America: a Beacon, not a Policeman	Sanctions Paradox	Americans Against World Empire  Homepage

Sanctions paradox  (WASHINGTON TIMES 11/18/99)

By Donald Losman


he United States is the most sanctions-happy nation
on Earth. Indeed, economic sanctions have
apparently become our foreign policy tool du jour,
almost reflexively applied when the world does not conform to
our expectations. Since 1993 we have unilaterally targeted
more than 60 countries, or two-thirds of the world's
population. This practice has not only garnered precious few, if
any, successes, it has clearly harmed American business and
employment, generated tensions with our allies, and often
worsened or exacerbated the very conditions and activities that
they were intended to oppose.
To understand the inappropriateness of formal sanctions,
one must recognize that they are only one tool on the economic
leverage spectrum, and they are on an extreme end. Economic
leverage is the manipulation of financial and economic variables
-- increasing or decreasing trade, financial, or technology flows
-- in order to impose costs on a target nation sufficient to force
changes in offensive behavior or practices. Economic sanctions
are a public slap in the face, a visible attack, but one which
employs economic instruments rather than military. Yet there
are many other less extreme and less visible ways of imposing
economic costs. Clearly, it is more to the middle of the
economic leverage spectrum that success is to be found.
Nonetheless, formal sanctions are almost reflexively and
indiscriminately applied. They have become the opiate of
Congress and the presidency. As with other drugs, however,
the good feelings do not last long and we eventually awaken to
ugly realities usually made worse by our sanctions dalliances.
Formal sanctions rarely achieve their goals because adroit
leadership in the target countries tend to depict them as a war
against the nation as a whole, relying on inflammatory rhetoric
to stir patriotic resistance. Iran's ayatollehs and Fidel Castro
have mastered this practice. Sanctions are readily used by
target regimes as an excuse for all failures, thereby taking
domestic pressure off the leadership for its own
mismanagement or offensive activities. State (regime) power is
almost always enhanced at the expense of other internal
elements that oppose the offensive actions or practices. In
short, formal sanctions often are counterproductive.
History has demonstrated that sanctions, especially when
unilaterally applied, almost never impose so much economic
damage that the target state capitulates. And even when the
economic damage is substantial, either the will to resist stiffens
or target regimes become more ruthless with their own
peoples. America's embargo of Cuba, soon to be entering its
fourth decade, has subjected Cuba to enormous costs, yet
Fidel Castro survives. Israel's closures of the Palestinian
territories imposed very serious economic damage, but only
inflamed the populace and probably stimulated the very
activities -- terrorism -- that evoked the sanctions in the first
place. Saddam Hussein remains defiant, turning a blind eye to
the suffering of the Iraqi people.
Moving away from such an extreme position on the
economic leverage spectrum is a far more fruitful means of
achieving foreign policy objectives.
We should take a page from the Russians' book. In the
early 1960s, after the Sino-Soviet split publicly emerged, Mr.
Castro, much to Soviet chagrin, came out openly on the
Chinese side. This was a major source of embarrassment to the
Russians, who were frustrated in their attempts to dissuade an
ideological Mr. Castro from his announced position. Russia,
however, was Cuba's sole supplier of petroleum, and after oil
deliveries from Odessa mysteriously began slowing -- when
Cuba was down to a six-day supply -- Mr. Castro publicly
reversed himself. Miraculously, oil deliveries recommenced.
More recently, after the demise of the Soviet Union, Syria
refused to make payments on its heavy debts for armaments
supplied. No amount of Russian persuasion seemed to work.
However, military hardware requires extensive support, a
critical leverage factor for the Russians. That support was
denied, with the Syrians soon recognizing that much of their
military equipment would be unusable without Russian
assistance. Soon thereafter, repayment terms were negotiated.
Trade, aid and technology transfers can almost always be
quietly altered, thus imposing costs without fanfare. Foreign
leaderships are not put in a position of having to publicly back
down. And less visible actions make it more difficult for target
state leaders to invoke public resistance or blame all domestic
failures on external forces.
It must also be recognized that sanctions are directed
against the boycotting state's own workers and corporations as
well as the target economy. Importantly, the impulse to
sanction often has less to do with foreign policy than domestic
politics. Sanctions are a tool which Congress or the president
can use to demonstrate solidarity or sympathy with subgroups
in the electorate.
In the 1970s, for example, an arms embargo was put on
Turkey mainly to appease the Greek-American lobby. Today
the U.S. government refuses to spend any monies in
Azerbaijan, mainly to curry favor with our Armenian-American
community. In 1996, President Clinton announced increased
sanctions against Iran at the World Jewish Congress in New
York, which greatly appealed to many of the organizations and
individuals in attendance. The Helms-Burton Act, targeted
mainly against political and economic allies whose only
misbehavior is trading with Cuba, was pushed in large part by
members of the Cuban-American community who could stand
to gain financially from this legislation.
And herein lies the sanctions paradox. Those actions closest
to the center on the economic leverage spectrum, the ones
most likely to garner foreign policy success --quiet,
behind-the-scenes efforts that impose economic costs -- are
the very ones least likely to be utilized because their relative
invisibility means there will be few, if any, domestic political
rewards or credits. Indeed, it is this search for political
dividends that, by mid-1998, had gotten 27 state and local
governments into the sanctions game. Elect me, say political
entrepreneurs, and I will ensure that our state or city does not
buy from countries persecuting Christians or stifling human
rights.
Currying favor with subgroups in the electorate is a sure
recipe for foreign policy failures. Haven't we had enough?
Further, the long list of nations successfully defying our
boycotts only degrades the image of American power.
Formal sanctions should be dropped from our foreign
policy tool kit. We need to learn that economic leverage is
most likely to succeed when it is quiet and low-key.

Donald L. Losman is a professor at the National Defense
University who has widely written and testified before
Congress on economic sanctions. The opinions expressed
in this article are his own.


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