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What cannot be disputed is that economic sanctions are increasingly at the center of American foreign policy: to stem the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, promote human rights, discourage aggression, protect the environment, and thwart drug trafficking.
Economic sanctions have been used as an instrument of American foreign policy ever since the Taft administration adopted the Dollar Diplomacy. This dissertation analyzes the trade Embargo the United States imposed upon Cuba after the Revolution from different perspectives: from the political, considering the main guidelines of American foreign policy toward Latin America, especially during the Cold War, and from the juridical, considering different perspectives of customary international law. Since the embargo was imposed only after American property had been expropriated without compensation, the dissertation analyzes the legality of expropriation, seen from the perspective of both capital-importing and capital-exporting countries, and the legality of economic sanctions as a legitimate peaceful reprisal. Due to the fact that the American embargo against Cuba is quasi-total, that is, consists of a number of different economic sanctions, it is the aim of this dissertation to analyze each of these, and finally, to assess the effectiveness of economic sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy. Many books and articles have been written about this very controversial embargo, almost as old as the Cuban Revolution itself. For the Cubans, it constitutes and "economic blockade", and a violation of Cuba's right to free trade; for the Americans, it is a reprisal for the confiscation of American property. Nonetheless, since the embargo, as stated above, is not a sanction itself but a number of different economic sanctions, it is the aim of this dissertation to analyze each of the sanctions that comprise the embargo and its legality, according to customary international law. Another aim of this dissertation is to prove why the American embargo against Cuba has only enhanced Castro's power and further centralized it. A brief chapter about the economic sanctions the United States imposed upon Chile under President Salvador Allende and the fall of his regime serves to compare the two cases with some similarities where sanctions were applied- in the first without success and in the second with success. Finally, the dissertation aims to prove that a lifting of the American embargo against Cuba is highly unlikely unless there is a change of regime in that nation of the Caribbean.
US Policy Towards Cuba is a comprehensive examination of U.S. policy towards Cuba after the Cold War, from 1989-2008. It discusses the competition between Congress and the executive for control of policy, and the domestic interests which shaped policymaking and led to the passage of two major pieces of legislation (the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992 and the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity Act of 1996, better known as the Helms-Burton Act) which tightened the embargo on Cuba and were fiercely resisted by U.S. allies. There is also a strong focus on migration as an issue in U.S.-Cuban relations. The book then moves on to examine U.S. policy during the second Clinton administration, when the interest group environment altered for two principal reasons. Firstly the case of the small Cuban rafter boy, Elian Gonzalez, attracted huge media coverage and led to public questioning of the wisdom of current policy, and secondly the agricultural lobby, keen to export to Cuba, lobbied for the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act, which finally passed in 2000. The final section of the book analyses democracy promotion efforts under President George W. Bush. Seeking to cast light upon the US policymaking process, Gibbs demonstrates that U.S. Cuba policy represents a rather extreme example of the influence of domestic politics on policymaking, and provides a significant contribution to this important and under-researched aspect of U.S. foreign policy.
Powerful countries like the United States regularly employ economic sanctions as a tool for promoting their foreign policy interests. Yet this foreign policy tool has an uninspiring track record of success, with economic sanctions achieving their goals less than a third of the time they are imposed. The costs of these failed sanctions policies can be significant for the states that impose them, their targets, and the other countries they affect. Explaining economic sanctions' high failure rate therefore constitutes a vital endeavor for academics and policy-makers alike. Busted Sanctions seeks to provide this explanation, and reveals that the primary cause of this failure is third-party spoilers, or sanctions busters, who undercut sanctioning efforts by providing their targets with extensive foreign aid or sanctions-busting trade. In quantitatively and qualitatively analyzing over 60 years of U.S. economic sanctions, Bryan Early reveals that both types of third-party sanctions busters have played a major role in undermining U.S. economic sanctions. Surprisingly, his analysis also reveals that the United States' closest allies are often its sanctions' worst enemies. The book offers the first comprehensive explanation for why different types of sanctions busting occur and reveals the devastating effects it has on economic sanctions' chances of success.
Policymakers will need all the tools at their disposal to craft an effective response to international terrorism and to protect and promote other U.S. interests in the coming decades. In this quest to shape the right strategies for the challenges ahead, economic instruments will play a central role. O'Sullivan, an expert on the use of positive and negative tools of economic statecraft, argues that in the post-September 11th international climate, the United States will be even more willing to use its economic power to advance its foreign policy goals than it has in the past. This impulse, she argues, can lead to a more effective foreign policy given the many ways in which sanctions and incentives can forcefully advance U.S. interests. But a recalibration of these tools—sanctions in particular—is necessary in order for them to live up to their potential. Critical to such a reassessment is a thorough understanding of how the post-cold war international environment—globalization and American primacy in particular—has influenced how sanctions work. O'Sullivan addresses this issue in a thorough examination of sanctions-dominated policies in place against Iran, Iraq, Libya, and Sudan. Her findings not only highlight the many ways in which sanctions have often been poorly suited to achieve their goals in the past, but also suggest how policymakers might use these tools to better effect in the future. This book will provide a valuable resource for policymakers groping to find the right set of instruments to address both the old and the new challenges facing the United States. It will also serve as an important resource to those interested in U.S. policy toward 'rogue' states and in the status of the sanctions debate between policymakers and scholars.
