I like to suggest economic sanctions are the politicians "feel good and look so smart" instrument but are not free of ethical costs and neither are they affective instrument to facilitate change . They impact innocent civilians and, at worst, can kill more people than the wars they are purported to supplant.
Sanctions have mostly a symbolic function and the efficacy of sanctions is debatable and sanctions can have unintended consequences. The history of sanctions during the last 60 years have shown to be a resounding failure to realize change, due to growing interdependency between markets & countries. According to Robert A. Pape of the University of California only up to <5 % of the 40 analysed sanctions have proven themselves to be successful. UN sanctions against authoritarian regimes have proven themselves even less successful and are not free of ethical costs as the Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and other countries have shown. Sanctions have proven themselves more successful when they are used between friendly states.
Next to influencing behaviour and policies of people, companies and countries the conclusion is warranted they are used as a foreign policy instrument to protect U.S. hegemony and to facilitate the U.S. strategy of regime change, policies driven by a combination of idealism, naiveté and arrogance whereby American governments have assumed the right to topple governments often with disastrous results.
Above all the logic of coercive sanction does not hold when the objective of the sanctions is regime change because the cost of relinquishing power will always exceed the benefit of sanction relief.
The same can be said about the logic of the sanctions and this economic war against Russia, a gamble with the global economy which will take us back to the energy crisis of 1974 and of which the economic and human costs far exceed the benefits.
As always a interesting read.
I like to suggest economic sanctions are the politicians "feel good and look so smart" instrument but are not free of ethical costs and neither are they affective instrument to facilitate change . They impact innocent civilians and, at worst, can kill more people than the wars they are purported to supplant.
Sanctions have mostly a symbolic function and the efficacy of sanctions is debatable and sanctions can have unintended consequences. The history of sanctions during the last 60 years have shown to be a resounding failure to realize change, due to growing interdependency between markets & countries. According to Robert A. Pape of the University of California only up to <5 % of the 40 analysed sanctions have proven themselves to be successful. UN sanctions against authoritarian regimes have proven themselves even less successful and are not free of ethical costs as the Iran, Iraq, Venezuela and other countries have shown. Sanctions have proven themselves more successful when they are used between friendly states.
Next to influencing behaviour and policies of people, companies and countries the conclusion is warranted they are used as a foreign policy instrument to protect U.S. hegemony and to facilitate the U.S. strategy of regime change, policies driven by a combination of idealism, naiveté and arrogance whereby American governments have assumed the right to topple governments often with disastrous results.
Above all the logic of coercive sanction does not hold when the objective of the sanctions is regime change because the cost of relinquishing power will always exceed the benefit of sanction relief.
The same can be said about the logic of the sanctions and this economic war against Russia, a gamble with the global economy which will take us back to the energy crisis of 1974 and of which the economic and human costs far exceed the benefits.