Sanctions don’t always have the intended consequences. Overthrowing malevolent regimes can be tricky precisely because the regimes are malevolent. Presidents and their henchmen can simply impose economic pain on their people while continuing to dine on black market champagne and caviar. Admittedly, the people may eventually rise up and oust their leaders, but revolutionary events don’t typically happen overnight.
Still, even if sanctions can be blunt instruments, they nevertheless typically help split a nation from the international economic community. Take North Korea. Its disconnections with the rest of humanity have left most of its citizens in grinding poverty. Latest estimates suggest that living standards in the Hermit Kingdom are only a 50th of those in its southern neighbour even though, when North and South Korea went their separate ways in the early Fifties, their living standards were roughly equal. Over time, openness and connections matter. Hugely.
