Sanctions

I heard this afternoon that the U.S. is going to take a different approach to the militarist government of Burma. Instead of inflicting an embargo while refusing to talk to the junta, it's going to inflict an embargo while talking to the junta. Maybe the pro-democracy Burmese actually want continued sanctions on their country. I don't know. In the TV report I saw, all the U.S. foreign policy experts said that's what the pro-democracy Burmese actually want.

Let's take some arbitrary backwards country, call it Country X. It's ruled by a military general who wants to force everybody to work in agrarian communes and force every woman to abort every child after her first live birth. If no foreign government does anything about it, and if the population, life expectancy, and living standards in Country X plummet, then we could all safely say that the policies of Country X's government strangled Country X. Some people would say that it happened as a result of the U.S. government's failure to intervene, and that would be debatable. But what's clear in this case is that the ones who actually caused the fall in population, life expectancy, and living standards were the ones forcing the people onto farm communes and forcing women to get abortions.

Let's suppose, now, that the U.S. government intervenes by banning the import into the U.S. of any goods manufactured in or transported through Country X, banning the export of goods and capital from the U.S. into Country X, and threatening similar actions to neighboring countries that don't adopt a similar policy. Suppose also that the population, life expectancy, and living standards in Country X drop nonetheless. Now, who strangled Country X? The government that forced people to work in the fields and forced women to get abortions, or the government that made sure nothing could come in or out of Country X?

In the first scenario, the U.S. government is only guilty of being a bystander. In the second, the U.S. government arguably bears the guilt of depriving a whole nation of economic opportunity.

Now, what makes the second scenario different from the Burma situation is that the U.S. government does not sanction countries whose governments refuse to sanction Burma, and so - as in the Cuba situation - other countries are free to trade with the targeted country, and do trade with it. So if anyone was hurt by the sanctions, it wasn't the targeted government, but U.S. businesses who lost to competing foreign companies.

But let's overlook that for now and suppose that the U.S. government actually sanctions Country X so dreadfully that Country X's government gives in and stops forcing people to work in farm communes and stops forcing women to get abortions. Would that be a good thing? Sure, in the way that wrenching money from taxpayers by threat of force in order to fund my education is a good thing. If the sanctions actually worked, then they worked against civilians. It is civilians who feel the pain of decreased trade and investment before anyone in the government does. And if the sanctions are successful, then you can imagine how many civilians died as a result of U.S. foreign policy. If sanctions actually work to bring about the intended consequences, then they're only good in a violently utilitarian sense - in the sense that good ends justify whatever means happened to bring them about.

We could bet, though, that sanctions don't work. According to this paper, 87 percent of the sanctions imposed by the U.S. government since 1970 failed to bring about the intended consequence. It's worse than the flip of a coin. If flipping a coin gives you better chances, then that should be a good enough reason to start thinking of something else.

Maybe that's why the regime whose battle cry is "Change!" decided to continue sanctioning Burma while talking to the junta.