I skimmed the entire article looking for what the author was proposing in their place and found nothing. Yes, sanctions are an very flawed and often ineffectual tool to motivate change by bad...
I skimmed the entire article looking for what the author was proposing in their place and found nothing. Yes, sanctions are an very flawed and often ineffectual tool to motivate change by bad actors, but what are our alternatives? Turning a blind eye or sending in the military?
I don't think that suggesting alternatives to economic sanctions is really within the scope of this article. The merits of sanctions is something that's been debated in international relations and...
I don't think that suggesting alternatives to economic sanctions is really within the scope of this article. The merits of sanctions is something that's been debated in international relations and economics circles for a while, and sanctions can, as you say, sometimes be ineffectual at promoting change in target countries. Discussion about the value of economic sanctions usually involves the effectiveness of the sanctions in terms of economic damage to the target, but that's not what this article is about. Sabatini is instead making an observation about a different consequence of sanctions that isn't talked about as often; that countries like China can use the fact that they are sanctioned by the US almost like a soft power tool - using their sanctioned status to make diplomatic inroads with other sanctioned countries (and individuals).
TLDR: The article is less of a sweeping critique of economic sanctions as a whole (there's plenty of academic literature about the effectiveness of sanctions already) and more about one specific diplomatic consequence of sanctions.
I disagree. While obviously this article is not a research paper, IR literature generally doesn't have to propose a solution in every essay, as the purpose is to gain a better understanding of the...
I disagree. While obviously this article is not a research paper, IR literature generally doesn't have to propose a solution in every essay, as the purpose is to gain a better understanding of the problem, and that understanding is valuable in and of itself. To make an analogy (please note that I don't work in medicine, so I might be wrong), I wouldn't expect a paper about the side effects that a certain medicine has on patients to come up with a panacea; what I would expect is that whoever does resolve the issue references the original article in their work.
Characterizing this as a "love affair" and suggesting that the US reconsider their actions implies that the author thinks different actions should be taken. Even if there isn't a detailed plan, if...
Unfortunately, U.S. policymakers are unlikely to seriously reconsider their love affair with sanctions anytime soon
Characterizing this as a "love affair" and suggesting that the US reconsider their actions implies that the author thinks different actions should be taken. Even if there isn't a detailed plan, if the author is claiming that what the US is doing is the wrong thing to do, they should suggest at least some feasible alternative.
Sticking with the medicine analogy, you can't write an article criticizing doctors for having a love affair with using chemotherapy on cancer patients without suggesting a valid alternative. Sure there are some serious side effects, but you can't just complain about the side effects, since this is the best thing we can do right now in many cases. If the author had some kind of quantitative evidence that a certain medication was overprescribed, that would make the article valid. Otherwise, it's just anti-science fear-mongering. Going back to this article, if the author had some kind of evidence that fewer sanctions would result in some benefit without undermining the original intent of sanctions, that would make the article valid.
The author does do something similar though: The author does criticize US policymakers for overusing sanctions to further their domestic goals; hence "They are a means of virtue signaling that...
Sticking with the medicine analogy, you can't write an article criticizing doctors for having a love affair with using chemotherapy on cancer patients without suggesting a valid alternative. Sure there are some serious side effects, but you can't just complain about the side effects, since this is the best thing we can do right now in many cases. If the author had some kind of quantitative evidence that a certain medication was overprescribed, that would make the article valid.
The author does do something similar though:
Sanctions have become the all-purpose tool of statecraft, meant to convey opposition to everything from military invasions to human rights abuses to nuclear proliferation to corruption, irrespective of whether they help or undermine long-term U.S. interests. They are a means of virtue signaling that allow politicians to show that they are doing something when faced with a given issue.
The author does criticize US policymakers for overusing sanctions to further their domestic goals; hence "They are a means of virtue signaling that allow politicians to show that they are doing something when faced with a given issue." Using foreign policy issues on the domestic campaign trail is a long-running American tradition, and the author finds this worthy of criticism. If anything, US politicians using foreign policy for domestic gain is framed as a cause of the US' overuse of sanctions.
Yes, but this is conjecture, not evidence. Would be a lot more convincing if they could cite a specific instance of a sanction that was not needed and why. Otherwise, how do you know that it's...
Yes, but this is conjecture, not evidence. Would be a lot more convincing if they could cite a specific instance of a sanction that was not needed and why. Otherwise, how do you know that it's actually overuse? They mention some total number of sanctions and the number of sanctions added by Biden's admistration, but is that a large number or a small number? What's the correct number of sanctions, and what is the level of impact? Just throwing numbers out there and hoping people will think "wow, that sounds like a lot?" Following the link in the article, the reference says: "In its first year, the Biden administration issued 765 new designations and 787 delistings, totaling 1,552 sanctions actions." Pretty interesting that the article claimed that Biden's administration added 765 new sanctions but somehow forgot to mention that 787 were delisted. Should we also ignore all context? Surely nothing interesting about Russia, Belarus, and Burma happened in 2021.
There's no conclusion that can be made on this because in the absence of evidence, your opinion on the matter can only be based on your prior assumptions. We can all bicker about whether there are too many sanctions or not enough, but without more information no one really has any basis other than feelings.
The article includes a case study regarding Venezuela over the last couple of years. Case studies make up a large portion of the evidence in foreign policy analysis. Cause y'know, gotta learn from...
Would be a lot more convincing if they could cite a specific instance of a sanction that was not needed and why.
The article includes a case study regarding Venezuela over the last couple of years. Case studies make up a large portion of the evidence in foreign policy analysis. Cause y'know, gotta learn from the past in hopes of predicting the future and all that.
