The Keynes quote, admittedly famous, ignores the fact that THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE predicted that the sanctions imposed on Germany at Versailles would lead inexorably to another war. Keynes, as we know, was ignored.
The development of sanctions as an alternative to a devastating shooting war seems another proof of the law of unintended consequences.
The basic assumption for the concept to work is unity of purpose by all against the target and how often is that reflected in reality. Another questionable underlying assumption is the belief that the ruler of the targeted state would change whatever the offensive policy might be in the face of sanctions - an act that would surely spell the end of his political legitimacy - when the likelier outcome is for that ruler to rally the population under the banner of innocent victim to the malevolent outside forces (the quote from Goering about Jewish control of Swedish iron ore being a case in point).
And then, as amply demonstrated in this review, the threat of sanctions can be countered by seizing those materials that are seen as necessary for self-sufficiency, as Japan tried in WWII with oil supplies. This incentive to preempt seems somehow not to have been factored into the sanctions framework.
One cannot be come away with the question, in developing this doctrine did no one ask “what would we do were our country on the receiving end of sanctions?” If that question was posed, I doubt the answer was meek compliance.
Sanctions are similar to our current interest in drones to this extent: we keep our combattants out of harms way while taking the fight to enemy territory where all the casualties and horror will take place.
I suspect that reading Prof. Muller’s book will also shed new light on other inter-war programs such as the London Naval Treaty and the Kellogg-Briand Pact - which shorn of the sanctions context appear strangely naive, because we have the advantage of knowing how the story ended.
is the EU a similar logic, but mirrored, as sanctions liberalism? you used to hear a lot of talk during the aughts that countries aspiring to join the union would liberalize in many beneficial ways. of course, that only works insofar as a spirit of inclusion can be sustained, as turkey found out.
I am reading Samuel Moyn’s “Humane” about how ‘ethical’ wars become wars without end. There is a gradual progression in History to take civilians out of warfare and as we developed air war and bombs there was a real movement to exclude civilian areas from attack. Gradually international law moved to the situation we have now where civilians are protected.
Sanctions are a way around these rules in that they target the states by causing suffering to the citizens. They are clearly a ‘soft’ alternative to real hot war but they are just another example of market integration in our society leading to a perpetual state of uneasy economic battle where there aren’t bombs and bullets but bonds and balance sheets.
It’s interesting to consider the impact of China’s rising influence on the efficacy of American led sanctions. Give it a couple of decades and western sanctions might be blunted.
You call out the belated use of the 'positive economic weapon' in Lend-Lease 1941; but it is my understanding that as early as the various Allied interventions in the Russian Revolution/Civil War the primary action was to send aid and military materiel to the various White factions, and in the lead up to WW2, I think I remember that the Czechs in particular had been amply armed? The failures of the 1930s still seem more political than economic.
Perhaps Mulder developed this (I'm waiting for my copy to arrive!), but it jumps to mind as well that both positive and negative economic warfare are old British traditions, massively increased in importance by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the decades-long economic showdown with Napoleonic Europe (Continental System, Coalitions formed by financial support, etc). Reading Victor Serge and Alexander Mikaberidze at the same time has made me think a lot about the remarkable continuities between anti-French and anti-Russian military efforts, a century apart.
Thank you for posting this on the sixtieth anniversary of the Cuban embargo.
The Keynes quote, admittedly famous, ignores the fact that THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE predicted that the sanctions imposed on Germany at Versailles would lead inexorably to another war. Keynes, as we know, was ignored.
The development of sanctions as an alternative to a devastating shooting war seems another proof of the law of unintended consequences.
The basic assumption for the concept to work is unity of purpose by all against the target and how often is that reflected in reality. Another questionable underlying assumption is the belief that the ruler of the targeted state would change whatever the offensive policy might be in the face of sanctions - an act that would surely spell the end of his political legitimacy - when the likelier outcome is for that ruler to rally the population under the banner of innocent victim to the malevolent outside forces (the quote from Goering about Jewish control of Swedish iron ore being a case in point).
And then, as amply demonstrated in this review, the threat of sanctions can be countered by seizing those materials that are seen as necessary for self-sufficiency, as Japan tried in WWII with oil supplies. This incentive to preempt seems somehow not to have been factored into the sanctions framework.
One cannot be come away with the question, in developing this doctrine did no one ask “what would we do were our country on the receiving end of sanctions?” If that question was posed, I doubt the answer was meek compliance.
Sanctions are similar to our current interest in drones to this extent: we keep our combattants out of harms way while taking the fight to enemy territory where all the casualties and horror will take place.
I suspect that reading Prof. Muller’s book will also shed new light on other inter-war programs such as the London Naval Treaty and the Kellogg-Briand Pact - which shorn of the sanctions context appear strangely naive, because we have the advantage of knowing how the story ended.
Didn’t France use sanctions to force Haiti to pay for the end of slavery in Haiti?
is the EU a similar logic, but mirrored, as sanctions liberalism? you used to hear a lot of talk during the aughts that countries aspiring to join the union would liberalize in many beneficial ways. of course, that only works insofar as a spirit of inclusion can be sustained, as turkey found out.
I am reading Samuel Moyn’s “Humane” about how ‘ethical’ wars become wars without end. There is a gradual progression in History to take civilians out of warfare and as we developed air war and bombs there was a real movement to exclude civilian areas from attack. Gradually international law moved to the situation we have now where civilians are protected.
Sanctions are a way around these rules in that they target the states by causing suffering to the citizens. They are clearly a ‘soft’ alternative to real hot war but they are just another example of market integration in our society leading to a perpetual state of uneasy economic battle where there aren’t bombs and bullets but bonds and balance sheets.
It’s interesting to consider the impact of China’s rising influence on the efficacy of American led sanctions. Give it a couple of decades and western sanctions might be blunted.
You call out the belated use of the 'positive economic weapon' in Lend-Lease 1941; but it is my understanding that as early as the various Allied interventions in the Russian Revolution/Civil War the primary action was to send aid and military materiel to the various White factions, and in the lead up to WW2, I think I remember that the Czechs in particular had been amply armed? The failures of the 1930s still seem more political than economic.
Perhaps Mulder developed this (I'm waiting for my copy to arrive!), but it jumps to mind as well that both positive and negative economic warfare are old British traditions, massively increased in importance by the beginning of the Industrial Revolution and the decades-long economic showdown with Napoleonic Europe (Continental System, Coalitions formed by financial support, etc). Reading Victor Serge and Alexander Mikaberidze at the same time has made me think a lot about the remarkable continuities between anti-French and anti-Russian military efforts, a century apart.