Shrewd Sanctions: Economic Statecraft in an Age of Global Terrorism

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Ninety-nine percent of studies on sanctions are obsessed with the question of whether sanctions "work." Most of the literature concludes that they do not.

Meghan O' Sullivan argues that this focus is misplaced and that blanket claims about the weaknesses of sanctions are irrelevant. Policy-makers do not care whether sanctions, per se, can be characterized as useful, any more than they are inclined to generalize about military force. What matters is whether sanctions (or any other foreign policy tool) can be counted on to deliver results in specific instances.

Shrewd Sanctions breaks new ground in moving beyond this sanctions debate to address more pertinent concerns about how sanctions fit into a post-cold war, post-9/11 American foreign policy. O'Sullivan is not preoccupied with making a case for or against unilateral sanctions. Instead, she is interested in shedding light on how, if at all, unilateral sanctions can make a positive contribution to U.S. foreign policy, particularly in a rapidly globalizing world.

O'Sullivan offers some of the most comprehensive analyses ever published of the sanctions-dominated strategies adopted by the United States toward Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan. She commends policies that have succeeded in tackling one of the greatest foreign policy challenges facing the United States-state sponsorship of terrorism and the pursuit of weapons of mass destruction-and forcefully advocates policy changes where they are warranted. Shrewd Sanctions also offers broader insights into the utility of sanctions in a world marked by globalization and American power.

O'Sullivan finds that sanctions do have a role in U.S. foreign policy. But it is not the role that so many policy-makers often call on sanctions to play. Rather than using sanctions indiscriminately to isolate or punish countries, Shrewd Sanctions argues for a more nuanced strategy in the interest of getting better results. It advocates that policymakers select different sanctions strategies depending on the goals and circumstances at hand. A sanctions strategy for regime change should differ from one used for containment, which in turn should be distinct from a sanctions strategy intended to change the behavior of a government. In laying out this new approach, O'Sullivan offers broad guidelines to policy-makers wishing to choose more wisely between sanctions and other tools-and between different sorts of sanctions regime-to ensure a more effective U.S. foreign policy.

SYNOPSIS