Steve Chapman on the Futility of Sanctions Against Russia

In
1980, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Jimmy
Carter came up with a way to retaliate: stopping grain sales to
Moscow. The boycott, said Commerce Secretary Philip Klutznick,
would prove to the world that “aggression is costly” and induce the
Soviets to “halt their aggression.” The Soviets did halt their
aggression and pull out of Afghanistan. But that didn’t happen
until nine years later, and it had nothing to do with the grain
embargo. The fact that those sanctions proved useless has not
stopped President Barack Obama or congressional Republicans from
proposing new ones after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There is
a very slim possibility that Western economic sanctions will undo
Russia’s ambitions in Ukraine, writes Steve Chapman. There is a
better chance that those ambitions will undo themselves.

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