Here’s a pro tip: when a US media outlet says “This action did have an effect, but it achieved considerably less than expected,” this is code for “It achieved fucking nothing. Actually, it probably weakened us more than it weakened them.”

Prime example is all the articles over the last couple years talking about how sanctions on Russia are definitely doing something! They’re not working as well as we want, but they are working! Meanwhile, Russia is essentially the best performing major economy in the European region, is distinctly not in a recession unlike, say, Germany, had its oil sold significantly above the oil price cap for half of 2023 (with a recent fall to “just” the price cap of $60 per barrel), with manufacturing and services PMIs doing great, record low unemployment (…well, you know what I mean…), and basically everybody who isn’t a bot on Reddit is admitting is winning the war in Ukraine despite the combined military deliveries of dozens of countries throughout NATO.

Another example is of sanctions on China, perhaps best summed up by this:

(from January 2024 in CGTN)

Ah, well, nevertheless.

Simply put, if I didn’t want Ansarallah in Yemen to become a battle-hardened, militant force in the region which has found ways to mitigate the impacts of western bombing campaigns, and is totally unwilling to even briefly consider US demands to stop blockading the Red Sea, I would have simply not fucking bombed them and killed hundreds of thousands of civilians for nine fucking years. Actions have consequences.

Propaganda cannot feed an army. It cannot fuel a battleship. It cannot be fired out of a missile launcher. But other than magically-conjured trillions of dollars, it’s about the only thing that America can still make.