THESE DAYS, it seems we’re hellbent
on shooting ourselves in the foot while driving full-bore into a brick wall.
Reality keeps smacking us up the side of the head with a wet fish but we’re too
busy beetling along in our clown cars toward the abyss to notice or even care.
Like good hominids, we’re so busy watching for dangers coming at us from the
side that we don't see what’s right in front of our nose.
I DON’T KNOW ABOUT YOU, but that war
in Ukraine is darn confusing! WHY is it happening? WHAT’s going
on? WHEN will it end? A muddle for one and all!
“Who can look on’t sir, and fairly
tell a man ‘tis not a muddle?” (Charles Dickens, Hard Times.)
LIKE DICKENS’ “OLD STEPHEN”, who
depends on his beloved Rachel to help him understand the ways of the world, we
turn to those wiser than ourselves to help us understand this latest conflict on the
world's stage. Political analysis ranges from Putin as an unhinged autocrat
determined to reinstall the Russian Empire to its former glory, to a
view, on the other hand, that Russia acted out of self-defence, preventing
further NATO encroachments along its borders. It sent troops into Ukraine to
end attacks by the Ukrainian government on two break-away (and ethnically
Russian) Donbass provinces. And for those of us a few months ago who
couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if our lives depended on it, we’ve become
experts on that embattled country's geography and follow the ebb and flow of
troop movements and battles, as well as that clusterfuk called
"sanctions" (that I'll discuss in the second half of this post) like
we were veteran military tacticians and skilled politicos.
MY OWN TAKE tends toward the
assessment that Russia was provoked into this war, as Ukraine stubbornly moved
ever closer to becoming a member of NATO. For Russia, the possibility of troops
and missile emplacements against its border was an existential threat, a “red
line”, something the collective West knew, yet chose to ignore.
I think
Russia’s show of force in February—remember that line of tanks on the road to Kiev?
—was a demonstration to the Zelensky government that now was the time
for negotiations. They waited while Kiev prevaricated and until Washington gave
Zelensky his marching orders which had “No Negotiations” at the top of the
list. And so today there is war. *
DO I THINK Russia had the right to
invade Ukraine? No, I don’t. It violated international law as laid out in the United
Nations Charter. And while some justification for its invasion could
be made, in that Russia acted on the request of the Donbass provinces for
military assistance, to my mind, it's a rather flimsy legal argument, and one
that has yet to be tested in the International Court of Justice. [Dontesk
and Luhansk were recognized as independent states by Russia with an
accompanying “mutual assistance” pact shortly before the invasion.--Ed.] COULD
RUSSIA have used other means to insist the Europeans and Americans acknowledge
its security concerns around an eastward expanding NATO? Possibly.
BUT THIS PROBLEM has existed since
the fall of the USSR in 1991. American hubris and an ugly triumphalism within
the councils and legislatures of the collective West promoted increasingly
threatening policies that defined the West’s relationship with the Russian
Federation. “Colour revolutions”, sanctions, trade embargoes, NATO
expansion, and the proximal cause: Ukraine’s Maiden Revolution of 2014
that was effectively a coup engineered by the US State Department whereby the
democratically elected (if Russian-leaning) government was overthrown and a
pro-West one installed. Such tactics backed Russia into a corner, with Ukraine
becoming an increasingly hostile neighbour on its borders. Should Russia have
invaded?
Were there other options besides war that would have addressed its security concerns? I don’t
know. But I think we in the West are too well trained not to listen to
Russian appeals and arguments, no matter how compelling. Why that is,
exactly, is a good question and the subject for another essay, methinks.
MEANWHILE, the fighting continues, with the ebb and flow of troop movements,
territory lost and gained, the debit and credit of death and carnage—all the
expected and unexpected developments of a battlefield—they remain front page
news and trending social media click-bait. THIS WAR needn’t have happened. It is a war
whose end is nowhere in sight and where all the off-ramps are closed.1
So it goes.
ANOTHER COMPONENT TO THE CONFLICT,
and in a sense a more important one, is the economic sanctions regime
imposed on Russia by the collective West in a bid to cripple its economy and
make it incapable of continuing militarily in Ukraine. And here, I’d like to discuss
what I’ll call the Curious Case of the Backfiring Sanctions.
ANOTHER THING we’ve all become
armchair experts in are sanctions Currently, Canada sanctions
some 21 countries, including Ukraine (ones restricting economic relations with
entities in the disputed Crimea region), as well as a hodgepodge of “terrorist”
organizations. The United States has sanctions on 39 countries directly.
