Econmic Sanctions Essay Example

Econmic Sanctions Essay Example Econmic Sanctions Essay Econmic Sanctions Essay There are many foreign policies that the United States of America follows by. There are many mechanisms of control In International relations that the U. S abides by to help ensure peace and equality. One of our actions to help ensure peace and unity is economic sanctions. Economic sanctions have been used for many years now in international relations. There has been countless number of times that the U. S has used this form of relations to deter a country away from its wrongful path of destruction. In recent news president Bark Obama has issued economic sanctions against Russia for their takeover of Crimea. The purpose of economic sanctions is to influence other countries in that their current behaviors or policies are wrongful to international law. The point of economic sanctions Is to punish the country that is acting out of norm. The country or countries enforcing these sanctions try to deprive the country being sanctioned of goods and trade that are essential for survival as a way of punishing them. The overall goal of these sanctions Is to try to Influence the country to change Its ways or o find a new source of trade or a different way of obtaining the goods that are being sanctioned. The host country that is applying the sanctions wants the target country to change its ways into what the host country feel is beneficial to all parties involved. We want to show the target country committing the act what will happen if they continue to keep up with their actions that are assumed morally wrong. This will show them if they continue to misbehave and going against the widely accepted international relations behavior it will be a very bleak future. In the example of most cent news involving Russia and the territory of Crimea president Obama is enforcing sanction on Russia because he believes it was wrongful of Russia to Invade Ukraine to take over the territory of Crimea. These actions dont follow the norm of international relations where one country Russia doesnt Just Invade another country Ukraine to take over the land Crimea. In the past the International laws were different and we would constantly see the boarders changing but in recent years this is a taboo act. There are many ways of using economic sanctions to get what the host nation believes is widely accepted rules. The different types of sanctions are quotas on imports and exports. Quotas on imports and exports is a limit on how much you are allowing yourself and ally countries to import and export goods with the target country. Another form of sanctions is restrictive import and export licensing. Embargos and boycotts Is a third and fourth form of sanctions. Embargos is a complete halt in trade and commerce with the target nation. Boycotts are a prevention method of doing business with the target country. When you boycott a good you dont Import that countries good. Tariffs are another form of economic inaction which Is basically a tax on goods or services that are Imported. Restrictions or canceling of trade agreements is another big example of sanctions. This is a big nation. It can prevent basic necessity of goods for the citizens and hider them from performing their daily routines. There are many opinions on whether or not economic sanctions really do work or do they harm both countries. One argument on the failure of sanctions is that when you impose sanctions against non-democratic nations because they are more difficult to punish (Allegiant). Against non-democracies, broad sanctions that impose significant costs on society allow undemocratic leaders to extract more rents, thereby strengthening their political position and making them less likely to yield (Allegiant). What this means is that it will be harder to influence a non-democratic nation that is currently under our sanctions to follow our ideology by imposing sanctions that will hurt the society. This will only make the non-democratic leader stronger and more powerful and in turn it will have the complete opposite effect of what we are trying to currently do. A second opinion on how sanctions fail is that it affects too many bystanders negatively. Successful sanctions must target the unfriendly within the target countries while shielding innocent bystanders from harm (Major). In order to have a successful sanction you need to be able to persuade and/or influence the country using coercion while you keep the innocent bystanders usually the citizens from too much harm. One danger of using sanctions as a punishment is that imposing heavy costs on the target nation, rather than achieving the desired policy change, often can be seen as a surrogate for success (Major). What this means is that if we put too much pressure on the target nation and hinder hem too much then our overall goal of persuading them into what we feel morally right might not happen. The opposite in fact can happen in a democratic nation if we make their lives much harder than before, they will feel that we are the ones who are ultimately wrong. Sanctions fail because non-democracies are difficult to punish (Allegiant). Overall sanctions are more likely to fail then they are to succeed. There are many good outcomes that can happen from economic sanctions. The overall goal of an economic sanction is to persuade or influence the target country onto complying with widely accepted international relation policies. Sanctions work by forcing the target countrys government to concede, or by leading a popular revolt that overthrows the government which can in result establish a government that will make the follow the principles that the host country is implying. Sanctions are most likely to be effective when they target the decision-makers responsible for any wrong doing and deny the assets and resources that are most valuable to these decision- making elites (Major). What this means is that for sanctions to work we need to deny he valuable assets to the target country. One example of when the U. S imposed sanctions in the past is during World War II. The U. S imposed an oil embargo against the nation of Japan. This hindered the Japanese greatly and it made them make an irrational decision on retaliation against the U. S at Pearl Harbor. This ended up working out because it caused the U. S to show its power and we ended up using the first atomic bomb against Japan. After we bombed Japan the Japanese realized that if it wanted to avoid any more destruction then it would have to succumb to the U. S and follow our sanctions. There has been a recent study that one of the best determinants of sanctions success has been the amount of damage done to the product (GNP) by somewhat over 2. 5 percent (Major). The target country that the sanction is being imposed on is going to take a hit in their economy. But this suffering is going to be the motivation for the countrys government that if it wants to hurt the economies any more than it is going to have make some drastic changes or to set up a new government that is willing to make the changes. The degree to which a group achieves its most favored policy on a particular issue is more a result of the reapportion of its resources that it devotes to that issue (Major). If we want the target country to conform to the sanction then we will need to put an adequate amount of resources to that issue. We will not persuade or force the country to make changes if we dont show them that this needs to happen. We need to be forceful and prove we are not messing around. Back to the example of Japan and WI, if we had not used the atomic bomb on Japan, the country would be totally different. We showed them that we meant business and it will have to listen to us or it would possibly face total extinction like their two major cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The less apparent costs of economic sanctions, as compared to those of armed force, may encourage a facile resort to economic sanctions that would have been intolerable in the case of military action (Mallory). This is a good reason why economic sanctions are able to succeed. A sanction is going to be less costly than going to war with that nation. We never know the outcome of what can happen in a war but we can control the outcome if we impose a sanction. The host country can always retract and remove sanctions imposed upon the target country. But once we go to war with a country it is very hard to back off from the war without hurting the countrys image. It will make them look weak if we decide to back off from a war that we started. In conclusion sanctions are a true form of international politics. You have to be careful on how you impose them because you will never know how the target country will react. Sanctions are more likely to fail then they are to succeed. How much will the host country puts into the sanction and how much resources it will allocate to get the target country to conform will be the ultimate factor if it will succeed to not. Sources Used