Russia Is The Target Of The Harshest Sanctions On Record. Will They Be Enough?

Russia Is The Target Of The Harshest Sanctions On Record. Will They Be Enough?

One of the very first recorded examples of a government imposing economic sanctions against another occurred as far back ago as the fifth century BC. In brief, Athens blocked the city-state of Megara from gaining access to ports and harbors throughout its empire for a number of reasons, including Megarians' desecration of land sacred to Demeter, the goddess of agriculture. The blockades succeeded at cutting Megara off from nearly all trade, and its economy tanked as a result. The sanctions worked so well, though, that they may have backfired on Athens. Many scholars and historians today believe that the Megarian Decree, as the sanctions are called, is at least partially to blame for the Peloponnesian War, a decades-long conflict between democratic Athens and oligarchic Sparta, Megara's ally. An important consequence of this war, I should add, is that it marked the end of Athens' golden age. Upon its defeat, the once-great polis fell under the tyrannical control of Sparta. It never regained its former glory. Fast forward 2, 400 years, and Russia now finds itself the target of some of the toughest and most sweeping economic sanctions ever levied upon a country. Russian banks have been unplugged from SWIFT. The