There are sanctions that are worthy of criticism - the decades-long sanction on Cuba, for instance, even though I disagree with their regime - but North Korea is pretty transparently a despotic regime that should be opposed.
They limit trade with NK, unfortunately that probably does contribute to impoverishing the people, alongside NK's own practices doing so, but as I understand it the point of sanctions is to stop material aid (trade, gifts, tech sharing etc) that would be used to empower the NK, which includes their military and nuclear capabilities. I don't know if the US itself allows food or medical aid to be sent, but I do know that NK receive a lot of food aid.
Honestly I don't know how to feel about sanctions more generally, whether they help or harm the citizenry - but I'm not convinced that enabling the NK government to transact with crypto would lead to improvements in the regular people's lives, compared with them having greater access to military equipment.
> They don't bring about regime change, They don't impose hardship on the despots, and they don't take away nuclear capability from North Korea.
They haven't yet brought about regime change, They haven't yet imposed hardship on the despots, and they haven't yet taken away nuclear capability from North Korea.
The point is, the world needs regime change, in order to be safer (dictators with Nukes are a very dangerous thing to have on the one and only human populated planet). Without the pressure, change is far less likely.
Strong disagree. Sanctions prevent economic development and change. Constant application of pressure and tensions ensure that the risk is higher than it otherwise would be.
Risk will always be highest if one country insist on destroying the government of another.
> Strong disagree. Sanctions prevent economic development and change. Constant application of pressure and tensions ensure that the risk is higher than it otherwise would be.
It would be startlingly easy for NK to get the sanctions lifted if the wellbeing of its people mattered to it's government more than the continuity of its power. If they lived up to the D in DPRK and stopped crushing its people's access to information they'd be gone overnight. So blaming the sanctions for stopping change or development is disingenuous. Sanctions are just an exclusion from participation in global trade, which NK seem to want no part of anyway (outside of weapons development).
Also, what risk is raised by the sanctions?
They keep the risk of war low, as NK knows it couldn't financially support any kind of drawn out conflict.
They keep the risk from advanced weapons low, as NK is less able to advance their weapons technology.
