Economic Sanctions: Strategic Stiletto or Blunt Force Bludgeon

Abstract

Economic sanctions are increasingly being used to promote the full range of American foreign policy objectives. But too often sanctions are not well conceived or implemented which reflects mostly an expression of U.S. political expediency that hurts American economic interests without changing the targets behavior for the better. U.S. economic sanctions need to be less unilateral, more coordinated and more focused on the foreign policy problem at hand, not a broad-brush, unenforceable panacea. There needs to be more rigorous oversight of sanctions, both prior to adopting them and regularly thereafter, to ensure that the expected benefits outweigh likely costs and that sanctions accomplish the intended foreign policy objectives.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Mar 15, 2000
Accession Number
ADA378289

Entities

People

  • Carl Von Gunten

Organizations

  • United States Army War College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Counter WMD
  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Agreements
  • Cold War
  • Commerce
  • Corporations
  • Economic Sanctions
  • Globalization
  • Governments
  • Human Rights
  • Intergovernmental Organizations
  • International Law
  • International Organizations
  • Law
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • North Korea
  • United States
  • War Colleges

Fields of Study

  • Political science

Readers

  • Nuclear Non-Proliferation and International Security
  • Strategic Security Studies
  • Systems Analysis and Design