Economic Sanctions (2) Ineffective

Economic sanctions are ineffective. They have rarely achieved the outcome they were introduced to achieve. The economic pressure often makes their target more belligerent.

Most Americans have forgotten that the Japanese (an ally in WW1) attacked Pearl Harbour after President Roosevelt imposed economic sanctions against them by cutting off their access to oil imports that were essential for the functioning of their economy. The Japanese believed that they had nothing to lose so they invaded SE Asia to gain access to oilfields there. The outcome was not what Roosevelt expected.

Academic studies show that economic sanctions rarely achieve the objective for which they were imposed. They cause a lot of pain for no real benefit.

In many cases, economic sanctions strengthen the hand of the hard-line leaders are they are intended to weaken. They often benefit the people they are trying to bring down.

War with military weapons often fails to achieve its aims and usually does more harm than good. Economic war with sanctions has an even worse record.

The main benefit of sanctions is that people in the country imposing them feel good because they are doing something about a problem that worries them. They forget that the sanctions usually hurt the wrong people. Harming people to feel good is perverse.

Perpetual Punishment

A big problem with economic sanctions is that they are very difficult to remove once they have been put in place. In a militaristic nation like the United States, it is much harder to win a vote in Congress to lift economic sanctions than it is to impose them in the first place. One of the best ways for a representative to ensure their re-election is to vote for economic sanctions against the nation that is currently out of favour.

Some of the economic sanctions imposed by the United States have been in place for more than fifty years. Most people have forgotten the purpose for which they were imposed and many of the people they were directed against are dead, but the sanctions are still enforced.

Economic sanctions imposed against Cuba have been in place for more than 60 years, but they have not changed the political situation, but have caused enormous pain and suffering for economic people. Despite this failure to achieve their goal, it would be impossible to get the Congress to vote against them.

United States

The United States uses economic sanctions more than any nation in history. It pressures other nations to join its sanctioning efforts. The US is currently the most powerful nation and strongest economy that the world has ever seen. It controls the financial and banking systems that are used by all the nations of the world. In addition to exercising military power in many nations, it uses its place at the centre of the world financial system to control other nations. Presidents have begun preventing people and nations from using the SWIFT system for interbank transactions, which prevents them from trading.

Sanctions are imposed on nations that will not submit to the dictates of the United States to prevent them from trading. Nothing like this has been done before. The irony is that the nation that claims to be the champion of free-market economics is blocking people from buying and selling.

Economic sanctions are directed at nations, but they are imposed on people and businesses. The list of people and businesses that are banned is thousands of pages long. Some of the bans have been in place for nearly fifty years. Businesses in other nations are also prevented from trading with them too.

The United States uses control of the financial system to prevent people and companies from other nations trading with the nations on the list of baddies. This change is spreading the net of sanctions much wider.

The Evangelical Church provided moral support for this behaviour by declaring that the sanctioned nations are evil. Many churches advocate the full use of economic power to implement American power in the world, but their selection of targets is highly selective and often xenophobic.

The following quote comes from a book by Richard Nephew, who was responsible for designing the economic sanctions against Iran.

Notice the dishonesty in his words. He talks about "vulnerabilities" and "interests" but does not mention that he is imposing as much pain and suffering as he can on people and children who have no control over what their nations leaders do. This is warped moral thinking.

Hypocrisy

The modern use of economic sanctions involves considerable hypocrisy.

In the last three decades, the United States has illegally invaded several nations (Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen) and have bombed numerous cities (Raqqa and Mosul were almost totally destroyed) but it has never had economic sanctions imposed against it. Yet when other nations do these things, the US imposes sanctions on them.

Russia has not done anything in Ukraine that the United States has not done several times in the last few decades. Russia is accused of using cluster bombs in Ukraine (without much evidence) but the people of Vietnam are still be killed and maimed by the cluster bombs laid by US Troops, and the US has refused to sign the UN treaty banning cluster bombs. Russia is accused of using hyperbaric bombs in Ukraine (without much evidence) but the United States used them extensively in Iraq.

Beast of Revelation

The Beast of Revelation uses political and military power to prevent people from buying and selling (Rev 13:16-17). If John was recording his vision in English today, he would say that the beast imposes economic sanctions on peoples and nations that refuse to submit to his authority. It is odd that a Christian nation is the leading expert on the use of these terrible economic weapons. Economic sanctions are what the Beast from hell does, not what Christians should be doing (See Mark of the Beast).