Worldwide, the number of sanctions imposed on countries, organizations,
businesses, and individuals is around twenty thousand! Most are American
initiatives.
SO SANCTIONS, THEY WORK, RIGHT?
Things are on track to bring Cuba Russia to its knees, aren't they? Not according to
Nicholas Mulder in his timely new book, The Economic Weapon, in which he
presents the modern history of sanctions from their beginnings during World War
One until 1945. In his conclusions [Might as well cut to the chase! —Ed.]
Mulder says:
“This brings us to a final point
about sanctions: the difference between economic effects and political
outcomes. The policy debate about sanctions has been repeated almost every
decade since the League [League of Nations—Ed.] was created in the wake of
World War I. At its core has been the perennial question: do economic sanctions
work? While the success rate differs depending on the objective, the historical
record is relatively clear: most economic sanctions have not worked.
[Italics mine] In the twentieth century, only one in three uses of sanctions
was at least partially successful.” (295)
For example, THE DECADES
of sanctions imposed by America on Cuba since the 1950s have not crippled the Caribbean nation’s economy nor
brought about, as was hoped, regime change. While its people chafe under the
American “embargo” as the sanctions package is termed, Cuban society has made
its way in the world, some say with a good deal of success and zeal. In the
United Nations, only the United States, Israel and Palau voted against
lifting sanctions on Cuba, in a 186-2 vote with 3 abstentions. TRADE EMBARGOES
have been used for centuries, denying exports to, or imports from, certain
countries. Blockades—the use of naval forces to interdict shipping
directly—were increasingly used as navies grew in strength and scope, and where
cities under siege could be cut off from their vital maritime network.
IMAGES
COME TO MIND from WWI, of naval vessels and gunboats pinching off maritime
trade, turning back cargo ships, closing coaling stations to the merchant
marines and navies of enemy combatants, blockading shipments of raw materials, foodstuffs,
oil, etc. The term blockade was used to describe the type of economic
warfare practised by the Allied forces against the Central Powers (Germany,
Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria) during World War One. The rise
of German U-boat patrols in 1915-16 in the Baltic, North Sea, English Strait,
and Mediterranean affected commercial shipping to the extent that levels of
Allied food, supplies, and armaments were being impacted.
THE USE
OF CONVOYS and other practices, as well sourcing vast quantities of materiel
from the (then neutral) United States grew alongside Allied attempts to limit,
in turn, German trade and shipping, as well as access to continental and
overseas banking, insurance and other services. These latter interdictions
entailed the development of new ministries and organizations such as the Allied
Blockade Committee in England and the Commission inter-ministérielle in France.
These new bureaucracies were given remits to gather data on enemy combatants’
trade and shipping, and to devise policies that would undermine the economies
of the Central Powers and create unrest among their populations. These wartime
organizations might be considered the “grandparents” of today's sanction
regimes.
MODERN
SANCTIONS ARE MORE LIKELY to involve “denial of service”, be it in the banking
sector, in commercial relations or commodities and services provision, or
through restrictive immigration/emigration policies, denial of political
recognition, limiting access to international trade and development
organizations, new technologies, and so on. CURRENTLY, VENEZUELA, hit hard by
American-led sanctioning, is one such example.2 Its people
suffer from a lack of imports that include medicines and food, resulting in
increased levels of ill-health, premature deaths, and impoverishment. Yet the
South American government remains defiant and has won a new mandate in recent
federal elections.
A HANDY
ARTICLE from the Financial Crime Academy web site reminds us that: “Sanctions are currently imposed by
three main bodies: the United Nations, the European Union, and the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe” using non-military means. (Individual
countries also impose sanctions on other countries, on businesses,
organizations, criminal enterprises, and on individuals.)
“More often than not, sanctions are
imposed by larger, wealthier states against smaller, developing states.
Sanctions have also been found to be more effective when carried out by
countries that are geographically and economically close to the target but that
have a GDP at least 10 times larger than that of the target. In other words,
larger, more powerful countries “win” when it comes to sanctions.”
And the key to success, the article
adds:
“…is often determined by the number
of participating countries. This is especially true due to globalization.