Whether a sanction is "not needed" is ultimately kind of an ethical question that the article does not set out to answer. Should the Trump administration have put an embargo on Maduro's and Venezuela? Maybe, maybe not. His supporters sure loved it. The reason Venezuela is brought up as an example is to highlight how sanctioning Venezuela allowed investors like China, Russia, etc to gain a majority stake in Venezuela's debt, undoubtedly increasing their influence in the country, which is a loss for US diplomacy, which is the point of the article: sanctions empower other sanctioned regimes to influence the targeted country.
As an aside, pointing out that someone's argument is just their opinion, in the comment section of an opinion piece, doesn't seem like a particularly productive line of discussion.
If the author is willing to make a moral judgement on whether there are too many sanctions, they should be able to provide some kind of clarity on what their arguments are intended to imply, not...
If the author is willing to make a moral judgement on whether there are too many sanctions, they should be able to provide some kind of clarity on what their arguments are intended to imply, not just throw the information out there.
The Venezuela example concludes that investors outside the West end up holding the debt and therefore influence, but that seems like part of the intended consequence of the sanctions. Once again, this is complaining about the side effects of the medicine without addressing whether the cure is better or worse than the disease. Just like chemotherapy, we already know the side effects are bad, but whether it's worth it or not is the real question. That's not really addressed by any evidence in this article.
Except the author isn't making a moral judgement? He's saying that sanctions may be bad for US foreign policy goals because of how they empower countries such as China. He's not discussing the...
If the author is willing to make a moral judgement on whether there are too many sanctions, they should be able to provide some kind of clarity on what their arguments are intended to imply.
Except the author isn't making a moral judgement? He's saying that sanctions may be bad for US foreign policy goals because of how they empower countries such as China. He's not discussing the validity of the number of sanctions, or how justified they were. My interpretation of the core thrust of the articles is as follows:
The US makes extensive use of sanctions:
"By 2021, according to U.S. Treasury Department’s report, the United States had sanctions on more than 9,000 individuals, companies, and sectors of targeted country economies. In 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden’s first year in office, his administration added 765 new sanctions designations globally, including 173 related to human rights. All told, the countries subject to some form of U.S. sanctions collectively account for a little more than one-fifth of global GDP."
One side effect of sanctions is that they create an opportunity for powers such as China to gain influence in sanctioned countries.
Due to the size of the US sanction list (see 1.), powers such as China can utilize US sanctions for their own benefit (see 2.)
"These Chinese-led parallel financial arrangements bring significant systemic risks for the United States and its allies."
While the article doesn't really go into it as its a much larger and more well know discussion in IR circles, the US derives a lot of diplomatic clout due to the ubiquity of the US dollar, and China's efforts to push the RMB as an alternative global currency, especially for sanctioned countries, takes a bite out of the US' diplomatic power.
The Venezuela example concludes that investors outside the West end up holding the debt and therefore influence, but that seems like part of the intended consequence of the sanctions.
I don't want to be rude, but... what? I would be stunned if empowering China was an intended goal of US sanctions.
Once again, this is complaining about the side effects of the medicine without addressing whether the cure is better or worse than the disease. Just like chemotherapy, we already know the side effects are bad, but whether it's worth it or not is the real question. That's not really addressed in this article, and that's what makes it FUD.
I'll refer you to my original comment as the conversation seems to have looped in a circle somewhat. The side effect - strengthening Chinese influence in Venezuela, for instance - isn't as commonly discussed in FP circles as how effective sanctions are at affecting change. To return to the medicine analogy (which has been stretched thin af at this point), it would be like if chemotherapy had a side effect that was either not discovered or under-researched until now. Does the person who first brings attention to the side effect need to decide how this affects the value of chemo? Arguably it is the doctors, the decision makers who should make that judgement.
I don't think it's any kind of dark secret or surprising revelation that reducing western investment will have the consequence of other countries investing. Sanctions have been used for a long...
I don't think it's any kind of dark secret or surprising revelation that reducing western investment will have the consequence of other countries investing. Sanctions have been used for a long time, so it's not like it's a new paradigm where we don't understand the implications.
In my previous comment I had edited in a bit that addresses the article's assertions on number of sanctions. To sum up, the raw number of sanctions probably doesn't represent the impact very well, and the author is lying by omission by quoting how many sanctions were added but not how many were removed (there were more removed than added). Also, it's pretty suspect to only quote stats from a year with a major war (Russia) and political coup (Burma).
Ultimately, the author is claiming that the sanctions will lead to the downfall of the US, but they haven't provided any evidence that the side effects of the sanctions are worse for the US than the alternative, just that the side effects are bad.
Honestly I'm inclined to agree. I find the title a little on the clickbait-y side, especially when the conclusion makes the much more conservative claim of "Sometimes sanctions don’t work. And in...
Ultimately, the author is claiming that the sanctions will lead to the downfall of the US, but they haven't provided any evidence that the side effects of the sanctions are worse for the US than the alternative, just that the side effects are bad.
Honestly I'm inclined to agree. I find the title a little on the clickbait-y side, especially when the conclusion makes the much more conservative claim of "Sometimes sanctions don’t work. And in many cases, they are actively undermining U.S. interests," which is the claim I have been working off of.
I don't think it's any kind of dark secret or surprising revelation that reducing western investment will have the consequence of other countries investing. Sanctions have been used for a long time, so it's not like it's a new paradigm where we don't understand the implications.
