The United States has decided that the countries of Belarus, Cuba, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Lebanon, North Korea, Sudan, Syria, and Zimbabwe should be sanctioned. This is the action being taken by the United States because the government believes that this step will cause these countries to change their ruling methods in some way. This is an interesting method to use in order to receive compliance by other countries because physical warfare is not involved. Instead, economic warfare is being used in order to try to change the countries attitudes. This is an interesting type of warfare because instead of hurting the people of the government directly, it causes the lives of the citizens of the countries to be a struggle, which in turn hurts the government. I find this to be an interesting strategy because it is a double-edged sword: citizens are suffering in order to help these same citizens in the long run. By understanding economic warfare along with physical warfare, it can be understood how difficult it is for the U.S. to make a decision as the world power that does not affect innocent people.
America believes that as the superpower of the world, it will be able to have a great enough influence through sanctions to cause these countries to give their citizens more freedom. Sadly, in places like Cuba, this strategy has been unsuccessful. Also, the lack of success that this strategy has had in stopping the research of nuclear weapons in North Korea causes alarm. I feel that sanctions have the ability to cause countries to be influenced, but these sanctions would have to be very severe. Because it is difficult for a country to be self-reliant, severe sanctions would cause countries to have to change their ways. The problem is that severe sanctions would entail that all countries of the world would have to abide by the sanctioning of a country. Another major problem with sanctions is how citizens are affected more than the government, and severe sanctions would cause even greater problems for these citizens. Also, the suffering of innocent people goes against what the U.S. should be trying to do as the world power. Sanctions also cause citizens of countries to not like the U.S. because of the suffering that the citizens must endure. Because not only the government is suffering through this action, and the lack of success that sanctions have accomplished in places like Cuba, it is difficult to decide if the sanctioning of a country is a valid idea for the United States to employ to promote democracy in the world.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with you that sanctions are not generally a successful option in punishing a country. A country like Iran or North Korea is not going to stop what they're doing because the U.S. says so. If anything it will make the governments and people of these countries hate the U.S. even more. Some of these countries governments, such as Cuba, could care less about their citizens so sanctions wouldn't be a big deal to them. I think your right on point with this post. Do you have any examples of specific sanctions that did or did not work?
ReplyDeleteWell, it is true that sanctions on Cuba, and Iraq before the war, have been completely ineffective in toppling the governments of those nations. At the same time, researchers feel that the sanctions put on South Africa were very effective in toppling apartheid, which was a system created by the National Party that legalized racial segregation. Though in this case the sanctions worked, generally they are deemed to be ineffective at changing governments. It is felt that sanctions are more effective in situations where political prisoners are trying to be freed. Also, it is said that in the future, sanctions will be more concentrated on affecting specific businesses rather than entire countries.
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