the cold war was not ideological, and it didn't begin in 1945. it was geopolitical, and it came out of the napoleonic wars. the 90s saw a pause in this struggle, but the truth is that nato really only second thought it for a moment. by the time that bush took over, the policy was to take advantage of the historical window of opportunity that russia's weakness allowed for. every single war in eurasia since 1991 has existed within the same cold war context that existed before 1991. this process of toppling dictatorships is the process of cleaning up lingering russian influence, and annexing the area to the american empire.

sanctions of this sort may work on a country like spain, which sees itself as an aspect of a culture, rather than a culture itself. and if a twist of history had america as a spanish-speaking country (not such an outlandish alternate history at all), they might work in a country like venezuela, which is deeply anti-colonialist but not insularly nationalist. but, they will not work in countries like iran and russia, which remain deeply nationalistic as autonomous islands of insular culture. russia has a history in europe, but it is not a part of europe; iran has a history in the arab world, but it is not arab. neither seek integration into a whole, they merely seek friendly relations. rather, a smart analysis of countries like iran and russia would suggest that these sanctions will only resolve the will of the people to fight for sovereignty, create anger and hate towards america and may possibly even create terrorists.

further, sanctions of the sort send the message to the rest of the world that the west is a poor partner that cannot be trusted.

it's over a year after this was published, and in that time what we've seen is iran and russia work together to get around the sanctions, with increasing moral support from beijing.

i claim that this was predictable and that it is less a result of russia outsmarting the state department and more the result of the state department pushing foolish policies that they should have known would be ineffective.

perhaps restoring some funding cuts for the humanities is in order.