Sanctions have become the U.S. and Europe’s go-to response to international disputes, providing quick, clean, and non-military means to punish illiberal states seen to be breaking the rules of the international liberal order. But the effectiveness of these tools of economic warfare barely goes beyond symbolic victories for leaders aiming to be seen to be acting against evil. In fact, with their extreme overuse – U.S. imposition of sanctions has increased by 900% since the start of the 21st century – sanctions are not only blunt tools that both fail to achieve their objectives and that can plunge millions into extreme poverty, but they are a severe detriment to the future of the liberal world order and the capacity of U.S. power projection.
By restricting imports, exports, and access to global financial systems, sanctions seek to cripple the target state’s economy, strain their economic resources, and foster domestic discontent with a regime. Their centrality in modern geopolitics has been demonstrated time and again, with extreme sanctions being levied against states such as Iraq, Iran, Russia, North Korea, and a host of other rule-breaking states. Yet, while the logic of sanctions seems neat, they have continually proved to be blunt instruments that, rather than securing the maintenance of the liberal world order, have contributed to its decline and degradation. With a President-elect seemingly itching to engage the entire globe in economic warfare, this movement will only accelerate.
Primarily, strong states such as the U.S. hope that sanctions act as a deterrence mechanism that shapes international policy choices of states around the world. Failing this, however, they have two key functions. First, sanctions aim to induce economic hardship on the target state, forcing them to alter their policies in line with the expectations and demands of the strong state. Second, by establishing dire economic conditions for the population, they seek to foment popular dissatisfaction towards the regime, forcing policy adaptation or even regime change. While logical in theory, the real-world implementation of sanctions has continually failed to achieve the desired outcomes. Instead, they have fostered intransigence, autocratic repression and retrenchment, extreme poverty of the people, and geopolitical adaptation in the form of new anti-Western international alliances, trading partnerships, and financial systems.
When it comes to inciting political change, sanctions have continually failed. Take UN Resolution 661 and the imposition of some of the most historically comprehensive sanctions ever, levied against Iraq in 1990. Without achieving any of the political objectives, the sanctions devastated the livelihoods of the Iraqi people and encouraged Saddam Hussein to pursue increasingly authoritarian and repressive policies on his people, stamping out any room for oppositional resistance to the regime. In fact, all the sanctions on Iraq seemed to achieve was a severe increase in child mortality rates, widespread malnutrition, and extreme increases in disease among the population.
On top of the humanitarian ruin, the imposition of sanctions typically drives illiberal and autocratic states together, encouraging them to forge new systems of alliances, trade, and support. This is where the U.S. is digging its own grave when it comes to global power projection. Trump’s ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions on Iran in 2018 are a case in point. Not only did this, along with his exit from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Iran nuclear agreement, destroy any hope that Iran’s nuclear weapon development could be curbed, but it drove them towards ever-closer cooperation with the likes of Russia, China, and North Korea with one key aim: reduce reliance on Western trade and financial systems. The development of new Russian and Iranian payment systems as alternatives to SWIFT demonstrate just that.
The consequences are clear. As sanctions pile up, the role of the U.S. and the West as architects of the international order will deteriorate at an ever-faster rate, as polarisation and fragmentation in international relations intensifies, and the already floundering liberal world order dies a sorry death. The incoming Trump administration, with its penchant for sanctions and tariffs, is poised to amplify this trend, further fuelling the economic fragmentation already in motion.
Despite the long-term dangers and severe shortcomings of sanctions, they remain popular among Western policymakers because they signal action without being accompanied by the risks associated with military intervention. For leaders eager to appear strong on foreign policy – such as Donald Trump – sanctions provide a tangible, immediate response to international crises. Yet the consistent and unending imposition of these economic tools as a replacement for diplomacy is sure to accelerate the already-deteriorating influence enjoyed by the U.S., while polarising international relationships even further and making reconciliation, diplomacy, and Western soft power a pipe dream.
Image: Flickr/Jeanne Menjoulet
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