Globalization weakens sanctions because a globalized market makes it easier to
replace and reroute trade channels.” (Financial Crime)
In The Economic Weapon, Nicholas Mulder
shows how, during WWI, Allied governments and administrative bodies
refined their data-gathering machinery, embargo lists and analyses of enemy
combatants’ economies, and one method they used was “estimating” the import
requirements of “neutral” countries such as Holland and Switzerland based on
pre-war levels. This was done to prevent surplus contraband like raw
materials and food from being trans-shipped to Germany and Austria-Hungary. The
point being, that neutral countries, uninvolved in the fighting, were made to
feel the pinch, along with the Central Powers, all of whom acquired a wary
respect for the blockades that Allied militaries enforced. They noted well the effects blockades had on their economies and populations. And this
fear continued long after the war ended.
MULDER’S FASCINATING INVESTIGATION
of post-WWI sanctions is critical for our understanding of the complete
dog’s breakfast that’s been made of the sanctions regime the
Western powers are attempting to impose on Russia following its invasion of
Ukraine in February. In a NUTSHELL, in the post WWI era, it was the memory
of the blockades used against Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the
difficulties they created, that made the mere threat of sanctions enough
to goad belligerents to peacefully arbitrate their disputes.
FOR EXAMPLE, in 1925 the League of
Nations (the forerunner of today’s United Nations) threatened to impose
sanctions unless a border dispute between Greece and Bulgaria was resolved. The
two parties quickly sought the League’s help in negotiating a political
settlement.
IT MUST BE REMEMBERED that the
League had no standing armies or naval forces. It had to rely on member states
(which did not include the United States) for enforcement of its sanctions3,
with all the negotiating and herding of cats that such a process entails.4
Yet the threat of sanctions remained a potent one, conflated as it was with
memories of wartime blockades. (Thousands of Germans had died from malnutrition
and disease because of them, after all.) AND HERE’S THE CRITICAL PART. Mulder
asks: What effects did League sanctions have on countries deemed
intransigent? Were they made to change their ways and conform to the
demands of the international body? In other words, could the political aims
of sanctions (prevention of war; peaceful resolutions to conflicts) be achieved
through their use or the threat of their use?
The answer is: sort of. (But mostly,
no).
THE CURIOUS CASE OF FASCIST ITALY’S
invasion of Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in 1935 is a case in point. Prime Minister of
Italy, Il Duce, Benito Mussolini, desired to expand his country's
domains and make it a significant player on the world scene. He came to
covet the fertile lands and resources and strategic location of the North African
country of Ethiopia.
But Mussolini knew that if he engaged in hostile,
expansionist activities, the League of Nations would move to impose sanctions on
him.
BLOCKADES, as I have said before,
were a real spectre in the minds of revanchist politicians in the years following
WWI. It should be noted the League was created during the 1919 Paris Peace
Talks and its main enforcement mechanism was its ability to call for and
co-ordinate sanctions, boycotts, and blockades of countries that warred against
their neighbours, other than in self-defence.
PROVISIONS FOR UPPING-THE-ANTE and
using member states’ militaries and navies to enforce sanction protocols were
possible—on paper at least—though how feasible such a request might be remained
a good question. Most countries had demobilized after the war and military
budgets were greatly reduced so finding the forces to do the job was always an
issue. Thus, the use of League-sponsored military enforcement of
sanctions was never seriously put to the test in the years following France’s
withdrawal of its troops from Germany in the 1920s.
In that instance, UNDER LEAGUE AUSPICES, France had
garrisoned Germany’s Rhineland from 1923-25 to enforce German compliance in
making war reparations, as per their obligations as signatories to the Paris Peace Treaty.5 MULDER makes the point that
sanctions—even those contemplated by the glorified “talk-shop” that the
League of Nations became—carried weight, with threats of their use
looming larger in the imagination than what was possible in reality. As a flexible,
enforceable mechanism for gaining the compliance of transgressors to League
charter rules, when push came to shove, they weren’t up to the job. League
enforcers focused on financial sanctions to prevent aggression. Timing
and intensity of their protocols was critical. Mulder quotes the 1936
report issued by the Advisory Committee on Trading and Blockade in Time of War
(UK):
“…the deterrent effects
upon Italy of the sanctions policy adopted were negligible, chiefly because the
Ethiopian resistance collapsed before the sanctions had attained their full
effect and also because Italy was able, by anticipatory accumulation and
evasion of the economic pressure placed upon her, to find sufficient stocks to
meet her military requirements.” (ATB)
MUSSOLINI, wary of blockades and
what they could do to the Italian economy and war effort, sought to find
alternative sources of raw materials and food. He decided Ethiopia was where he
could acquire both, allowing him to remain economically independent should the
global system turn against him. THEREFORE, he moved to invade the North African
country as quickly as possible before League sanctions began to bite.
