Russia was an important trading partner for many European countries. Especially important for Germany. Basically no sanctions. Freedom of movement with fairly good visa policies. No great internet firewall. How much did all this help to prevent another huge war between two European countries?
> they inflict misery on ordinary people indefinitely
Pyongyang was making its people miserable before there were sanctions. America isn’t at the centre of the universe—we didn’t cause every geopolitical ripple that ever was.
> Pyongyang was making its people miserable before there were sanctions.
Whether or not we approve of Pyongyang is completely irrelevant to every point I've made. The questions are (a) whether the sanctions have had a material negative effect on the North Korean people, and (b) what they have accomplished. The answers are "yes" and "nothing of any use", neither of which is controversial. And our fixation with North Korea and the evil we wrought there obviously doesn't begin with sanctions but with millions of tons of bombs, tens of thousands of tons of napalm on arable land, or the destruction of the People's Republic of Korea (not the DPRK), a functioning government that existed in both the North and South before the US invaded (literally reinstating colonial Japanese governors as officials).
> America isn’t at the centre of the universe—we didn’t cause every geopolitical ripple that ever was.
The US was directly involved in the division of Korea even before all that. Frankly, your entire comment has been not only extremely handwave-y but deeply dishonest.
Exactly. Trade ties only go so far.
But this pov isn’t always rooted in pragmatism. Free market ideologues also think that free markets will bring world peace.
Different behaviors have different motivations, contexts, and causes. It's extremely clear that these, like other criminal moneymaking schemes in the DPRK, are directly and closely related to the high degree of isolation of the DPRK and the difficulty of getting capital into it.
Of course lifting the sanctions won't also end all spycraft, or ensure an end to geopolitical conflict. Those aren't things I have claimed or would claim.
And the primary reason to end such sanctions is not any benefit to imperialist nations but because of the fact that they inflict misery on ordinary people indefinitely and (not essential, but adding insult to injury) uselessly.