I have never seen sanctions to be of much use. Maybe when you combine CIA involvement in regime change causing hardship for the citizens of a country might help with creating animosity with the current regime, but any direct benefits of a country changing its policy because they have been sanctioned seems unlikely. In most cases it seems the sanctions only make the resolve of the leaders of the sanctioned nations that much stronger.

I think the various sanctions will only speed the adoption of additional currencies other than the dollar for trade. When only small countries tried to use another currency or gold it was easy enough for the CIA to cause a coup and try to put a puppet government in (while some of the time just leaving a power vacuum and destroying the country from within). But Russia and China? Are we going to start WW3 over the dollar hegemony?  I sure hope not.

Russia and China have been supporting questionable neighbors to keep NATO off their doorstep since at least the Korean War (the first one, not the one we are about to get into). They have not backed down to date and I do not expect them to concerning positioning the Yuan as an international trade currency.

John