Conservative security minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones agreed with the Bush House students that sanctions would impact Russia’s military capability without claiming that they would have a decisive impact on the conflict. 

For her, the main purpose of sanctions is demonstrative, to show where the UK stands: “if we didn’t have any sanctions, we’d be supporting the other side in the war”.

Whether they work or not, successive governments have imposed sanctions enthusiastically in recent years on a wide range of individuals, nations and governments. 

The Treasury’s Consolidated List of Financial Sanctions in the UK runs to 225 pages of small print. The list of countries hit by asset freezes is broad: Afghanistan, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Central African Republic, Congo, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Iran, North Korea, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The expanding Russian section now singles out 1,255 individuals from Abakarov to Zyuganov. 

Non-national categories for sanctions include ISIL, Al Quaeda, chemical weapons, counter-terrorism, cyber, ships, anti-corruption and human rights. There is a separate list of countries kept by the Foreign Office for arms embargos. 

Clearly, no decent country would want to sully themselves dealing with most of those on the lists. But sanctions are, at best, a scatter-gun approach when trade is worldwide, and supply chains are global, running through many countries. As Somerset-Webb observed, oil and gas provide power for many good and essential things as well as being a source of funds for the Kremlin. 

It is easy to be caught out in contradictions. One large school I came across in this country was anxious because its gas contract was with Gazprom. On scrutiny, it tuned out that this was a British based branch of the energy giant, which actually sourced less of its supply from Russia than more patriotic sounding alternatives. 

Nations which impose sanctions often include “carve-outs” in their own self-interest. The European Union was less dependent on Russian oil than gas, and could more readily find other sources of petroleum on international markets. 

It was no surprise then that the EU’s first embargo was against the import of oil. The sixth round of sanctions announced by Ursula von der Leyen would move towards a gas ban. 

This is conceivable, though difficult, for Germany and “old” EU countries but tricky for those to the East, including Hungary, whose Prime Minister Victor Orban is vetoing the package. 

A Euro-compromise banning import of Russian liquified natural gas but not that gas delivered by pipelines is becoming likely. All member states could live with that. 

Unless the west weans itself off Russian hydrocarbons, it will be in the uncomfortable position of financing both sides in the war. 

Ukraine gets military and humanitarian assistance, and Russia enjoys record revenues thanks to the soaring price of energy. As the cost of living crisis deepens here, the punishment may, arguably, be hurting us almost as much as it hurts them. 

Sanctions can only have an impact if they are imposed concertedly by alliances of nations. Allies of the United States often have little choice but to join in, if they don’t the US will impose secondary sanctions on them. 

The US hardline against Iran contributed to the difficulties in obtaining the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, even while the US exercised the right to pursue its own side deals. 

Academic studies have found that modern-day sanctions are only about 40 per cent effective in significantly changing the actions of those subjected to them. They make those imposing them feel better in expressing their righteous anger. 

As Lady Neville-Jones pointed out, we wouldn’t want to be helpful to Russia, or indeed to do more business with it than we absolutely have to. But sanctions alone are not an act of war — they do not achieve war aims unless backed up by the use of force, although they are a vital aspect of war once hostilities begin. 

Like the naughty step, sanctions are really an instrument of sullen, non-violent, co-habitation.