And he was successful.
BOTH JAPAN AND GERMANY IN THE 1930s
were conscious of the threat of League sanctions, and Mulder tells us how both
countries developed alternative sources for raw materials and food. For
example, German scientists developed the Haber-Bosch process to produce
synthetic ammonia, used in making fertilizer, which would allow Germany to be
self-sufficient in food.
UP UNTIL THEN, naturally occurring
fertilizers, like South American shorebird guano deposits, were used in
world agriculture. Meanwhile in Asia, JAPAN made plans to shift its dependence
on American oil to Indonesia so it would be protected from future sanctions
when the Americans turned off the spigot.
MULDER SUGGESTS the threat of sanctions themselves had the unexpected effect of—not deterring aggression, but
rather—prompting countries targeted for sanctions to prepare for war by first insulating
their economies from the impact of sanctions. Expansionist states like Italy,
Germany, and Japan, all autarchic now with the rise of nativist,
authoritarian governments in the post-war era, increasingly desired to be self-sufficient
and free from treaty constraints and international obligations that challenged
their autocracies and imperialist agendas.
AS THEIR AMBITIONS GREW, so did
the threat of looming sanctions. Future interruptions of their supply-chains, their
imports and exports, finance, insurance, trade, and manufacturing prompted them
to seek self-sufficiency as quickly as possible, so they would have the
resources to launch their military campaigns. Such societies are called "autarkies."6 Thus,
fascist regimes of the 1930s went from mandates of self-rule and
authoritarianism to ones of self-sufficiency and independence from the
world community, largely prompted by threats of sanctions from the
League of Nations. One might consider this a kind of "boomerang" effect, with tragic consequences for everyone in the end.
AND I WILL END THIS POST HERE, as
I’ve gone on much longer than I intended. In his conclusions, Mulder makes the
case for a type of conflict resolution mechanism that doesn’t rely on coercive
methods (i.e., negative sanctions), be they military interventions or financial
penalties to prevent wars or to end them. The use of financial sanctions by the
League of Nations in the post-WWI era did not prevent Italy from
invading Ethiopia in 1935. Nor did they prevent Germany and Japan from later
launching their own wars of aggression. MULDER MAKES THE CASE that it was the
threat of sanctions that persuaded the militarist, revanchist
regimes of the 1930s to pursue a dangerous, autarkic course of self-sufficiency
and territorial conquest. Or at least to act sooner than they might have otherwise.
IN ADDITION, he adds, sanctions can
have the effect of rallying target populations against those wielding “the big
stick”, by goading them into much stronger support for their governments, however authoritarian they may be. While blockades, financial sanctions and so on obviously did affect the belligerents' ability to conduct their wars, they neither prevented the wars from starting nor were their effects on the Germany and Japan during Second World War as effective as planners envisioned.
TODAY, ANYONE LOOKING with a clear
eye upon the current spate of sanctions madness must wonder how we've reached the point where the inmates are now running
the asylum! With thousands of sanctions on individuals, organizations,
and states, what do we have to show for it? Have they prevented wars or ended
aggression?
The American neoconservative think
tank, the Council on Foreign Relations states that economic
sanctions are used to:
“…to coerce, deter, punish, or shame
entities that endanger their interests or violate international norms of
behavior. Sanctions have been used to advance a range of foreign policy goals,
including counterterrorism, counternarcotics, non-proliferation, democracy and
human rights promotion, conflict resolution, and cybersecurity.” (J. Masters. 12/08/19)
WHEN THE RUBBER HIT THE ROAD, when
they needed most to count, financial sanctions after the First World War did
not prevent Italy from going to war with Ethiopia. And they likely spurred
Germany and Japan into arming and “fire-walling” their economies more quickly. WITH NO EFFECTIVE TOOLS to manage conflict and ease tensions
among large, competing nations, war became all but inevitable. While the threat
of sanctions might have been enough to cower smaller countries, powerful nations
like Italy were not so constrained. And Germany and Japan? ‘Nuff said.
