Deter, Disrupt, Demonstrate – the new UK sanctions strategy
The Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has been focused through two primary approaches – the provision of aid (particularly military) to Ukraine, and the imposition of a new range of sanctions on Russia and Russian business. While the focus has, understandably, been on the supply (or lack of supply) of essential equipment to fight the war, the continued importance of the sanctions regime should not be underestimated. Discussion of sanctions has in large part been hampered by both legislative problems and misunderstandings over the actual purpose of imposing sanctions on Russia – the continued resilience of the Russian economy has led some[1] to describe the sanctions as a failure.[2] However, this criticism ignores the multiple intentions behind implementing sanctions – as described in the new UK sanctions strategy “Deter, Disrupt, and Demonstrate”.[3] Sanctions are supposed to disrupt the Russian economy, but as well as practical economic effects they are performative actions which carry messages to Russia and the rest of the world.
It would be impossible to deny that sanctions have not entirely had the desired effects, given the continued strength of the Russian economy and the (admittedly largely illicit) flow of essential goods and parts into the country. There have been relatively few recent success stories on the sanctions front, particularly with the recent European Court of Justice ruling in favour of Petr Aven and Mikhail Fridman paving the way for their removal from the EU sanctions list.[4] The problem of targeting sanctions is a key one – as this case demonstrates, failures of legal rigour undermine the sanctions regime both practically and rhetorically, and it is appropriate that the new UK strategy dedicates an entire section to the importance of legality and due process. The sanctions system is complex, with dozens of different regimes in place in the UK alone, and the importance of accuracy and comprehensibility can sometimes be casualties to the need for immediate action. The disruptive nature of sanctions cannot be one-sided, and the prevarication over sticking to potentially painful sanctions has led to disruption and concern in Western markets as well as Russia, which has further hindered their implementation.
While the failure to enforce the sanctions is damaging in failing to disrupt the flow of goods into Russia, the failure to face up to the costs of sanctions undermines the other key intentions of sanctions – to demonstrate our resolve against Russia, and deter other countries from engaging in sanctionable behaviour. The nuclear deterrence architect Thomas Schelling innovatively reframed conflict as a competition not in ability to impose costs on the other side, but to absorb them on your own. Applying this logic to sanctions we can see that the unavoidable impact on domestic business can in fact be beneficial in showing the determination to condemn with more than just words. The sanctions against Russia are not just about impeding Russia’s ability to fight – they are not even just about Russia. The fact that we are willing to impose and enforce sanctions even though it also damages our own economy sends the message that we are willing to pay a price to stand up to this kind of behaviour. Against Russia this is a demonstration of resolve, intended to deter escalation which could bring further hardship (while also giving them added benefits to ending the war). Significantly though it is not only a signal to Russia, but also to any other country that might be inclined to launch a similar invasion – most obviously China over Taiwan, where the threat of economic retaliation would be a much stronger element of the conflict.
Given the relatively new increased role of sanctions in international relations, the development of a comprehensive strategy to underpin the development and implementation of sanctions, and to explain the rationale behind them, is an excellent innovation. To support the continued effectiveness of the new strategy, and its expansion across other members of the G7, Chatham House[9] suggest three essential principles to underpin government work on sanctions, which combine common sense and foresight:
Maintain clarity on the purpose of each sanction regime and its intended results
Resist the urge to use sanctions as a response to every foreign policy problem, and restrict their use to evidence-based applications to minimise unintended consequences.
Support continued study and data collection to understand both the specifics of each case and the general rules of sanctions deployment.
A fourth (or indeed zeroth) principle might be that, having been devised, sanctions should be enforced as fully as possible. Even a few high-profile cases of sanction-breaking undermines all three intentions underpinning sanctions, and studying data based on unenforced sanctions generates inaccurate results and predictions. The continuing export of British goods to Russia (particularly through intermediary former-Soviet countries) is only one example of these failures, and while politically inconvenient, tackling the problem of enforcement head on is essential to meeting the goals set out in the new strategy.us
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/21/the-west-tightening-russian-sanctions-a-sign-of-failure
[2] https://www.wsj.com/world/the-biggest-ever-sanctions-have-failed-to-halt-russias-war-machine-0986873f
[3] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/deter-disrupt-and-demonstrate-uk-sanctions-in-a-contested-world-uk-sanctions-strategy
[4] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/10/russian-oligarchs-petr-aven-mikhail-fridman-court-ruling-eu-sanctions
[5] https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2019/855/contents/made
[6] https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2023/1132.html
[7] https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/UKFCDO/bulletins/375e351
[8] https://www.bailii.org/cgi-bin/format.cgi?doc=/ew/cases/EWHC/Comm/2023/2866.html&query=(litasco)
[9] https://www.chathamhouse.org/2024/03/making-sanctions-work-foreign-policy-tool
