It is true that economic sanctions may break the backs of many countries. The country will become poor, maybe try to be self-sufficient, if it can, it will be able to survive, but it will not be able to shout at all. However, these theories may apply to Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea. But what happens when you try to play this kind of game with superpowers?
~snip~
The thing about sanctions that many disregard these days is:
It is not a tool that is being used to put pressure on the government specifically but it is more of a way to put the pressure on civilians of that country so that they get pissed off about the financial situation that they're in because of all the sanctions and get out of their house and protest against their government, that way the country/countries that impose those sanctions get to weaken that government indirectly without having to pay much of a price themselves, but people that protested against their government and got jailed or killed pay the real price for the change in the government or merely its behavior.
It's unfortunate how this sanction thing actually works when you actually see the other layers other than the top layer of what it does to a country.