Sanctions: meaning, history and consequences

Sanction is a confusing term because it contains opposite meanings. In 1713 the term gained currency when Habsburg diplomats issued a Pragmatic Sanction that set out rules for dynastic succession. They classified these rules as a sanction because they were binding in law. Thus the usage of sanction, as a policy enforced by law, came into being. This meaning has survived. However, in 1919 its meaning switched. The League of Nations committed its members to introduce sanctions in response to any act of war. Sanctions were to consist of “severance of all trade financial relations.” A sanction came to signify a prohibition.

There is an ancient history to deploying non-military means to manage a conflict between nations. Moses did so to great effect in Biblical Egypt.

But the arsenal of coercive measures in international conflict for most of history did not include trade. In the Middle Ages Venetian crusaders ignored the Pope’s urging to stop trading with Muslims. The Dutch resisting Habsburg rule in the 16th-century continued exporting goods to Spain, notwithstanding the fact that Spain banned trade in the other direction. Only by the early 19th century did it dawn on military planners that striking at an enemy’s economic base was a devastating tool of warfare.

Napoleon Bonaparte tried to impose a Continental blockade to bring the British to their knees; it failed. In 1812, however, the Emperor reached Moscow, having swept aside every force that stood in his way, but had to retreat in ignominy after Russians deprived him of supplies by a strategy of “scorched earth” and even torching Moscow. During the American Civil War it became military doctrine to destroy an enemy’s economy as well as his army. William Sherman, the Northern commander, declared, “war is hell,” and he had no compunction against razing civil infrastructure in Southern states. By the time of the outbreak of World War I, sanctions were a key plank of Allied military strategy, and in 1916 Britain to this end created a Ministry of Blockade.

Sanctions, however, were controversial already in World War I. In 1917 Pope Benedict XV proposed sanctions be imposed as a punitive measure only once international arbitration had failed. But Woodrow Wilson rejected this approach,  arguing that although the Allies were at war with the government of Germany rather than her people, as long as the warwas supported by the German people it was legitimate that they too be held accountable. Sanctions, in other words, were a tool not only to win a war, but also to promote regime change.

Sanctions not only erased the distinction between combatants and civilians, but also blurred the border between war and peace. Even after the Kaiser had abdicated, sanctions against Germany remained in place for many months. The imposition of sanctions opened a new dimension of international relations, a sphere that was neither war nor peace, but something in between.

Nicholas Mulder, author of The Economic Weapon, has narrated the adroit handling of sanctions by the League of Nations in the 1920s. Timely introduction of sanctions prevented the outbreak of hostilities on the Balkans on two occasions. But, as with other innovations in the conduct of conflict, once introduced, adversaries became aware of how they work and found ways to escape them. Or, as did dictators of every hue in the 1930s, they turned the threat of sanctions to their advantage, as a justification to surround their country’s economy with walls.

By the 1930s the record of sanctions policies showed a clear demarcation line. They achieved their aims when imposed on small economies, such as Yugoslavia or Greece. But when applied to large economies, such as Italy or Germany, domestic regimes were only made stronger. Sanctions could backfire.

The framers of sanctions policies in the early 20th century were guided by idealism. Lord Robert Cecil, the head of the Ministry of Blockade, had been a free trader; as an architect of the League of Nations he was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Woodrow Wilson was an idealist who believed sanctions would lessen the appetite for resolving conflict on battlefields. But the unintended and counterproductive consequences of sanctions have been clear since the 1930s. However, the Global Sanctions Database shows that the use of sanctions has proliferated in recent decades and that the trajectory of growth has steepened further in recent years.

Sanctions have reshaped the conduct of conflict between nations in the 20th century. For the 19th-century conflict theorist Carl von Clausewitz, war was politics by another means. For the 20th-century League of Nations, trade was war by another means. Sanctions, in all but name, are now a new dimension of hybrid warfare. This year has wrought a new sanctions scenario in the European theatre, in the shape of sanctions and counter-sanctions between Russia and the West. The advocates of these measures barely disguise their ulterior motive, which consists in wrecking an adversary’s economy. Whatever might be the benefits of deploying sanctions, eroding the distinction between combatants and civilians is not in keeping with the liberal ideals of Robert Cecil and Woodrow Wilson.

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