How Much Can Sanctions Hurt?

I look into some of the steps, especially on the financial side, that the US can take to hurt the Putin regime if a Ukraine-Russia war happens:

And it is also fair to say that while existing financial sanctions have damaged the Russian economy, they do not appear to have changed the behavior of the Putin government. The evident crisis in Ukraine demonstrates that hard power still matters; Russia has an advantage, and Moscow may well leverage this advantage. The result, then, could be a Russia that is not deterred from attacking Ukraine, but that is badly wounded by the aftermath. In the short term, such an outcome would probably benefit the Putin government, but in the long run it’s hard to see how Russia comes out ahead.

Nexon has been tweeting a great deal about the distinction between national security and regime security: