Chapter One: The Sanctions Debate

Abstract

Economic sanctions are becoming increasingly central to shaping strategic outcomes in the twenty-first century. They afford great powers a means by which to seek to influence the behaviour of states, to demonstrate international leadership and to express common values for the benefit of the international community at large. Closer to home, they can also offer a ‘middle way’ for governments that apply them, satisfying moderates and hardliners alike. For some great powers in the multipolar world order, however, they pose a threat to trading relationships. They may also serve as a prelude to military action. With China's international voice growing in prominence and Russia asserting its renewed strength, often in opposition to the use of sanctions, it will be ever more difficult to reach a consensus on their application.

Against this backdrop, knowing what kind of measures to take and in which scenarios they are most likely to work is invaluable. This Adelphi focuses on the different sanctions strategies of the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the EU, with regard to the unfolding nuclear crises in Iran and North Korea. It examines how these measures, designed to marginalise the regimes in both countries and restrict their ability to develop nuclear weapons, have also influenced the sanctioning states’ international partners. As such, they are not just a tool of statecraft: they are potentially an important facet of grand strategy.

Notes

Thucydides, The History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Richard Crawley (New York: Modern Library, 1951), pp. 78–83.

Woodrow Wilson, compiled with his approval by Hamilton Foley, Woodrow Wilson's Case for the League of Nations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1923), p. 71.

Baldwin, Economic Statecraft, pp. 165–74.

See Rose Gottemoeller, ‘The Evolution of Sanctions in Practice and Theory’, Survival, vol. 49, no. 4, Winter 2007–2008, p. 99.

‘In Cheney's words: The Administration Case for removing Saddam Hussein’, New York Times, 27 August 2002.

Johan Galtung, ‘On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions: With Examples from the Case of Rhodesia’, World Politics, vol. 19, no. 3, April 1967, p. 409.

Ibid., pp. 411, 413.

See, for example, Margaret Doxey, Economic Sanctions and International Enforcement (London: Oxford University Press, 1971); Donald L. Losman, International Economic Sanctions: the cases of Cuba, Israel, and Rhodesia (Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 1979); Robert A. Pape, ‘Why Economic Sanctions Do Not Work’, International Security, vol. 22, no. 2, Fall 1997, pp. 90–136; Richard N. Haass, ‘Sanctioning Madness’, Foreign Affairs, vol. 76, no. 6, November– December 1997, pp. 74–85; and Reed M. Wood, ‘A Hand upon the Throat of the Nation: Economic Sanctions and State Repression, 1976–2001’, International Studies Quarterly, vol. 52, issue 3, September 2008, pp. 489–513.

Galtung, ‘On the Effects of International Economic Sanctions: With Examples from the Case of Rhodesia’, pp. 411–12.

Doxey, International Sanctions in Contemporary Perspective, 2nd ed. (New York: St Martin's Press, 1996), p. 55.

For more on the duties and rights associated with great powerhood see Hedley Bull, ‘The Great Irresponsibles? The United States, the Soviet Union and World Order’, International Journal, vol. 35, no. 3, Summer 1980, pp. 437–47.

David Mitrany, The Problem of International Sanctions (London: Oxford University Press, 1925), p. 76.

See Gary Clyde Hufbauer and Jeffrey J. Schott, with the assistance of Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions in Support of Foreign Policy Goals (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1983).

See Hufbauer, Schott and Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered: History and Current Policy (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1985).

This terminology was used most famously in T. Clifton Morgan and Valerie L. Schwebach, ‘Fools Suffer Gladly: The Use of Economic Sanctions in International Crises’, International Studies Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 1, March 1997, pp. 27–50.

See, for example, Jean Marc F. Blanchard and Norrin M. Ripsman, ‘Asking the Right Question: When Do Economic Sanctions Work Best?, Security Studies, vol. 9, nos 1–2, Autumn 1999–Winter 2000, pp. 219–53.

Arne Tostensen and Beate Bull, ‘Are Smart Sanctions Feasible?’, World Politics, vol. 54, no. 3, April 2002, p. 380.

Gottemoeller, ‘The Evolution of Sanctions in Practice and Theory’, p. 109.