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b'The Russian political scientist Ilya Matveev recently described the impact of the West\\u2019s sanctions on his country as \\u201c30 years of economic development thrown into the bin.\\u201d He\\u2019s not exaggerating. Economists expect the Russian economy to contract by at least 15 percent of G.D.P. this year. Inflation is spiking. An exodus of Russian professionals is underway. Stories of shortages and long lines for basic consumer goods abound.\\n\\nThe U.S. and its allies have turned to sanctions as a way of taking action against Russia\\u2019s atrocities without direct military intervention. But to describe these sanctions as anything short of all-out economic warfare is euphemistic. Measures like these might be cloaked in the technocratic language of finance and economics, but the immiseration they cause is anything but abstract.\\n\\nNicholas Mulder is a historian at Cornell University and the author of the terrifyingly relevant new book \\u201cThe Economic Weapon: The Rise of Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War.\\u201d In it, Mulder focuses on the last time economic warfare was waged at the scale we\\u2019re witnessing today, the period between World War I and World War II. And the book\\u2019s central lesson is this: We ultimately don\\u2019t know what\\u2019s going to happen when sanctions of this magnitude collide with the ideologies, myths and political dynamics of a given country. They could persuade the targeted country to back down. But they could also make it so desperate that it becomes more aggressive or lashes out \\u2014 as Germany and Japan did on the eve of World War II.\\n\\nSo this is a discussion about what kind of weapon sanctions are, whether they actually achieve their goals and how they might shape the future of the Russia-Ukraine conflict \\u2014 and the world. We also explore how sanctions \\u201cweaponize inflation,\\u201d whether they could lead to Vladimir Putin\\u2019s downfall in Russia, the toll they have taken on the Russian economy, how the West can leverage its sanctions to help bring about an end to the war in Ukraine, whether a European energy embargo could backfire, how this economic war is destabilizing countries around the world, the humanitarian crisis U.S. sanctions are helping create in Afghanistan, and what a foreign policy that didn\\u2019t rely so heavily on sanctions could look like.\\n\\nThis episode is guest hosted by Rog\\xe9 Karma, the staff editor for \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show.\\u201d Rog\\xe9 has been with the show since July 2019, when it was based at Vox. He works closely with Ezra on everything related to the show, from editing to interview prep to guest selection. At Vox, he also wrote articles and conducted interviews on topics ranging from policing and racial justice to democracy reform and the coronavirus.\\n\\nMentioned:\\n\\n\\u201cThe Inflation Weapon: How American Sanctions Harm Iranian Households\\u201d by Esfandyar Batmanghelidj \\n\\n\\u201cIran, Sanctions and Inflation as a Weapon of Mass Destruction\\u201d by Spencer Ackerman \\n\\nOligarchy by Jeffrey A. Winters\\n\\n\\u201cIf Joe Biden Doesn\\u2019t Change Course, This Will Be His Worst Failure\\u201d by Ezra Klein \\n\\nBook recommendations:\\n\\nCollapse by Vladislav M. Zubok\\n\\nThe Perfect Fascist by Victoria de Grazia\\n\\nMy Century by Aleksander Wat\\n\\nThoughts? Guest suggestions? Email us at ezrakleinshow@nytimes.com.\\n\\nYou can find transcripts (posted midday) and more episodes of \\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d at nytimes.com/ezra-klein-podcast, and you can find Ezra on Twitter @ezraklein. Book recommendations from all our guests are listed at https://www.nytimes.com/article/ezra-klein-show-book-recs.\\n\\n\\u201cThe Ezra Klein Show\\u201d is produced by Annie Galvin, Jeff Geld and Rog\\xe9 Karma; fact-checking by Michelle Harris, Kate Sinclair and Mary Marge Locker; original music by Isaac Jones; mixing by Jeff Geld; audience strategy by Shannon Busta. Our executive producer is Irene Noguchi. Special thanks to Kristin Lin and Kristina Samulewski.'