The US didn't really have much interest in sanctions until the 20th century, and most of those were during the Cold War, usually against countries that were already pro-USSR anyway. In the post-Cold War era, there wasn't really a rival power equivalent to today's China, and so no power positioning itself in opposition to the US existed to influence US-embargoed states. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, etc weren't exactly getting hordes of Chinese investment as soon as the US applied sanctions. It wasn't until the mid-late 2010s that China, as an economic rival to the US started reaching out to other sanctioned countries. China started buying most of Iraq's oil in 2014, Iran agreed to Belt and Road-aligned treaty in 2015, and China started working heavily with the Maduro administration around 2017. So honestly, the history of this kind of thing happening doesn't seem to be as long as we think; to add to this, the author specialises in Latin America, which China has started to more heavily invest in in the last few years (engaging more heavily with Brazil through BRICS, for example). It makes some sense to me that it has taken a couple years for the literature to catch up, even if this kind of side effect of sanctions does seem a little self-evident.
Exactly this. Once the sanctioned nations create an alliance of sorts, it leads to further polarization at the global level, people and nations of one alliance will start hating on other which...
Exactly this. Once the sanctioned nations create an alliance of sorts, it leads to further polarization at the global level, people and nations of one alliance will start hating on other which will lead to a needless conflict between these two factions (just like what lead to WW1 situation). With all due respect and sympathies to the Ukrainians, it's neither wise nor in prudence to create a massive global conflict to solve that one situation. Russian invasion of Ukraine is a localized situation and it is in everyone's best interests to let it stay that way and not not escalate it with more sanctions.
A localized situation that even without US intervention was destabilizing the grain supply in many parts of the world. A butterfly flapping it's wings and all that. I'm usually not a fan of...
Russian invasion of Ukraine is a localized situation
A localized situation that even without US intervention was destabilizing the grain supply in many parts of the world. A butterfly flapping it's wings and all that. I'm usually not a fan of catastrophizing every little conflict but this one did have wide reaching consequences and with Russia's operations in the middle east and Africa, if they controlled the grain supply for those countries as well they'd be further reliant on them.
Not saying the US should control that supply, directly or indirectly, just that the invasion could've dug Russia's fingers in deeper.
As long as sanctions are balanced in a way that makes joining sanctioned alliance unprofitable it's pretty effective tool. Sanctioning Russia, Iran, Venezuela is fairly safe since they can be...
As long as sanctions are balanced in a way that makes joining sanctioned alliance unprofitable it's pretty effective tool. Sanctioning Russia, Iran, Venezuela is fairly safe since they can be marginalized in terms of global influence. It's when you think about sanctioning China or India where you should be very very careful.
Sure, but what's to say they wouldn't do this with or without sanctions? The whole point of sanctions is that they exist because the US government is opposed to what the governments in those...
Once the sanctioned nations create an alliance of sorts, it leads to further polarization at the global level, people and nations of one alliance will start hating on other which will lead to a needless conflict between these two factions
Sure, but what's to say they wouldn't do this with or without sanctions? The whole point of sanctions is that they exist because the US government is opposed to what the governments in those countries are doing to begin with. Take away the sanctions, and they'll still ally against the US, but with stronger economies and greater influence. We've seen with Russia how the economic interdependence idea doesn't really work.
It's OK to point out that something is massively problematic without having a complete solution ready to deploy. Recognition of the problem is the first step towards solving it. Sanctions more...
It's OK to point out that something is massively problematic without having a complete solution ready to deploy. Recognition of the problem is the first step towards solving it.
Sanctions more often than not hurt the general populace, not just the leaders. It's economic terrorism aimed at causing unrest among the populous. Cuba would likely be an exponentially nicer place if not for decades of questionable economic blacklisting.
My solution to the problem is fully open borders. No more limitations on migrations or exchange of goods.
If we're going to completely ignore political realities, then I would propose we just solve world poverty - in fact, it would be extremely beneficial to the economy to do so; marginal subsistence...
My solution to the problem is fully open borders. No more limitations on migrations or exchange of goods.
If we're going to completely ignore political realities, then I would propose we just solve world poverty - in fact, it would be extremely beneficial to the economy to do so; marginal subsistence farmers can't buy phones, and they can't conduct scientific research.
Unironically, we should solve world poverty; everyone would benefit. It would also go a long way towards "open borders", if everyone is rapidly approaching first-world standards of living anyway.
Open borders is not some impossible situation, it just takes time to get there from here. Some baby steps that pretty much any nation committed to an elegatarian and peaceful society can make:...
Open borders is not some impossible situation, it just takes time to get there from here. Some baby steps that pretty much any nation committed to an elegatarian and peaceful society can make:
Loosening restrictions on attaining green cards. Especially for refugees.
Easing paths to citizenship.
Reducing burden to revoking citizenship.
At the most basic level, one should be able to travel wherever they wish. Its a really strange concept that if I start walking north toward Canada eventually I'll be met by people with guns who will imprison or kill me if I don't have the required documents and don't let them stop me. On both sides.
I think in the very long run (in centuries), once global human culture homogenizes, humanity disabuses itself of its religious beliefs and divisions, and everyone achieves material prosperity and...
I think in the very long run (in centuries), once global human culture homogenizes, humanity disabuses itself of its religious beliefs and divisions, and everyone achieves material prosperity and a certain level of education, open borders are inevitable.
But implementing open borders within the next 100 years would have massive societal and political ramifications that would trigger a severe political backlash.
It should be remembered that a significant component behind Brexit was the backlash against Polish workers immigrating to the UK within the Schengen Zone, something that would be insignificant to global open borders.
