what does it mean when a country has sanctions placed upon them?
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It’s an extremely vague term that can mean anything from a face-saving diplomatic gesture – e.g. ejecting a few low-level embassy officials in response to some perceived slight – to full-blown economic warfare designed to starve a country into submission. You’d have to look at the details of any given case to understand exactly who is doing it, why, how, and what the implications are.
Bear in mind that governments and friendly media sources (i.e. most media sources within their country or allied countries) will try and put a positive spin on sanctions and can be quite deceptive about them. For example, if a government is put under pressure to punish an allied country for human rights abuses, they may impose token sanctions and wildly exaggerate their significance. On the other hand, governments often impose very severe economic sanctions that have a disastrous effect on the lives of ordinary people in the targeted country, while trying to imply that they are simply stopping shipments of weapons or luxury goods to the country’s leaders.
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