How the international political economy and its governors handle rogue, totalitarian, aggressive and nuclear states is an incredibly pressing question. I may have put myself in a straitjacket from the start in attempting to explore this issue through an economic lens, but the gravity of the problem warrants at least some contortion on my part.
Economic sanctions rate highly among politicians in Washington and New York, and London and Brussels are not entirely averse. Sanctions are said to force regimes to cooperate: economic suffering, the argument goes, will make Iran relinquish its atomic ambition, contain Korean communism, loosen Saddam’s grip on Iraq and pacify Syria. Even more popular is the suggestion that sanctions will “bring [your bad-boy nation of choice] to the table,” as if ‘talking’ were all that was required to stop any madman. They are simultaneously the carrot and the stick: submit and prosper, resist and starve. The target regime is, the West reasons (as it is inevitably the West which does the sanctioning), caught in a Catch-22 which ultimately gives the sanctioner what she wants.
Critics of economic sanctions are right to recognize the harm an economic lockout inflicts upon the people of the sanctions’ target. When sanctions were imposed upon Iraq following the liberation of Kuwait, Iraqi civilians suffered immensely. Hussein’s regime, in contrast, thrived: Baghdad used the spoils of war gathered from the short-lived annexation of Kuwait and what little resources Iraq generated on its own to solidify its position. Iraq’s limited supplies were deliberately directed away from Iraqi Kurdistan and what remained of the Marsh Arabs: Saddam used scarcity to stifle and (very literally) starve his detractors.
Of course, a lack of sanctions strengthens “the regime,” as well: if sanctions are imposed and then lifted, all profits go to the regime. Were the Iraqi sanctions lifted before the Americans’ return to Baghdad, Saddam would have been permitted to recover and reload. Economic sanctions, rather than presenting the sanctioned with an unanswerable question instead present the same prisoner’s bargain to the United Nations, the United States et al. Sanctions that are temporary can only have a negative impact on the innocent civilians of the targeted nation. Temporary sanctions also make the mistake of assuming that dictators and totalitarian structures can be made to change or brought to heel - or even that they should be given the opportunity for redemption. Crimes that warrant the imposition of sanctions (a breach of the genocide convention, any violation or intent to violate the non-proliferation treaty, belligerence toward neighbors, safeguarding/supporting terrorists or other civilian-targeting criminals) are of a high enough nature that there can be no appeal except within The Hague.
The only reasonable conclusion to a ‘round’ of sanctions is the capitulation and expurgation from the halls of power of the regime in question. If that is not what the sanctioner desires, no sanctions should be imposed. Full stop. Sanctions are nothing short of murderous when applied for any purpose other than regime change.
The ‘Kofi Annan’ method, which consists largely of spending time in the hope that diplomacy and negotiation will win the day, is equally negligent when it comes to culpable regimes. The United Nations famously waited too long to prevent the horrors in Rwanda, and more recently gave the genocidal government of Sudan all the time in the world to reform. A promise to negotiate is the one thing Sudan could use to control the United Nations: when Sudan pretended to negotiate with the UN, the government-supported/controlled Janjaweed militias carried on killing. Even if the UN had been able to come to consensus, New York would have been too late by 2005. At that point, there were no more black Sudanese to kill: hundreds of thousands were already dead and millions were driven from the country. Sanctions against Sudan, such as they were (there was, at a time, a possibility for more extensive sanctions), at their mildest gave the international community an illusion of action and at their worst wasted time in which genocide was given free reign.
I am running to the end of my hour, unfortunately. I must say something on the nuclear question, given its potential endgame (the end of Earth): can the international political economy play a role in global disarmament and nonproliferation? Sanctions against both Iran and North Korea have been enacted but I doubt their ability. This issue deserves its own time, so I will leave it for later. Nonetheless, the international political economy’s current and potential influence on states in violation of international law has been made incredibly important and deserves examination.
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