Immediate political ramifications aside, I think we will see urban agglomeration effects amplified. Cities like NYC, London, Paris, San Francisco, etc. are the consequence of cities pulling together their nations' best and brightest into one spot. With global migration, we'll see the London effect in extreme: those with the resources, the education, and/or the will to move will move, leaving behind those without. 'Desirable nations', like the US and the EU, will benefit tremendously from a swell of educated workers as well as highly motivated labor, while 'undesirable nations', like Venezuela, Nigeria, and the Philippines will be left as backwaters filled with poverty and completely drained of their talent. It'll be impossible to start advanced economic and scientific there: because if you have a Master's or a PhD, why spend your precious lifetime slugging it out in Lagos if you can just as easily be in Palo Alto or Boston, reaping the rewards of your talent?
In a world of open borders, is there any point in remaining someplace suboptimal? Naturally this will create a chasm between optimizers and non-optimizers, and the consequences would unfold at the scale of national economies.
I think that open borders will ironically ensure the geopolitical dominance of the West and ensure that poor countries will remain purely as farms and factories yoked to an even more absurdly prosperous West.
Most objections I've heard to open borders boil down to 'But my way of living is dependent on keeping others out.' Including Brexit and US Immigration policy. It would have massive social and...
Most objections I've heard to open borders boil down to 'But my way of living is dependent on keeping others out.' Including Brexit and US Immigration policy. It would have massive social and political ramifications....and that's the point. I don't disagree that it's a long ways off. But it lays a useful framework to say that being opposed to open borders means that you don't value genuine freedom. Which is a major problem in the USA, which likes to gate freedom behind a lot of qualifiers.
I would say that inequality would remain so long as you still have thugs robbing an area of their resources. But I would say a nation that retains those thugs is not one that would embrace open borders.
Allowing some areas to return to a preindustrialized state is not neccessarily a bad thing. Especially if anyone is permitted to go anywhere. The disillusioned in the industrialized countries would also emmigrate. An option that is often not viable in the status quo. Open borders means not gating for talent or wealth. So the talented doctor might go...but they'd probably bring their entire extended family with them.
I think this might be the first time I've written this, but that is a remarkably privileged viewpoint. "Permitted" and "able to" are not the same thing. How can someone living in the slums of...
Allowing some areas to return to a preindustrialized state is not neccessarily a bad thing. Especially if anyone is permitted to go anywhere.
I think this might be the first time I've written this, but that is a remarkably privileged viewpoint.
"Permitted" and "able to" are not the same thing. How can someone living in the slums of Calcutta afford to travel to the US to go live there? Do you really think many people in the developing world would agree that letting their areas return to a pre-industrialized state benefits them?
Open borders would require the vast majority of countries by population to all have roughly equal living standards and social welfare. Or for the more developed countries to have enough space and...
Open borders would require the vast majority of countries by population to all have roughly equal living standards and social welfare. Or for the more developed countries to have enough space and resources to deal with massive immigration without their social systems collapsing or a homelessness crisis starting.
Until one of those conditions is met, it'll remain a pipe dream. Maybe some nations can take in more refugees, but they can't take in all of them, especially all of the economic refugees that would start coming.
And what's your point there? Right now we have some nations that are fairly successful, some nations that are less successful, and the more successful ones keep their borders closed enough to...
And what's your point there? Right now we have some nations that are fairly successful, some nations that are less successful, and the more successful ones keep their borders closed enough to maintain their fairly high standards of living, while using some of their wealth as foreign aid in a attempt to help the less successful nations.
If we just opened the borders completely and let the more successful countries go into borderline collapse, that wouldn't really help anyone, it would just make everything worse.
Plus without the US military, or the militaries of our allies, around to enforce the current global order, the whole idea also gets destroyed by the fact that countries like China, Russia, and Iran would not really care to open their borders. Instead, they would send in their militaries and start taking whatever land they could. And then you get all of your borders back again.
The wealth of the US is in no small part due to its imperialistic nature. Open borders would reveal it for what it is: a fragile wealth built on military-backed oppression and exclusion. If it...
The wealth of the US is in no small part due to its imperialistic nature. Open borders would reveal it for what it is: a fragile wealth built on military-backed oppression and exclusion. If it cannot withstand 'opening the floodgates,' the wealthy countries deserve to fall. It means the promise of industrialization and capitalism (they go hand in hand these days really) is little more than an illusion.
I was in elementary school in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the USSR. All of our maps had USSR on them. The way we handle borders in the USA reminds me of all the horrors that I was told about the Berlin Wall (and the subsequent joy at its destruction).
Lead by example. Be an open safehaven for all Russians and Chinese who wish to escape their oppressive governments.
But that's not really what the West wants...is it? It wants its wealth, and if that means spouting rhetoric about freedom and liberty whilst opposing it in practice, by gods the ends justify the means,
I think it'll probably be better for us to debate this philosophically instead of in terms of feasibility. First, I want to point out that the west has taken in millions of refugees in recent...
Exemplary
I think it'll probably be better for us to debate this philosophically instead of in terms of feasibility.
First, I want to point out that the west has taken in millions of refugees in recent years alone, both in terms of political asylum-seekers and in terms of traditional refugees fleeing conflict zones.
If it cannot withstand 'opening the floodgates,' the wealthy countries deserve to fall. It means the promise of industrialization and capitalism (they go hand in hand these days really) is little more than an illusion.
