Richard Nephew’s The Art of Sanctions: A View from the Field offers a refreshing perspective on the study of economic sanctions. It draws on the author’s experience as Director for Iran on the National Security Council and as deputy sanctions coordinator at the State Department in the Obama Administration. Having been involved in developing and managing sanctions during the negotiations with Iran that eventually produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015, Nephew speaks from the point of view of a practitioner who brings a hands-on approach to the topic. The book offers practical insights about what sanctions can and cannot do, rather than ex cathedra statements about their efficacy in general. The most commonly asked question about sanctions—do they work?—is misleading because it is incomplete, since the utility of any tool can only be judged against a specific goal and under a determinate set of conditions. Against this, The Art of Sanctions presents a practice-oriented study of the preconditions for their success.
Tag: sanctions
Roundtable 9-17 on Busted Sanctions: Explaining Why Economic Sanctions Fail
By MichaelMaggs – Own work, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3318709
In 2016 President Barack Obama guided two United States efforts involving sanctions on two adversarial states, Fidel Castro’s Cuba since1960, and Iran over its development of nuclear power and potentially nuclear weapons. The first ended without success as Fidel and his brother Raoul Castro maintained control of Cuba despite the significant economic consequences of U.S. policies. The second ended in an agreement between Iran and an international coalition led by the U.S., Russia, China, and European states to stop Iran’s potential to develop a nuclear weapon for at least ten years. Despite some rhetoric from President Donald Trump, the agreement with Iran has been implemented and relations with Cuba have developed gradually with respect to tourism and trade if not complete diplomatic recognition.
