Principled stands
are all very well, and something for which politicians are generally happy to
be credited. Until, that is, the cost of taking such a stand is
perceived to outweigh the advantages gained. We saw it in Starmer’s ‘principled
stand’ against the US bombing campaign in Iran, which was principled until he
decided that allowing the US to use UK bases for ‘purely defensive’ bombing
raids (an oxymoron if ever there was one) was a less costly option. And he’s
never explained exactly how the purpose and target of each bombing raid was verified
to determine whether it met the unspecified criteria for being ‘purely
defensive’ – the suspicion remains that the ‘principled stand’ amounted to
making a grand statement and then turning a blind eye.
Starmer
also took a ‘principled stand’ over Ukraine, backing strong sanctions against unwarranted
Russian aggression. Until unwarranted US aggression against Iran caused a
potential lack
of jet fuel and diesel, at which point the principles got lost. Principles
which last only until those espousing them conclude that they are costing
themselves too much aren’t really principles at all; they’re more about
virtue-signalling.
Whether
sanctions actually achieve very much is another question entirely. The theory
is that by denying a country access to goods from outside the country and denying
that country access to markets for its own goods, then pressure is placed on
the economy to such an extent that the government can no longer sustain itself
and must collapse/ surrender/ stop a war (delete as applicable). The truth of
the proposition depends on three assumptions. The first is that the country
being sanctioned cannot sustain itself entirely on the basis of its own
resources and productive capacity, the second is the neoliberal economic dogma that
the limiting factor on any government’s actions is the amount of money
available to it, and the third is that all other countries buy into the
sanctions regime.
In
the case of Russia, none of those three assumptions are valid. Russia may not
have the climate to grow certain crops, which might limit the population’s
dietary choices (although after decades of Soviet rule, that might not be as
novel as one might think), but the country’s resources are vast and varied, and
they have the people and skills to exploit them. As long as they don’t need
foreign currency, the idea that the money supply is somehow limited is a myth
anyway: the constraint on government action is the availability of real
resources, not the means of exchange to buy them. And in any event, there are significant
other powers prepared to ignore the sanctions regime. Sanctions have the ring
of the old adage, which runs ‘something must be done, this is something, we
must do this’.
The conclusion –
that sanctions are largely symbolic statements by those applying them, and
little more than irritations to those to whom they are applied – is depressing.
Failure to recognise that fact is even more so – it simply encourages people to
continue to pursue a failed path. There is no quick or easy solution. Universal
adherence to agreed international law is our only hope in the long term, but
achieving it is another matter entirely. Perhaps we never will, but that doesn’t
mean we shouldn’t try. In the meantime, pretend principles achieve little except to divert attention from the real issue.
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