Logically, I don't follow here. If a wealthy country could not sustain open borders, how would that imply that the promise of capitalism/industrialization was an illusion? I don't think the argument in favor of capitalism has ever been predicated on a particular border policy. I certainly don't think anyone is arguing that capitalism makes it possible to have open borders, the failure of which would prove that it was a lie.
It wants its wealth, and if that means spouting rhetoric about freedom and liberty whilst opposing it in practice, by gods the ends justify the means,
It is a very absolutist position, I think, to assert that not maintaining an open borders policy means that one is opposing freedom and liberty. To do so requires some legwork explaining that states have an obligation to advance liberty for non-citizens, or argue that states are a construct which shouldn't exist, or so on. It might make sense if you could provide a little more background on your philosophical position there.
The reason everyone said the Berlin wall was bad was not because the USSR built it to keep everyone else out. It was the opposite, the point of the wall was to keep people in, and that is why it...
The reason everyone said the Berlin wall was bad was not because the USSR built it to keep everyone else out. It was the opposite, the point of the wall was to keep people in, and that is why it was treated as something that was bad. Not allowing every foreigner who shows up to live in your country isn't something unique to the West, you can't just walk into China or Russia either (well, Russia might let you walk in these days, assuming you're a military aged male, but they'd just throw you into a conscript battalion).
I'm also really curious why you think Russia, China, Iran, etc, would respond to watching western nations collapse themselves by creating an immigration crisis out of nowhere by volunteering to do the same. The response from those kinds of nations would be pretty simple, they would keep their immigration policies constant and start launching wars of aggression against any neighbors perceived as being weak. And the natural response from these neighbors would be to arm themselves as quickly as possible, ideally with nuclear weapons. No way that could end badly.
Plus the consequences of the lack of the USN on global trade would be fairly catastrophic, and the loss of global trade would in turn lead to famines in parts of the world which traditionally rely on imports (Africa, China, etc). The Chinese could probably import food and pay the necessary prices, plus they have a bunch of undesirables they could just starve, but the Africans wouldn't have any alternative except to flee Africa. The people who couldn't would starve, and all of these new refugees brought on by the famines would even further increase the problems in America and Europe.
I mean it is really hard to overstate how bad things could get if the current order just collapsed entirely and nothing replaced it. I'm sure eventually the Chinese would build up their own massive agricultural base and a blue-water Navy capable of securing global trade against pirates, and that would alleviate some of the famine problem, but it would also be step one in the world turning into the new Chinese Empire. Or into a nuclear wasteland, if any wars got out of hand.
At this point we can blame Florida, and conservative Cubans in Florida for the blacklisting. Honestly dems should just abandon Florida and allow travel and end sanctions. Open borders won't ever...
At this point we can blame Florida, and conservative Cubans in Florida for the blacklisting. Honestly dems should just abandon Florida and allow travel and end sanctions.
Open borders won't ever happen. It's too problematic, and exists in some bizarre world without war.
Not our leaders, us (well indirectly and in addition I suppose). And the average citizen is too afraid of what would happen if those walls keeping them in and the others out went away. They are...
Not our leaders, us (well indirectly and in addition I suppose).
And the average citizen is too afraid of what would happen if those walls keeping them in and the others out went away. They are just as much to blame, because the wouldn't vote for someone who isn't 'tough on immigration'.
I think we should be cautious about unilateral sanctions. Going forward, we should be making a clear case to our allies as to why a country should be sanctioned.
I think we should be cautious about unilateral sanctions. Going forward, we should be making a clear case to our allies as to why a country should be sanctioned.
I skimmed the entire article looking for what the author was proposing in their place and found nothing. Yes, sanctions are an very flawed and often ineffectual tool to motivate change by bad actors, but what are our alternatives? Turning a blind eye or sending in the military?
I don't think that suggesting alternatives to economic sanctions is really within the scope of this article. The merits of sanctions is something that's been debated in international relations and economics circles for a while, and sanctions can, as you say, sometimes be ineffectual at promoting change in target countries. Discussion about the value of economic sanctions usually involves the effectiveness of the sanctions in terms of economic damage to the target, but that's not what this article is about. Sabatini is instead making an observation about a different consequence of sanctions that isn't talked about as often; that countries like China can use the fact that they are sanctioned by the US almost like a soft power tool - using their sanctioned status to make diplomatic inroads with other sanctioned countries (and individuals).
TLDR: The article is less of a sweeping critique of economic sanctions as a whole (there's plenty of academic literature about the effectiveness of sanctions already) and more about one specific diplomatic consequence of sanctions.
I disagree. While obviously this article is not a research paper, IR literature generally doesn't have to propose a solution in every essay, as the purpose is to gain a better understanding of the problem, and that understanding is valuable in and of itself. To make an analogy (please note that I don't work in medicine, so I might be wrong), I wouldn't expect a paper about the side effects that a certain medicine has on patients to come up with a panacea; what I would expect is that whoever does resolve the issue references the original article in their work.
Characterizing this as a "love affair" and suggesting that the US reconsider their actions implies that the author thinks different actions should be taken. Even if there isn't a detailed plan, if the author is claiming that what the US is doing is the wrong thing to do, they should suggest at least some feasible alternative.
Sticking with the medicine analogy, you can't write an article criticizing doctors for having a love affair with using chemotherapy on cancer patients without suggesting a valid alternative. Sure there are some serious side effects, but you can't just complain about the side effects, since this is the best thing we can do right now in many cases. If the author had some kind of quantitative evidence that a certain medication was overprescribed, that would make the article valid. Otherwise, it's just anti-science fear-mongering. Going back to this article, if the author had some kind of evidence that fewer sanctions would result in some benefit without undermining the original intent of sanctions, that would make the article valid.
