This thing!
Sanctions have their uses (mostly actually as a diplomatic tool for bloc-building, I'd argue), but as a means of suasion, they really only work on issues an adversary considers relatively unimportant.
Sanctions have their uses (mostly actually as a diplomatic tool for bloc-building, I'd argue), but as a means of suasion, they really only work on issues an adversary considers relatively unimportant.
https://twitter.com/EmmaMAshford/status/1346168731362349058
That said, I think there is a tendency to confuse sanctions-as-suasion vs. sanctions-as-economic-warfare (not being made by @EmmaMAshford here, to be clear), because we often pretend we're doing the former when we're really doing the later.
"We are going to intentionally crater the economy of X so they have less resources to do Y" is a fairly reasonable strategic maneuver, but not a very politic one given that
1) the pain falls on regular people and
2) admitting the goal is essentially admitting to hostilities.
1) the pain falls on regular people and
2) admitting the goal is essentially admitting to hostilities.
Thus frequently pretending - or worse, convincing ourselves - we're using sanctions to convince a regime to change course, when we're really using sanctions to draw lines between 'us' and 'them' in international disputes (thus bloc-building) while engaging in economic warfare.
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