TODAY, Russia is too large, has too
many resources, too many ways to fight off financial sanctions. It is hubris on
the part of European and American elites to think that sanctions will work to significantly alter Russia from its course of action. The West’s sanctions war with Russia is
failing miserably. Instead, it’s boomeranging around to cripple “allied”
economies in ways that seem right out of a Keystone Kops car chase scene!
Furthermore, how does sanctioning Russia into the next millennium provide any
kind of off-ramp, politically? Years prior to its war in Ukraine, Russia was already one of the most sanctioned countries on earth. Pray tell: What on Gaia's good green earth did
that accomplish?! Was Russia supposed to just fold up its tent and
vamoose? Where was the diplomacy in all that time? Where were the
diplomats?
And where are the voices of reason today? All I see is a long
line of clown cars going round and round! (And since I’m from
Canada, I note one of the loudest, most obnoxious of them has a red maple
leaf painted on the hood!)
WHERE ARE THE POSITIVE
SANCTIONS Mulder talks about? Where is the aid? The trade? In particular, the diplomatic engagements?
They’re MIA and have been for some time. I'LL END IT HERE with Mulder’s closing
remarks because he says it better than I can:
“The economic weapon may be a form
of politics by other means. But ultimately, stitching animosity [Italics mine--Ed.] into the fabric
of international affairs and human exchange is of limited use in changing the
world” (297)
Cheers, Jake.
___________________________
* It's a war that
could have been avoided if the Minsk Accords had
been honored by Ukraine and its European “guarantors”. The 2014-15 agreement
had as its main component a promise by Ukraine that it would not seek
NATO membership. Additionally, Ukraine would grant two Donbass provinces,
Donetsk and Luhansk, greater autonomy within a federated state system. Ukraine
failed to live up to its side of the bargain and instead began a lengthy campaign
of shelling the (ethnically Russian) provinces to break their independence
movements. Ukrainian troop deployments along the Donbas region borders
suggested to Russia that Ukraine meant to invade the breakaway provinces,
thus prompting Russia’s February 2022 “Special Military Operation (SOP)” to
protect the predominately Russian speaking enclaves. [A further development
that bears watching are referendums currently being held in the two breakaway
provinces and two other regions. Up for debate is whether to join Russia. If
they declare for joining the Federation--and many commentators think they will--then the "gloves come off", so to speak, with Russia now defending its own territory if Ukraine attacks against the Donbass region continue.
More than ever, we need the
intercession of calm, thoughtful diplomacy on all sides. Where are the “A” teams?]
1. AS OF THIS WRITING, Russian President
Putin has announced a partial mobilization of 300,000 reservists to increase
troop levels in Ukraine.
2. ONE is reminded of the INFAMOUS
comments made by Madeline Albright, former U.S. Secretary of State (1997-2001)
during the Clinton administration who in a 1998 60 Minutes interview with Lesley Stahl said the following, in
reference to the decade long sanctioning of Iraq after the First Gulf War
of 1990:
LS: “We have heard that half a
million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in
Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?”
MA: “I think that is a very hard
choice," Albright answered, "but the price, we think, the price is
worth it.”
3. AND THE QUESTION WE ALL MUST DECIDE
is whether it was indeed worth it. Did the sanctions succeed? How’s Iraq
today? Or Libya? Or Ukraine, for that matter? Success stories one and all, surely? Stable
and prosperous nations? Or something else?
4. I HAVEN’T MENTIONED the role
“positive” sanctions made in dispute resolution i.e., supplying one side of a
conflict with military, financial, political, etc. supports. My general
impression of sanctions’ history is one of: "stick first, then carrot". I believe
Mulder would say the use of positive sanctions has been under-utilized. Though to my mind, the massive amount of weapons supplied to Ukraine by NATO and the West seems counter-productive. How does keeping this bloody conflict going benefit anyone? (Except for the MIC and Neocon politicos in the United States and their familars, of course.
5. IN THIS CASE, France 'blockaded' German
coal and iron ore mines. (They militarily occupied the Ruhr Valley.) Shipments from there would normally have gone to German industries or for
export. Instead, the French army sent the raw materials into France, as payment in kind for
overdue war reparations.
6. THOSE GREEKS! They had a word for
just about every dang thing!
Dickens, Charles. Hard Times, Oxford
Publications. London, 2008. Print.
Mulder, Nicholas. The Economic Weapon: The Rise of
Sanctions as a Tool of Modern War. Yale University Press. New Haven, CT.
2022. Print.
