A Walk Down Sanction Street

 A Walk Down Sanctions Street

The West has leveled severe and somewhat unprecedented sanctions against Russia.  In the most optimistic permutation, the Russian people will oust Putin from power and a new regime will withdraw completely from Ukraine, admit the error of their ways, and we will all hold hands on the banks of the Dnieper River and sing Kumbaya together.  I mean this when I say I think the majority of us would like the Kumbaya part of this dream while many of us would like the political outcome of this dream.  So, let’s have a look at the history of US sanctions, which has usually been accompanied by sanctions from other nations, to see how effective they have been.  In doing so, I will not make moral judgments as to whether the sanctions were justified.  All I wish to do is examine the effectiveness of the sanctions themselves in the full illumination of history.

 

As we stroll down Sanctions Street, our first stop is Japan.  The United States leveled crippling economic sanctions against expansionist Japan in the late 30’s and early 40’s strangling Japan’s oil supply.  The result of these sanctions was that the USA was dragged into World War II when Japan, backed into a corner, attacked Pearl Harbor in an attempt to break the American stranglehold on their economy.  I believe it was ultimately good for the USA to be dragged into World War II, but the point we must consider here is the end result of those sanctions was that America was dragged into a world war.

 

We continue our walk down Sanctions Street and arrive next at Fidel Castro’s Cuba.  The US hit Cuba with hard sanctions after Castro seized power from his fellow revolutionaries who all seemed to have had accidents.  Castro was a prominent figure in the Organization of Non-aligned Nations though he was as neutral as a fanatical MAGA adherent.  There was a brief lessening of sanctions under President Obama but Trump reversed those when he became president.  The net result of these sanctions is that Castro died of old age over 50 years later with his Communist party still firmly in control.

 

And as an aside, can I say that the Bay of Pigs invasion planned an executed by anti Castro Cubans and backed by the US government, failed because JFK refused to provide our Cuban allies with air support.  I am beginning to feel decidedly uncomfortable at this point with regard to the present crisis in Ukraine.

 

As a completely irrelevant aside, I am a Seventh-day Adventist and I have it on good sources that Fidel Castro not only owned and possessed a very large set of Ellen G. White books in his library, he read most of them.  SDA friends of mine will understand this reference.

 

We leave Cuba and continue our walk down Sanctions Street until we arrive at Nicaragua.  The United States occupied Nicaragua in the 1930’s and in 1961, a group of Christian socialists founded the FDSN which we call the Sandinistas.  The Sandinistas overthrew the US backed Somoza government in 1981 to assume power.  The Sandinista Party believed in gender equality, universal literacy and massively boosted healthcare.  But they sere Socialists allied with the Soviet Union so the United States helped to form, fund, and train the Contras so they could fight a civil war which lasted for nine years.  Sanctions were leveled against the Sandinistas.  Meanwhile the Contras failed to overthrow the Sandinistas in the civil war because the United States refused to provide air support and ground troops to the Contras.  We did not want to become directly involved.  I am really starting to feel uncomfortable now.

 

The result of these sanctions was that the Sandinistas lost power democratically in 1990 though they still controlled the Nicaragua legislature.  As of 2006, however, the Sandinistas are back in power and continue to wield sole power today.

 

We leave Nicaragua and move toward the Axis of Evil, a term first used by George W. Bush, the 43^rd President of the United States, in 2002.  The Axis of evil consisted of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Iran, and North Korea.  Sanctions were leveled against them.  Of the three original founding members of the Axis of Evil, Iran and North Korea still wield absolute power in their respective countries.  Only Saddam Hussein is no longer in power.  The ineffectiveness of our sanctions in the long term is further demonstrated by the fact that the only reason Saddam is no longer with us is because of two Iraq Wars led by the United States.  It did not help that the sanctions leveled against Saddam between the two wars were undermined by a corrupt United Nations who made sure Saddam kept getting money for oil.  Elizabeth and I witnessed the effect of these sanctions first-hand and I hope and pray never to see such misery again.  The poor rural Iraqi people we met were beyond belief by our rich standards.  The only people hurt by those sanctions were the poor people of Iraq.

 

We will leave Sanctions Street for now and try to absorb what we have learned.  Basically, sanctions generally failed to yield desired results.  There are two reasons for this in my opinion.  First, sanctions only served to harden the resolve of the governments sanctioned, and often of the people themselves.  Second, those sanctioned had allies who dulled the effect of sanctions.

 

Now let us look at this current situation.  So far, Putin is doing a pretty good job of convincing his people he, and the Russian people are the good guys.  Many Russians see what is really happening, but many more do not.  There is every chance that sanctions alone will only serve to harden the resolve of the Russian people.

 

So far, China, Iran, a number of Middle Eastern nations, and Israel have not joined in the Sanctions party.  There are other nations who have not joined as well, but these are the major ones.  Thus, Russia has allies who can help dull the effect of sanctions.

 

Sanctions alone do not generally work.  This is why I believe it is inevitable that NATO will become directly involved, whether they want to or not.  Ukraine wants assistance now.  They cannot afford to wait for sanctions to possibly work.

 

Some argue that these sanctions are the severest sanctions ever wielded by the West.  I counter this argument with the argument that sanctions we leveled in the past were just as severe relative to the ones we sanctioned.  Put another way, Russia is a big country, so big-time sanctions are required.  Nicaragua, on the other hand, is a small and somewhat poor country so the sanctions the US leveled were scaled accordingly.

 

Bottom line:  history shows that sanctions alone do not work.  It also shows that sanctions plus military aid, without direct involvement are also ineffective.