Economic sanctions have been the American politician’s tool of choice for the last half-century or so in trying to change the behavior of authoritarian regimes around the world. They make it look like something is being done. They don’t cost us much, they don’t involve much risk for us, and they don’t, in general, inconvenience the voters. The odd corporation or two may be temporarily shut out of a small market, but in general we can put sanctions on a recalcitrant regime elsewhere with minimal disturbance to our own way of life.
There is only one problem. They don’t seem to work!
We put sanctions on Castro’s Cuba way back in 1959, but Cuba is still ruled by the same Communist Party today. We put sanctions on North Korea to prevent them from developing a nuclear weapon, and how well did that work? We have put sanctions on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro. But he is still in power. We sanctioned Iran to try to force them to stop nuclear development, but that certainly hasn’t worked. We sanctioned Putin when he took over the Crimea. But that seems to have made no difference. And we threatened severe sanctions on Putin if he invaded the Ukraine. Well, that certainly didn’t work, as the daily news confirms!
So clearly sanctions don’t work to deter other regimes, though they still may be useful in making things more difficult for them. But in fact it is hard to get everyone to agree to abide by sanctions. Like smuggling, sanction-evading becomes big business for some as long as there is a demand. North Korea’s Kim seems to manage to get everything he needs despite the sanctions. And there seems to be a substantial and fairly sophisticated system, including tankers that turn their transponders off, to help nations like Venezuela and Iran sell their oil in spite of the sanctions.
So what alternatives do we have? We had better have some alternative to try, or we will be forever at the mercy of thugs around the world who are less risk-averse than we are. We might even have to take a bit of risk. We might even have to inconvenience the voters a bit. Politicians might even have to do what is effective instead of what is popular. Imagine!!!
Clearly sanctions are not effective. That ought to be obvious by now. We had better find something else.
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