James O’Brien on sanctions
Mark Leonard welcomes James O’Brien to talk about sanctions
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A year into the war in Ukraine, economic sanctions remain the West’s strongest instrument against Russia. But the Russian economy has proven surprisingly resilient: Russia still sells oil to Turkey and China, and – according to a recent investigation by The Economist and SourceMaterial – the Kremlin’s sanctions-dodging is becoming increasingly advanced.
This week, Mark Leonard is joined by James O’Brien, head of the office of sanctions coordination at the US State Department, to discuss the efficacy of economic sanctions. What ripple effects have sanctions had for Western and third countries? Is the United States currently mulling sanctions against China? And what alternatives are there, if sanctions no longer work as intended?
This podcast was recorded on 6 March 2023.
Bookshelf
- Backfire by Agathe Demarais
- Russia’s sanctions-dodging is getting ever more sophisticated by The Economist and SourceMaterial
- Talking to Terrorists by Jonathan Powell
- We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole
- The Baseball 100 by Joe Posnanski
