Surely this will be an interesting event, but the title alone seems to compare economic sanctions with war, unfairly in my opinion.<p>From a schoolyard perspective, economic sanctions are like giving a peer the silent treatment. It hurts you both, but it's your right not to interact with someone if you find them sufficiently unpleasant. War is like committing homicide against that peer during recess. In other words, it's really fucking bad.
I'm presuming the link is supposed to be about this book <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300259360/economic-weapon" rel="nofollow">https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300259360/economic-weapo...</a><p>There's a review with the same title as this post here: <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2021-12-14/economic-weapon-rise-sanctions-tool-modern-war" rel="nofollow">https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2021-1...</a><p>Which sums up the topic with:<p>> In an original and persuasive analysis, Mulder shows how isolating aggressors from global commerce and finance was seen as an alternative to war that worked precisely because of the pain it imposed on the target society. From the very beginning, it was civilians who suffered the most. Nevertheless, the League of Nations embraced sanctions and established an elaborate legal and bureaucratic apparatus to enforce them. Mulder argues that instead of keeping the peace, this form of economic warfare aggravated the tensions of the 1930s, encouraging austerity and autarky and restraining smaller states but backfiring against the larger authoritarian ones, such as Italy.<p>I think this is an interesting point to bring up, because, especially in the West, we hold a believe that "economic" violence is not as bad as "physical" violence. It's well worth at least questioning this assumption.
Correct URL for the event:<p><a href="https://history.columbia.edu/events/the-economic-weapon-the-rise-of-sanctions-as-a-tool-of-modern-war-victoria-de-grazia-adam-tooze/" rel="nofollow">https://history.columbia.edu/events/the-economic-weapon-the-...</a>
Not buying stuff is war, but invading a country is a special military operation.<p>We are living in crazy times, but as the Ukrainian ambassador said, there's no purgatory for these people, they go straight to hell.
Looks like this event is promoting a recent book by the same name:<p><a href="https://g.co/kgs/PYnp5Q" rel="nofollow">https://g.co/kgs/PYnp5Q</a>
I expect Russia to boost assasination squads. Most companies have no access to secret service. Not only they are sitting ducks, their families too. All I can say is see mysterious and over the top deaths of public companies c-level tier. As you can see Putin shelling civilians building. But what Ukrainian news source didn't tell you is that those building have civilians taking up arms. Once you do that it is a fair gain to bomb you. American routinely did that. Ever heard of Obama bombing hospitals? Killing children? Killing goat herders that "look" like OBL? These civilians upgraded themselves to enemy combatant status. Yes, rise of sanctions as modern war tool. But so is economic civilians assasinations too.
In a joined up world, sanctions are the new non explosive weapons.
Less project fear (nukes/missiles/violence), more stand on the naughty step and no Amazon or Netflix for a month.<p>Russia is interesting though, because with so much land, arguably they can be self sufficient, which means only intelligence & innovation holds them back if they want to turn inwards like China did, which the Brits exploited commercially through Hong Kong.<p>Russia have already demonstrated intelligence and innovation during the cold war with sputnik, they also have tried and tested rocket technology which will boost the French Ariana rockets but we know that genius individuals are distributed around the planet although the health of the mother, diet during pregnancy & during the first 8years will go along way to helping a genius. But the West has pollution which is lowering IQ levels, just like Covid is lowering IQ levels as seen with the "brain fog", so I wouldnt write them off if they followed the science and wanted to go isolationist. Even North Korea has shown it can still survive albeit at a slower pace to the rest of the world, but nothing like the Nazi war effort, which goes to show how idea's can motivate groups of people.