Introduction

Nowadays it is a common strategy of nations all around the world to avoid conflict. Democracies especially emphasize this point by coming together and working as a whole in order to prevent conflict and to enforce punishments to authoritarian nations that go against the liberal world order. If diplomacy breaks down, measurements are taken in order to help the nation being attacked without interfering directly. Sanctions are exactly that. They are used as a tool to express disapproval against aggression and indirectly help the attacked nation by freezing assets of powerful individuals or stop trading all together with a nation.

Analysis

In order to critically evaluate how effective sanctions are as a foreign policy tool it’s important to consider them through case studies of countries that have been sanctioned and then conclude if they have been effective or not.

First and foremost, it’s of major importance to look at the most recent example on this paper, Russia. Russia is currently engaged in an almost three-year war against its neighbor country Ukraine. Following the 2014 annexation of Crimea, this newest attack by Russia has triggered reactions across the western world. The EU has collectively placed sanctions on the Russian head of state, high ranking military officials, members of the Russian state duma and over 2.300 individuals, along with entities, by making funds unavailable, issuing travel bans and freezing valuable assets[1]. Besides individuals the county itself has been placed under sanctions with the economic sector being mainly targeted. Specifically, the EU has placed an import and export ban on Russia’s rich natural resources like crude oil, gas, steel, iron etc. targeting this way the most vital part of the Russian economy. The total value of banned exports exceeds 48 billion dollars while banned imports amount for about 91 billion dollars.[2] Considering the immense measures taken to thwart Russia’s ability to wage war, one would consider that the Russian economy has been crippled. However, that’s not the case as Russia has turned further away from the west towards its eastern partners in search for new markets for Russian goods to be sold. Evident of this is, that the Russian economy has done a lot better than expected in 2023 by enjoying a rise of 3.6% in its GDP and expecting a similar 2.6% rise again regarding its GDP by the end of 2024 [3]. This can be accredited to a large extent to the role of China in the conflict. While the western world has almost completely eliminated trade with Russia, China has stepped in to exploit the situation. Russia was China’s biggest oil supplier for 2023 with the yuan dominated trade negotiations even surpassing Saudi Arabia’s oil exports to China[4]. This is one of the many moves that keep Russia’s economy afloat as the Russian – Chinese axis is developing as an anti-western force. While Russia is currently enjoying some economic prosperity, it is uncertain if this can be maintained for the imminent future. China will eventually have to answer to the west as a large part of its trade involves the European countries and it’s not certain that the Chinese economy can handle a direct western involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. Nevertheless, with the current data presented above, the sanctions against Russia seem to not have the expected results.

Besides Russia, it is important to look at different countries that are currently under sanctions and examine how different sections of their nation are responding to it. No better case to examine than that of Cuba’s, a country under sanctions since 1958. This is just a year before the revolutionaries established a communist government in 1959. Due to its ideological opposition with the west and its strategic location just off the coast of Florida, Cuba was deemed too much of a threat by the United States that sanctions needed to be enforced as part of the US foreign policy of containment. Specifically, Cuba has been embarked economically, commercially and financially by the US and the western world resulting in hyperinflation, an extremely difficult and limited way of trading and a shortage in all kinds of goods from food to medical supplies[5]. In the case of Cuba, the sanctions imposed have had the desired results especially after the fall of the Soviet Union, the biggest trade partner of the nation. The standard of living has fallen dramatically in the country and a single Cuban peso is worth 0.042 of the US dollar (as of November 2024)[6]. The situation in Cuba is at this point so disastrous that the UN has intervened and passed the resolution 77/7 deeming a necessity for the embargo to be lifted but it was renewed anew in 2016 [7]. Over this long period of time, since the embargo was imposed, the goal of containing an authoritarian nation was achieved by crippling its economy.

Conclusion

To conclude, in order to accurately assess how effective sanctions are as a foreign policy tool, two different cases were studied with similar characteristics. Both Cuba and Russia are authoritarian nations and both countries were sanctioned by the western world in order for disapproval to be shown either towards hostilities or towards the authoritarian nature of the nation itself. In the case of Russia, in the short period of time that the sanctions have been enforced they didn’t have the desired results mainly because of the magnitude of the Russian economy and its access to the eastern markets. On the other hand, regarding Cuba, a country significantly smaller than Russia both in land and economically the sanctions worked exactly as intended. Besides the sizes of both economies, the time that the sanctions have been applied should also be considered. Russia is only being sanctioned for almost three years while Cuba for over half a century. These findings conclude in the following results. Firstly, when applying sanctions, the size of the target economy should be considered mainly because the stronger the economy is, the better it can sustain itself with its own resources over an extended period of time without relying on trade. Secondly, sanctions need to be applied for a long period of time in order for goals to be met. This is the case because in the long run it’s less likely different nations will be willing to support a sanctioned economy. The result that occurs from these findings is that, while sanctions can work if the necessary criteria are met, they are a foreign policy tool with limited usage.

Spyros Tsaparas is an undergraduate student majoring in International Relations and European Affairs at the American College of Greece - Deree

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[1] “EU Sanctions against Russia,” Consilium, accessed November 11, 2024, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions-against-russia/.

[2] “EU Sanctions against Russia Explained,” Consilium, accessed November 11, 2024, https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/sanctions-against-russia-explained/.

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[4] Andrew Hayley and Andrew Hayley, “China Defies Sanctions to Make Russia Its Biggest Oil Supplier in 2023,” Reuters, January 22, 2024, sec. Energy, https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-defies-sanctions-make-russia-its-biggest-oil-supplier-2023-2024-01-20/.

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[7] “Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed by the United States of America against Cuba,” n.d.