The author does do something similar though:
The author does criticize US policymakers for overusing sanctions to further their domestic goals; hence "They are a means of virtue signaling that allow politicians to show that they are doing something when faced with a given issue." Using foreign policy issues on the domestic campaign trail is a long-running American tradition, and the author finds this worthy of criticism. If anything, US politicians using foreign policy for domestic gain is framed as a cause of the US' overuse of sanctions.
Yes, but this is conjecture, not evidence. Would be a lot more convincing if they could cite a specific instance of a sanction that was not needed and why. Otherwise, how do you know that it's actually overuse? They mention some total number of sanctions and the number of sanctions added by Biden's admistration, but is that a large number or a small number? What's the correct number of sanctions, and what is the level of impact? Just throwing numbers out there and hoping people will think "wow, that sounds like a lot?" Following the link in the article, the reference says: "In its first year, the Biden administration issued 765 new designations and 787 delistings, totaling 1,552 sanctions actions." Pretty interesting that the article claimed that Biden's administration added 765 new sanctions but somehow forgot to mention that 787 were delisted. Should we also ignore all context? Surely nothing interesting about Russia, Belarus, and Burma happened in 2021.
There's no conclusion that can be made on this because in the absence of evidence, your opinion on the matter can only be based on your prior assumptions. We can all bicker about whether there are too many sanctions or not enough, but without more information no one really has any basis other than feelings.
The article includes a case study regarding Venezuela over the last couple of years. Case studies make up a large portion of the evidence in foreign policy analysis. Cause y'know, gotta learn from the past in hopes of predicting the future and all that.
Whether a sanction is "not needed" is ultimately kind of an ethical question that the article does not set out to answer. Should the Trump administration have put an embargo on Maduro's and Venezuela? Maybe, maybe not. His supporters sure loved it. The reason Venezuela is brought up as an example is to highlight how sanctioning Venezuela allowed investors like China, Russia, etc to gain a majority stake in Venezuela's debt, undoubtedly increasing their influence in the country, which is a loss for US diplomacy, which is the point of the article: sanctions empower other sanctioned regimes to influence the targeted country.
As an aside, pointing out that someone's argument is just their opinion, in the comment section of an opinion piece, doesn't seem like a particularly productive line of discussion.
If the author is willing to make a moral judgement on whether there are too many sanctions, they should be able to provide some kind of clarity on what their arguments are intended to imply, not just throw the information out there.
The Venezuela example concludes that investors outside the West end up holding the debt and therefore influence, but that seems like part of the intended consequence of the sanctions. Once again, this is complaining about the side effects of the medicine without addressing whether the cure is better or worse than the disease. Just like chemotherapy, we already know the side effects are bad, but whether it's worth it or not is the real question. That's not really addressed by any evidence in this article.
Except the author isn't making a moral judgement? He's saying that sanctions may be bad for US foreign policy goals because of how they empower countries such as China. He's not discussing the validity of the number of sanctions, or how justified they were. My interpretation of the core thrust of the articles is as follows:
One side effect of sanctions is that they create an opportunity for powers such as China to gain influence in sanctioned countries.
Due to the size of the US sanction list (see 1.), powers such as China can utilize US sanctions for their own benefit (see 2.)
While the article doesn't really go into it as its a much larger and more well know discussion in IR circles, the US derives a lot of diplomatic clout due to the ubiquity of the US dollar, and China's efforts to push the RMB as an alternative global currency, especially for sanctioned countries, takes a bite out of the US' diplomatic power.
I don't want to be rude, but... what? I would be stunned if empowering China was an intended goal of US sanctions.
I'll refer you to my original comment as the conversation seems to have looped in a circle somewhat. The side effect - strengthening Chinese influence in Venezuela, for instance - isn't as commonly discussed in FP circles as how effective sanctions are at affecting change. To return to the medicine analogy (which has been stretched thin af at this point), it would be like if chemotherapy had a side effect that was either not discovered or under-researched until now. Does the person who first brings attention to the side effect need to decide how this affects the value of chemo? Arguably it is the doctors, the decision makers who should make that judgement.
I don't think it's any kind of dark secret or surprising revelation that reducing western investment will have the consequence of other countries investing. Sanctions have been used for a long time, so it's not like it's a new paradigm where we don't understand the implications.
In my previous comment I had edited in a bit that addresses the article's assertions on number of sanctions. To sum up, the raw number of sanctions probably doesn't represent the impact very well, and the author is lying by omission by quoting how many sanctions were added but not how many were removed (there were more removed than added). Also, it's pretty suspect to only quote stats from a year with a major war (Russia) and political coup (Burma).
Ultimately, the author is claiming that the sanctions will lead to the downfall of the US, but they haven't provided any evidence that the side effects of the sanctions are worse for the US than the alternative, just that the side effects are bad.
Honestly I'm inclined to agree. I find the title a little on the clickbait-y side, especially when the conclusion makes the much more conservative claim of "Sometimes sanctions don’t work. And in many cases, they are actively undermining U.S. interests," which is the claim I have been working off of.
