IIn 432 BC, the Athenian Empire sought to teach its tiny neighbor Megara a punitive lesson after various acts of rebellion. Instead of starting a peace-breaking war with Sparta, Athens took the novel approach of blocking the Megarians from using all of the ports in the area.
This became known as the Megarian Edict, and is probably the first recorded instance of economic sanctions. It was a failure, at least in terms of preventing conflict: a year later, the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta broke out, and some ancient historians believe that it was the trigger.
This set a pattern for millennia to come. According to Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, a comprehensive study first published in 1985 and since updated, since World War I, only about one-third of state efforts at economic coercion have been successful in achieving their objectives, which range from “modest policy change” to “thwarting military adventures” to regime change.
Defining success can be complex and subjective, but Edward Fishman, a former senior State Department sanctions official, argues that sanctions can be broadly divided into psychological objectives – to force policy change – and material objectives – to cut off resources and weaken a target country’s military or economic power.
“Material goals are more likely to be successful than psychological goals,” said Fishman, now a senior fellow at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “With material goals, all you really need is to make sure that the sanctions cause economic pain first and foremost.”
With psychological objectives, success is rare but easy to measure. The current network of Western sanctions against Russia is a clear failure in that sense. Vladimir Putin has not given up on his attempt to conquer Ukraine. Materially, too, the effectiveness of Western measures is questionable.
While Russia’s economy is growing, the Biden administration argues that sanctions are harming the Russian military and that Putin’s military would be even stronger if it had unrestricted access to Western technology.
Last week, the United States and its G7 partners announced a significant expansion of sanctions against Russia and entities that support its war economy, while at the same time tacitly acknowledging that there is room for improvement in current measures.
Iraq, Iran, Israel
There are few examples of sanctions changing the policies of foreign governments: the collapse of apartheid in South Africa in 1992 is generally (though not universally) regarded as the greatest success of the international isolation campaign.
But there are two recent examples of sanctions being successful, even though the US was unaware or did not appreciate its own success: Tough sanctions after the first Gulf War led to Saddam Hussein’s destruction of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, but the Bush administration was convinced that the weapons were merely hidden, and the US invaded in 2003.
U.S.-led sanctions also played a key role in persuading Iran to come to the negotiating table and accept significant limits on its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. But those talks collapsed three years later when Donald Trump withdrew from the deal, and since then Iran has gone from a minimum of a year away from being able to build a nuclear warhead to just a few weeks away.
Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University and author of “The Sanctions Paradox,” examines modern-day examples of sanctions, citing the 1992 Bush administration’s withholding of loan guarantees to Israel in response to settlement expansion. This economic pressure ultimately led to the collapse of the government of Yitzhak Shamir and the succession of Yitzhak Rabin, who led to lengthy attempts at peace negotiations with the Palestinians.
Joe Biden’s critics believe he could exert similar influence by halting arms sales to Israel and bring a quicker end to the Gaza war, but Shamir’s successor, Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu, has far more countervailing influence over the United States than Shamir ever did. He was invited to address a fourth joint session of Congress this summer, the most ever by a foreign leader, threatening to bring his differences with Biden straight into the middle of the U.S. presidential election.
A hammer that makes every job look like a nail
U.S. economic influence has been declining in other ways over the years. Cutting off from Western markets used to be fatal for emerging economies, but that is no longer the case. As Iran and Russia have discovered, fast-growing economic powers such as China, India, Turkey and Brazil are not simply going to take their cues from Washington.
“What we’ve seen over the last 35 years is that as a result of globalization, many countries that were once fairly poor and insignificant are now powerful,” said Elizabeth Blow, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Transatlantic Security Initiative.
Case studies of failed sanctions policies at all levels are numerous, the most prominent and longest-lasting example being the US trade embargo against Cuba, which failed to topple the Communist regime in Havana after more than 75 years and instead contributed to the impoverishment of its people.
The sanctions remain in place largely because of the nature of American politics: Congress has little control over war, but it can impose and maintain sanctions as it sees fit. And sanctions, once imposed by Congress, are difficult to lift.
Sanctions are often imposed as punishment against countries or individuals, not in the hope of policy success, but because inaction is unthinkable, for example in the case of crimes against humanity.
“Sending a signal is important even if you’re not achieving tangible results,” said Peter Harrell, who served as Biden’s senior director for international economics during his first year in the Biden administration. “In diplomacy, sometimes you want to send a signal of reproach.”
Between empty rhetoric and war, it is often the only middle option in the policy toolbox, the hammer that makes every job look like a nail because there is nothing else.
“That’s why I think every administration ends up using sanctions more than they think they will,” said Fishman, whose upcoming book, “Choke Point: American Power in an Age of Economic Warfare,” examines the history of U.S. sanctions policy.
“Biden came into office saying he would review sanctions and be more cautious in their use, but he ended up using sanctions more than any other president.”
