As a means for responding to a wide array of national security concerns and violations of international norms, economic sanctions have occupied an increasingly prominent place in the tool kit of US policymakers. Ever since the United States championed UN Security Council Resolution 661 to expel Iraq from Kuwait in August 1990, it has imposed sanctions to restore democratically elected governments, protect human rights, extradite international fugitives, and end inter-state and civil wars. Especially after the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the United States has employed more specialized smart sanctions, both on its own and in conjunction with the UN Security Council, to combat what many claim to be the most serious contemporary threat to US and global security—the spread of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Although practitioners and politicians continue to resort to sanctions to punish wrongdoers, critical assessments of sanctions continue to be quite mixed. Some lament the limited success rate of sanctions, which most analysts consider to be 33 percent or lower. Others worry that Congressional trade and aid restrictions combine with UN-mandated sanctions to create a sanctions “epidemic” in US foreign and economic policy.

And yet, sanctions techniques have become increasingly effective. This trend can be attributed to a number of mutually reinforcing realities. First, policymakers from the United States and the international community now recognize those factors in sanctions formulation and implementation that lead to success. Second, the development of sharpened sanctions techniques—so-called “smart sanctions”—has replaced comprehensive trade sanctions. These provide states and international organizations with greater versatility of coercive economic measures while limiting the unanticipated humanitarian damage that sanctions can bring. Third, the success of sanctions necessitates astute consideration and management of the complex, symbiotic relationship that has emerged between the United States and the UN Security Council. This demands a coordinated strategy that balances sanctions and incentives as complementary tools designed to pressure and encourage delinquent states into changing their behavior.

Designing Successful Sanctions

The dozens of sanctions cases implemented since 1990 resulted in an impression of the international community as having a good idea of how to guarantee the success of a given sanction. Four considerations are particularly instructive for designing effective policies.

First, in this age of globalization, unilateral sanctions seldom succeed—multilateral support and cooperation are essential to the success of sanctions. In fact, when international (United Nations), regional (such as the European Union), and national authorities coordinate their actions to effectively monitor and enforce sanctions, target compliance increases significantly.

Second, sanctions as a means of punishment and isolation rarely succeed. Indeed, sanctions form only half of the mix of mechanisms needed to alter the behavior of stubborn targets. Positive inducements—the proverbial carrots of international economic and political relations—are a necessary complement to the sticks of a sanctions strategy. This is especially true in complex cases such as the control of weapons proliferation.

Third, sanctions succeed when they are a component of a larger foreign or international policy with multiple tools that collectively serve a specified end. When sanctions are the policy or are maintained for so long that they, de facto, become the policy, then they are no longer effective. This was the trap that the United States and United Nations fell into with sanctions against Iraq during the 1990s.

Finally, the structure of sanctions must be clear and credible. Both the imposers and the target must be in a reasonably full agreement on what constitutes compliance. Moreover, the target must be confident that if it changes its behavior, there will be a timely lifting of coercive pressure and an extension of promised benefits.

As policymakers have sought to integrate these considerations into their design of sanctions techniques, they have often opted for what have been deemed smart sanctions—refined monetary and financial asset freezes, travel bans, aviation sanctions, and commodity boycotts aimed narrowly at government officials or corporate entities responsible for objectionable policies. Since the mid-1990s, all UN and multilateral sanctions in which the United States has participated have been smart sanctions.

Some of the most notable successes in this area have been in interdicting “blood diamonds” and related financial networks in seven African internal wars. They have also been used effectively to capture financial assets and lock down fake passport and travel networks belonging to individuals affiliated with Al Qaeda in the first six months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. With these four considerations integrated into their framework, smart sanctions can continue to be used as effective tools for bringing about necessary changes of behavior in delinquent countries.

The Complicated UN-US Relationship

As with other national and international security tools, governments often use smart sanctions and the broader carrot-stick strategy against the backdrop of complex and often competitive political environments. For the United States, this includes international tensions that come from its partnership with the UN Security Council. The last two decades have been tumultuous for the UN-US relationship, with rifts that have varied from mutual displeasure to outright disdain. Often led by congressmen anxious to score domestic political points and sustained by presidential acquiescence, there has been a litany of accusations levied by US politicians against the United Nations—that it has a bloated bureaucracy, reeks of official corruption (e.g. the Oil-for-Food program), and promotes incompetent management. Such criticism provided the basis for Congress’ decision to withhold payment of UN dues throughout the 1990s.

From its side, UN Secretaries-General and various governments sitting on the Security Council have charged the United States with a lack of leadership when UN action was called for in genocides in Bosnia, Rwanda, and Darfur. As the Iraqi sanctions unfolded in the 1990s, various UN diplomats and staff accused the United States of manipulating sanctions and weapons inspections for its own geopolitical agenda. The inability of the United States to build a consensus for Security Council action against Iraq led both Secretary-General Kofi Annan and various other Security Council members to condemn the United States for waging an unauthorized war against Iraq.

In the domestic context, congressional sanctions legislation, which reflects a wide range of salient domestic interests, may be out of sync with the sanctions obligations that the United States is under as a permanent member of the Security Council. Congress may therefore contravene the administration’s UN-mandated actions. More recently, however, Congress has passed or renewed sanctions against a state in such a way that it permits the president to play a two-tiered strategy: he can be tough on the delinquent state by maintaining an exclusively US embargo, but he can also fulfill international obligations and end certain sanctions in accordance with UN policies.