The Fallacy of Sanctions

A common 'moderate' way to deal with a rogue nation is to end trade. That way, there's no fighting, just a stern and unmistakable message telling the country we disapprove of them, and offering the possibility of restored trade if they change their ways.

Yet from Iraq to Palestine to Cuba, they’ve been an exercise in futility. They’ve produced plenty of poverty, disease, and resentment, but they’ve never managed to actually bring down a government unless followed by a large-scale invasion.

Sometimes it can be necessary to restrict the importation or exportation of certain things (such as, say, nuclear bombs), but to forbid food, medicine or workers to enter a country is worse than useless.

Whenever a nation is threatened by an external force, the people look to their leaders for protection and support. An embargo is the same as a bomb, and sometimes worse.

But wouldn’t those who suffer under an embargo blame the actions of their leaders which caused the sanctions in the first place?

No; not in the entirety of recorded human history has that ever happened. People simply do not think that way. They say to themselves “It wasn’t our corrupt, dictatorial leaders who imposed the sanctions, it was those foreign powers. It is cruel to make us suffer for something our leaders – who definitely are none the worse for wear because of these restrictions – have done.” This is assuming, of course, that the people of the isolated nation don’t support their rulers in the first place, while oftentimes they do. The notion that an entire country will embark on a collective guilt trip and beg forgiveness is ridiculous.

Some poeple never learn.