History Book: Déjà vu

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Monday March 18. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. Up next: the WORLD History Book. Today a reminder that there is nothing new under the sun. 10 years ago, U.S. President Barack Obama announces sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine. 20 years ago, Israel kills the founder of Hamas.

EICHER: But first, 30 years ago, the U.S. hosts a ceasefire signing ceremony in Washington. Here’s WORLD Radio executive producer Paul Butler.

SOUND: [PHOTOGRAPHS, APPLAUSE]

PAUL BUTLER: On this day in 1994, representatives from Bosnia, Croatia, and Herzeg-Bosnia gather to sign a ceasefire agreement in the old executive office of the White House. U.S. President Bill Clinton looks on:

CLINTON: We have come to bear witness to a moment of hope. For 33 months the flames of war have raged through the nations of the former Yugoslavia.

Two years earlier, war broke out between Herzeg-Bosnia and the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The conflict in the former kingdom of Yugoslavia was much like a Russian nesting doll…as both Bosnian factions were supported by surrounding states and militaries—creating a localized war within the greater Bosnian war, and that within the yet larger Yugoslavian war.

CLINTON: Around the globe, the tension between ethnic identity and statehood presents one of the great problems of our time, but nowhere have the consequences been more tragic than in the former Yugoslavia.

Under the terms of the Washington Agreement, the combined territory of the Croat and Bosnian government forces is divided into ten autonomous cantons—or governing states. That’s in hopes of preventing dominance of one ethnic group over another. The agreement establishes the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina …at least in principle.

CLINTON: While documents like these can define the parameters of peace, the people of the region themselves must create that peace, economic, political and security arrangements for the new federation must be given a chance to work.

In 1994, NATO countries hope that the Washington Agreement will be a significant first step toward a peaceful solution to the ethnic and religious wars across Yugoslavia. But 30 years on, while the agreement has proven to be effective in stopping the war, it has done little to encourage reconciliation and healing.

Next, March 22nd, 2004…

Israeli Air Force Apache helicopters launch Hellfire missiles into a car traveling in the Gaza Strip. Inside the vehicle is Ahmed Yassin, co-founder and leader of the Palestinian Sunni Islamist militant group Hamas. Yassin and his bodyguards are killed in a ball of fire.

Senior Hamas leader Abdel Aziz Rantisi immediately condemns the attack—promising Hamas will respond…not just in kind… but all out war:

RANTISI: The war is opened. There will be no one (not only one) revenge, no one revenge. It's an opened war.

Yassin’s fiery rhetoric inspired many acts of terror…and Israeli intelligence connected him directly to many attacks—leading Israeli Defence Forces to insist the assassination was warranted. Major Ruthi Yaron:

YARON: This is a man who is actively engaged in terrorism and his killing and us taking him out of the way is actually a life saving action for the rest of the Israelis who were actually his target.

In 2004, Yassar Arafat is the face of the Palestinian Authority but Ahmed Yassin is the powerful spiritual leader of Hamas…

One Knesset member worries that the assassinated Yassin will be venerated as a religious martyr, increasing the specter of greater vengeance:

CHOEN: I think that now it (the killing) will be repaid by many people in Israel will be killed and I think it was not reasonable for the government to decide to do it.

SOUND: [FUNERAL PROCESSION]

Tens of thousands fill the street during Yassin’s funeral march through the Gaza Strip. The assassination may have played a part in Hamas’s 2006 election victory two years later. And the horrific events of October 7th, 2023.

And finally today, we end with March 17th, 2014 U.S. President Barack Obama announces sanctions against Russia after it sent troops into the Crimea region of Ukraine:

OBAMA: Today, I'm announcing a series of measures that will continue to increase the costs on Russia and on those responsible for what is happening in Ukraine.

Two weeks earlier, Obama had signed an executive order restricting travel of Russian military and political officials as well as freezing their assets in the U.S. Now, the President announces stiffer sanctions:

OBAMA: As an initial step, I'm authorizing sanctions on Russian officials, entities operating in the arms sector in Russia, and individuals who provide material support to senior officials of the Russian government.

Three days after this speech, the Obama administration issues even more sanctions—and declares the annexation of Crimea as an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

OBAMA: And as we go forward, we'll continue to look at the range of ways we can help our Ukrainian friends achieve their universal rights and the security, prosperity and dignity that they deserve. Thanks very much.

Nine months later, Obama levies broader sanctions against six of Russia’s largest banks and four energy companies. Then over the next two years, the White House issues a few more executive orders sanctioning Russia and its allies…

Raising the question: “Do sanctions work?” According to professor James Galbraith of the University of Texas at Austin, sanctions are rarely effective against nations the size of Russia. He suggests that the U.S. sanctions beginning in 1994 have actually provided Russia an opportunity to eliminate its dependence on Western imports. It also allowed them to buy up Western companies operating in Russia that were forced to leave under the sanctions.

Audio here from a recent New Economic Thinking video:

JAMES GALBRAITH: So again, I characterize the effect of the sanctions, in fact as being in certain respects, a gift to the Russian economy. And this is, I think, quite different from what the authors of the sanctions expected.

With the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the recent death of Alexey Navanly, the U.S. and its Western Allies continue to threaten further sanctions. But if 2014 is any indication, the sanctions may be mostly symbolic—at least as long as Russia has partners around the world who are willing to do business with them, like China, Iran, and North Korea.

That’s this week’s WORLD History Book. I’m Paul Butler.

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