Can that really happen? Won’t one of the visiting tourists bring news of the wheel or what have you eventually?
Seems more likely sanctions would cause a steady state where the sanctioned country is some n months/years behind where it would otherwise be, speaking as a complete geopolitical layman anyway.
Not OP but the problem is not awareness of modern solutions that prevents sanctioned societies from modernizing, the isolation from trade prevents local industry from growing which keeps society living at subsistence levels and when everyone is poor you don’t have a class of people with spare time or the resources necessary to build up local industry that brings about capital that brings about infrastructure modernization etc.
Seems more likely sanctions would cause a steady state where the sanctioned country is some n months/years behind where it would otherwise be, speaking as a complete geopolitical layman anyway.