Sanctions, like aiming to cut oil exports, could also hurt European allies. “It’s a limited toolbox,” one expert said.
LONDON — When Russian soldiers crossed into Ukraine and seized Crimea in 2014, the Obama administration responded with a slate of economic penalties that ultimately imposed sanctions on hundreds of Russian officials and businesses and restricted investments and trade in the nation’s crucial finance, oil and military sectors.
Now, with Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s border, the White House national security adviser has declared that President Biden looked Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, in the eye this week “and told him things we didn’t do in 2014 we are prepared to do now.”
Whether harsher measures would persuade Russia to stay out of Ukraine, however, is far from clear. Historically, economic sanctions have a decidedly mixed track record, with more failuresthan successes. And actions that would take the biggest bite out of the Russian economy — like trying to severely curb oil exports — would also be hard on America’s allies in Europe.
“We’ve seen that over and over again, that sanctions have a hard time really coercing changes in major policies,” said Jeffrey Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who has spent decades researching the topic. “It’s a limited toolbox.”
The best chances of success are when one country has significant economic leverage over the other and the policy goal is limited, Mr. Schott said — yet neither of those conditions really applies in this case. Mr. Putin has made clear that he considers Russia’s actions in Ukraine a matter of national security. And outside of the oil industry, Russia’s international trade and investments are limited, especially in the United States.
With direct military intervention essentially off the table, Biden administration officials have listed a series of options that include financially punishing Mr. Putin’s closest friends and supporters, blocking the conversion of rubles into dollars, and pressuring Germany to block a new gas pipeline between Russia and Northern Europe from opening.
Work on that pipeline — called Nord Stream 2 — has been completed, but it is waiting for approval from Germany’s energy regulator before it can begin operating.
Any request from Washington would coincide with a leadership change in Berlin. The new chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and his cabinet were sworn into office on Wednesday. He has not yet made any definitive statements on the pipeline. Gas reserves are unusually low in Europe now, however, and there are worries about shortages and soaring prices as winter approaches.
Russia supplies more than a third of Europe’s gas through the existing Nord Stream pipeline and has already been accused of withholding supplies as a way of pressuring Germany to approve Nord Stream 2.
Washington could impose much more sweeping sanctions on particular companies and banks in Russia that would more severely curtail investment and production in the energy sector. The risk of tough sanctions on a company like Gazprom, which supplies natural gas, is that Russia could retaliate by cutting its deliveries to Europe.
“That would hurt Russia a lot but also hurt Europe,” Mr. Schott said.
In terms of ratcheting up the pressure, James Nixey, the director of the Russia-Eurasia program at the Chatham House think tank, suggested that financially squeezing the oligarchs who help Mr. Putin maintain power could be one way of bringing more targeted pressure.
“I would place a great premium on going after the inner and outer circle around Putin, which have connections back to the regime,” he said.