Sanctions What Everyone Needs to Know

“Even before the extensive sanctions imposed on Russia for its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, it was hard to browse the news without seeing reports of yet another set of sanctions. The United States has sanctions against over 30 countries as well as drug traffickers, terrorist organizations and specially designated individuals. China long has been a target of sanctions and in recent years increasingly a wielder against countries and companies even organizations like the National Basketball Association (NBA). Russia also has been sanctions sender as well as target. The European Union has joined some of the American sanctions as well as imposing its own. In some cases the United Nations has authorized fully multilateral sanctions. While being used more frequently in recent years sanctions go back decades, indeed centuries, to such cases as the 432 BC Athens against Sparta and Napoleon’s 1808-1814 Continental System. Given such frequency of use, you’d think sanctions were a sure-fire weapon. Yet the record is quite mixed. So some initial puzzles: Why are economic sanctions used so much? What are the key factors affecting their success? These and related questions are well suited for an Oxford University Press What Everyone Needs to Know book. They long have been important among international relations scholars, spanning international security and international political economy subfields. And with sanctions such a recurring foreign policy strategy, they are crucial for policy makers. As someone who has both studied sanctions as a scholar and worked on these issues while serving in key U.S. foreign policy positions, Bruce W. Jentleson is well suited to provide analysis valuable for students, scholars and practitioners”–