15 December 1997
The Washington Times
Tom Carter
Are sanctions really working?
Some dispute effectiveness in foreign policyEconomic sanctions, an increasingly popular foreign policy tool used to express U.S. displeasure abroad, are coming under growing criticism from economic and policy experts.
Though favored by human rights activists as a way of registering displeasure with authoritarian governments, policy mavens generally sniff at the "blunt instrument" that rarely achieves its goals.
The United States currently has dozens of economic sanctions in place, on Iraq, Cuba, Libya, Iran and North Korea among many others. President Clinton imposed the most recent ones last month against Sudan.
In addition, according to USA-Engage (www.usaengage.org), which lobbies against sanctions, there are dozens of bills pending on Capitol Hill that if passed would impose new sanctions on dozens of countries for a host of noxious practices, including: building or selling biological, chemical or nuclear weapons, persecuting religious minorities, using child labor, environmental destruction, exporting terrorism and producing illegal drugs.
Between 1993 and 1996, 35 nations came under the U.S. sanctions gun.
According to the 1997 Report of the President's Export Council, 75 countries representing 52 percent of the world's population have been punished at one time or another by unilateral U.S. sanctions.
But policy experts across the political spectrum are coming to the conclusion that, in most cases, economic sanctions are ineffective.
RESULTS ARE MIXED
When introducing legislation in November to establish criteria for adopting sanctions, Sen. Richard G. Lugar, Indiana Republican, said sanctions "rarely achieve their foreign policy goals."
But Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Florida Republican and a leading defender of the U.S. embargo on Cuba, disagrees.
"Sanctions express commitment to norms on international conduct, human rights and nonaggression," said Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen in an editorial published on the USA-Engage web page. "In the end, everyone wins."
Business interests, sometimes accused of sacrificing American values in pursuit of the deal, say commercial engagement inserts American values into otherwise isolated countries.
"Pulling business out of a country is like bringing all the missionaries home," said Michael Gadbaw, senior counsel for international law and policy at the General Electric Co.
A report published in the spring by the National Manufacturers Association, a group made up of 10,000 small U.S. manufacturers, said economic engagement is the best way to modify another nation's behavior.
"Unilateral economic sanctions do not work," said Marino Marcich, author of the NMA report on U.S. sanctions from 1993-1996.
"Do they change the behavior of the target government? In 90 percent of the cases, the answer is no. Barring investment and imports will not lead the people to rise up and overthrow a rogue regime."
ENGAGEMENT IS URGED
Mr. Marcich said the United States should always try diplomacy "before pulling the trigger" on unilateral sanctions.
The United States is currently engaged in both multilateral and unilateral sanctions.
"Sanctions work best when they are multilateral but they must be a part of a wider political strategy," said a White House official on the condition of anonymity. "We recognize sanctions often take time, and sometimes have unintended consequences.
"They work best when they are targeted narrowly against the offending party. For example, sanctions helped undermine apartheid South Africa and encouraged Libya to reduce its support for terrorism. . . . And sanctions are often preferable to force."
Still, he said there were times, when, for moral reasons, the United States was obligated to go it alone. Sanctions against Cuba is one example.
In early December, a Brookings Institution seminar titled "Economic Sanctions: Do They Work?" was in almost total agreement that - while useful in very limited instances as the political option between "doing nothing and military intervention" - sanctions rarely succeed.
A study produced by the Institute for International Economics on the costs and benefits of economic sanctions showed that since, 1970, only 13 percent of the time did U.S. sanctions produce even a modicum of the desired result.
The report looked at 115 sanctions the United States has imposed since World War I. It is currently being updated with an additional 45 cases imposed since 1990.
PART OF THE TOOLBOX
According to the report, sanctions cost the United States between $15 billion and $19 billion a year in lost exports, plus the loss of 200,000 jobs.
"We don't want to throw sanctions out of the toolbox," said Kimberly Ann Elliott, author of the report. "But they are an instrument of policy, and cannot be substituted for an incoherent policy or a lack of policy."
"Sanctions work or don't work depending on the goal you set for them," said Richard Haass, foreign policy director at the Brookings Institution and the author of a new study on economic sanctions. "If you set an ambitious task and are impatient, sanctions tend not to work."
Speaking at the seminar, Mr. Haass said sanctions applied in concert with other key nations, and focused on punishing specific companies or government agencies, have the best chance of modifying behavior.
He said the U.N. sanctions on Iraq have performed "useful lifting," but they should be focused on preventing Saddam Hussein from building or using weapons of mass destruction and not, as Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright has said, in an attempt to remove the Iraqi leader from power.
Peter Rodman, a member of the Bush administration and now a director at the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom, said Washington faces a policy contradiction because, while the U.S. military role shrinks, the country has taken on the missionary goal of reforming rogue nations' internal behavior.
While not entirely in favor of sanctions, he said, European Union objections to some U.S. sanctions are absurd.
"Europe should be ashamed," said Mr. Rodman, describing it as the birthplace of Western civilization, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and a some of the greatest thinkers in the history of the world.
"Europe now defines its political identity by identifying itself with Iran, Iraq and Cuba . . . [and] every other petty, fascist, thug regime on the planet."
CONGRESS LIKES THEM
But not all are against sanctions.
Congressmen frustrated by one issue or another are reaching for the sanctions option.
"We have not reached the high water mark of sanctions," said Mr. Haass. "My hunch is we will see more."
Human rights activists fighting for Tibetans, Burmese and Cuban-democracy advocates promote sanctions as a way of punishing recalcitrant authoritarian regimes. They credit sanctions with helping to bring down South Africa's apartheid government and persuading the Serbs to come to the bargaining table in Dayton, Ohio, two years ago.
"American conservatives and American liberals love sanctions - they just prefer different targets," said Mark Katz, associate professor of government and politics at George Mason University in Virginia.
The Takoma Park Free Burma Committee succeeded in persuading the City Council of the Maryland city to adopt a local ordinance prohibiting the purchase of goods from companies that have investments in Burma, which is run by a military government. Phil Robertson, chairman of the committee who pushed for the ordinance, said Washington policy experts just don't get it.
"Foreign policy wonk elitists think they are the only ones who can conduct foreign policy, but the grass roots are speaking on Burma. . . . Economic sanctions are having a major impact on Burma," said Mr. Robertson.
He said Takoma Park is only one of a long list of municipalities that have restrictions on commercial engagement with Burma.
Mrs. Ros-Lehtinen echoed that sentiment on the 34-year-old economic embargo on Cuba.
"Attaching an economic cost to bad behavior acts as a disincentive. . . . [Sanctions] make sense from a moral, ethical, political and commercial standpoint," she said.
.
Home | About Us | Resources | Press Releases | Federal Activity & Legislation
State & Local Activity | NFTC Lawsuit | Contact Us | Site Index