U.S. Continues Sanctions Against Russia

The U.S. has enforced another set of sanctions in
an effort to get Putin to change his Ukraine policies.
Image: Mark III Photonics / Shutterstock.com

As the situation in Ukraine becomes direr by the day, the U.S. has continued to put even more sanctions on Russia in hopes of changing President Vladimir Putin’s policies. Unfortunately for the U.S., thus far Putin has treated sanctions against Russia as little more than a slap on the hand.

The sanctions against Putin don’t punish the entire Russian population; rather, they pinpoint a set of Russian officials responsible for creating the policies toward Ukraine and any Russian institutions making a profit from them. But the sanctions don’t go after Putin personally, meaning that he likely won’t experience a sense of urgency to change his policies anytime soon.

Sanctions themselves don’t have the best history of success. Certainly they have helped convince leaders to come around the bend on controversial issues (like when Iran agreed to negotiate its nuclear program). However, many other cases of sanctions put in place had no effect at all.

Certainly the United States and other nations upset by Russia’s recent actions against Ukraine feel it necessary to do something about the situation; unfortunately, sanctions simply do not have as strong of an effect as we would like to believe. No, it will likely take a lot more than sanctions to get this conflict resolved and Ukraine back in working order—unless Putin suddenly decides to backpedal, which probably won’t happen anytime soon.