The US didn't really have much interest in sanctions until the 20th century, and most of those were during the Cold War, usually against countries that were already pro-USSR anyway. In the post-Cold War era, there wasn't really a rival power equivalent to today's China, and so no power positioning itself in opposition to the US existed to influence US-embargoed states. Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, etc weren't exactly getting hordes of Chinese investment as soon as the US applied sanctions. It wasn't until the mid-late 2010s that China, as an economic rival to the US started reaching out to other sanctioned countries. China started buying most of Iraq's oil in 2014, Iran agreed to Belt and Road-aligned treaty in 2015, and China started working heavily with the Maduro administration around 2017. So honestly, the history of this kind of thing happening doesn't seem to be as long as we think; to add to this, the author specialises in Latin America, which China has started to more heavily invest in in the last few years (engaging more heavily with Brazil through BRICS, for example). It makes some sense to me that it has taken a couple years for the literature to catch up, even if this kind of side effect of sanctions does seem a little self-evident.
Exactly this. Once the sanctioned nations create an alliance of sorts, it leads to further polarization at the global level, people and nations of one alliance will start hating on other which will lead to a needless conflict between these two factions (just like what lead to WW1 situation). With all due respect and sympathies to the Ukrainians, it's neither wise nor in prudence to create a massive global conflict to solve that one situation. Russian invasion of Ukraine is a localized situation and it is in everyone's best interests to let it stay that way and not not escalate it with more sanctions.
A localized situation that even without US intervention was destabilizing the grain supply in many parts of the world. A butterfly flapping it's wings and all that. I'm usually not a fan of catastrophizing every little conflict but this one did have wide reaching consequences and with Russia's operations in the middle east and Africa, if they controlled the grain supply for those countries as well they'd be further reliant on them.
Not saying the US should control that supply, directly or indirectly, just that the invasion could've dug Russia's fingers in deeper.
As long as sanctions are balanced in a way that makes joining sanctioned alliance unprofitable it's pretty effective tool. Sanctioning Russia, Iran, Venezuela is fairly safe since they can be marginalized in terms of global influence. It's when you think about sanctioning China or India where you should be very very careful.
Sure, but what's to say they wouldn't do this with or without sanctions? The whole point of sanctions is that they exist because the US government is opposed to what the governments in those countries are doing to begin with. Take away the sanctions, and they'll still ally against the US, but with stronger economies and greater influence. We've seen with Russia how the economic interdependence idea doesn't really work.
And maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing. Perhaps the UN wouldn't be mostly for show if the USA couldn't just blatantly ignore it whenever convienient.
It's OK to point out that something is massively problematic without having a complete solution ready to deploy. Recognition of the problem is the first step towards solving it.
Sanctions more often than not hurt the general populace, not just the leaders. It's economic terrorism aimed at causing unrest among the populous. Cuba would likely be an exponentially nicer place if not for decades of questionable economic blacklisting.
My solution to the problem is fully open borders. No more limitations on migrations or exchange of goods.
If we're going to completely ignore political realities, then I would propose we just solve world poverty - in fact, it would be extremely beneficial to the economy to do so; marginal subsistence farmers can't buy phones, and they can't conduct scientific research.
Unironically, we should solve world poverty; everyone would benefit. It would also go a long way towards "open borders", if everyone is rapidly approaching first-world standards of living anyway.
Open borders is not some impossible situation, it just takes time to get there from here. Some baby steps that pretty much any nation committed to an elegatarian and peaceful society can make:
At the most basic level, one should be able to travel wherever they wish. Its a really strange concept that if I start walking north toward Canada eventually I'll be met by people with guns who will imprison or kill me if I don't have the required documents and don't let them stop me. On both sides.
I think in the very long run (in centuries), once global human culture homogenizes, humanity disabuses itself of its religious beliefs and divisions, and everyone achieves material prosperity and a certain level of education, open borders are inevitable.
But implementing open borders within the next 100 years would have massive societal and political ramifications that would trigger a severe political backlash.
It should be remembered that a significant component behind Brexit was the backlash against Polish workers immigrating to the UK within the Schengen Zone, something that would be insignificant to global open borders.
Immediate political ramifications aside, I think we will see urban agglomeration effects amplified. Cities like NYC, London, Paris, San Francisco, etc. are the consequence of cities pulling together their nations' best and brightest into one spot. With global migration, we'll see the London effect in extreme: those with the resources, the education, and/or the will to move will move, leaving behind those without. 'Desirable nations', like the US and the EU, will benefit tremendously from a swell of educated workers as well as highly motivated labor, while 'undesirable nations', like Venezuela, Nigeria, and the Philippines will be left as backwaters filled with poverty and completely drained of their talent. It'll be impossible to start advanced economic and scientific there: because if you have a Master's or a PhD, why spend your precious lifetime slugging it out in Lagos if you can just as easily be in Palo Alto or Boston, reaping the rewards of your talent?
In a world of open borders, is there any point in remaining someplace suboptimal? Naturally this will create a chasm between optimizers and non-optimizers, and the consequences would unfold at the scale of national economies.
I think that open borders will ironically ensure the geopolitical dominance of the West and ensure that poor countries will remain purely as farms and factories yoked to an even more absurdly prosperous West.
Most objections I've heard to open borders boil down to 'But my way of living is dependent on keeping others out.' Including Brexit and US Immigration policy. It would have massive social and political ramifications....and that's the point. I don't disagree that it's a long ways off. But it lays a useful framework to say that being opposed to open borders means that you don't value genuine freedom. Which is a major problem in the USA, which likes to gate freedom behind a lot of qualifiers.
I would say that inequality would remain so long as you still have thugs robbing an area of their resources. But I would say a nation that retains those thugs is not one that would embrace open borders.
Allowing some areas to return to a preindustrialized state is not neccessarily a bad thing. Especially if anyone is permitted to go anywhere. The disillusioned in the industrialized countries would also emmigrate. An option that is often not viable in the status quo. Open borders means not gating for talent or wealth. So the talented doctor might go...but they'd probably bring their entire extended family with them.
