SANCTIONS
Continental European members of NATO have also shown a new seriousness about applying sanctions, says Tom Keatinge, an analyst with RUSI. In the past, their sanctions were often symbolic. Although Western leaders were being bombastic when they pretended that sanctions would rapidly bring Russia to its knees, EU states have taken them seriously enough to update their legislation repeatedly in order to implement them. That matters because sanctions are a slog. “They are a plague of henpecking that you hope eventually will kill the target,” Mr Keatinge says. “The target shape shifts and you therefore need to maintain your aim.”