I think this might be the first time I've written this, but that is a remarkably privileged viewpoint.
"Permitted" and "able to" are not the same thing. How can someone living in the slums of Calcutta afford to travel to the US to go live there? Do you really think many people in the developing world would agree that letting their areas return to a pre-industrialized state benefits them?
Open borders would require the vast majority of countries by population to all have roughly equal living standards and social welfare. Or for the more developed countries to have enough space and resources to deal with massive immigration without their social systems collapsing or a homelessness crisis starting.
Until one of those conditions is met, it'll remain a pipe dream. Maybe some nations can take in more refugees, but they can't take in all of them, especially all of the economic refugees that would start coming.
I repeat myself
And what's your point there? Right now we have some nations that are fairly successful, some nations that are less successful, and the more successful ones keep their borders closed enough to maintain their fairly high standards of living, while using some of their wealth as foreign aid in a attempt to help the less successful nations.
If we just opened the borders completely and let the more successful countries go into borderline collapse, that wouldn't really help anyone, it would just make everything worse.
Plus without the US military, or the militaries of our allies, around to enforce the current global order, the whole idea also gets destroyed by the fact that countries like China, Russia, and Iran would not really care to open their borders. Instead, they would send in their militaries and start taking whatever land they could. And then you get all of your borders back again.
The wealth of the US is in no small part due to its imperialistic nature. Open borders would reveal it for what it is: a fragile wealth built on military-backed oppression and exclusion. If it cannot withstand 'opening the floodgates,' the wealthy countries deserve to fall. It means the promise of industrialization and capitalism (they go hand in hand these days really) is little more than an illusion.
I was in elementary school in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the USSR. All of our maps had USSR on them. The way we handle borders in the USA reminds me of all the horrors that I was told about the Berlin Wall (and the subsequent joy at its destruction).
Lead by example. Be an open safehaven for all Russians and Chinese who wish to escape their oppressive governments.
But that's not really what the West wants...is it? It wants its wealth, and if that means spouting rhetoric about freedom and liberty whilst opposing it in practice, by gods the ends justify the means,
I think it'll probably be better for us to debate this philosophically instead of in terms of feasibility.
First, I want to point out that the west has taken in millions of refugees in recent years alone, both in terms of political asylum-seekers and in terms of traditional refugees fleeing conflict zones.
Logically, I don't follow here. If a wealthy country could not sustain open borders, how would that imply that the promise of capitalism/industrialization was an illusion? I don't think the argument in favor of capitalism has ever been predicated on a particular border policy. I certainly don't think anyone is arguing that capitalism makes it possible to have open borders, the failure of which would prove that it was a lie.
It is a very absolutist position, I think, to assert that not maintaining an open borders policy means that one is opposing freedom and liberty. To do so requires some legwork explaining that states have an obligation to advance liberty for non-citizens, or argue that states are a construct which shouldn't exist, or so on. It might make sense if you could provide a little more background on your philosophical position there.
The reason everyone said the Berlin wall was bad was not because the USSR built it to keep everyone else out. It was the opposite, the point of the wall was to keep people in, and that is why it was treated as something that was bad. Not allowing every foreigner who shows up to live in your country isn't something unique to the West, you can't just walk into China or Russia either (well, Russia might let you walk in these days, assuming you're a military aged male, but they'd just throw you into a conscript battalion).
I'm also really curious why you think Russia, China, Iran, etc, would respond to watching western nations collapse themselves by creating an immigration crisis out of nowhere by volunteering to do the same. The response from those kinds of nations would be pretty simple, they would keep their immigration policies constant and start launching wars of aggression against any neighbors perceived as being weak. And the natural response from these neighbors would be to arm themselves as quickly as possible, ideally with nuclear weapons. No way that could end badly.
Plus the consequences of the lack of the USN on global trade would be fairly catastrophic, and the loss of global trade would in turn lead to famines in parts of the world which traditionally rely on imports (Africa, China, etc). The Chinese could probably import food and pay the necessary prices, plus they have a bunch of undesirables they could just starve, but the Africans wouldn't have any alternative except to flee Africa. The people who couldn't would starve, and all of these new refugees brought on by the famines would even further increase the problems in America and Europe.
I mean it is really hard to overstate how bad things could get if the current order just collapsed entirely and nothing replaced it. I'm sure eventually the Chinese would build up their own massive agricultural base and a blue-water Navy capable of securing global trade against pirates, and that would alleviate some of the famine problem, but it would also be step one in the world turning into the new Chinese Empire. Or into a nuclear wasteland, if any wars got out of hand.
At this point we can blame Florida, and conservative Cubans in Florida for the blacklisting. Honestly dems should just abandon Florida and allow travel and end sanctions.
Open borders won't ever happen. It's too problematic, and exists in some bizarre world without war.
Maybe it won't ever happen, but I think that's a sign that our nations have little desire for a free and equitable world.
Our leaders can't even do clean energy we had the solution 60 years ago with nuclear energy and didn't do it.
Not our leaders, us (well indirectly and in addition I suppose).
And the average citizen is too afraid of what would happen if those walls keeping them in and the others out went away. They are just as much to blame, because the wouldn't vote for someone who isn't 'tough on immigration'.
Do you have any suggested further reading on fully open borders? I’d be interested in learning any analysis or discussion on the concept.
The definitive starting point for open borders. It's a collection of arguements from virtually any perspective.
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I think we should be cautious about unilateral sanctions. Going forward, we should be making a clear case to our allies as to why a country should be sanctioned.