Sanctions as War

Book excerpt: Sanctions as War: Anti-imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy offers the first comprehensive account of economic sanctions as a tool for exercising American power on the global stage. Since the 1980s, the US has steadily increased its reliance on economic sanctions, or the imposition of extensive financial penalties for violation of given rules, to fight its foreign policy battles. Perceived as a less costly and damaging alternative to kinetic military engagement, economic sanctions have been levied against over 25 other countries. In the process, sanctions have destroyed thousands of innocent lives and wreaked inestimable damages to civil society. To understand how sanctions function as a war-making strategy, this collection offers chapters that address the theory and history of economic sanctions as well as chapter-length case studies of sanctions exercised against the civilian populations of Iraq, Venezuela, and other nations. Contiributors are: Shireen Al-Adeimi; Tim Beal; Renate Bridenthal; Jesse Bucher; Stuart Davis; Gregory Elich; Manu Karuka; Jeremy Kuzmarov; Fangfei Lin; Washington Mazorodze; Tanner Mirrlees; Corinna Mullin; Junki Nakahara; Nima Nakhaei; Immanuel Ness; Sarah Raymundo; Muhammad Sahimi; Saif Shahin; Greg Shupak; Gregory Wilpert; Zhun Xu; Helen Yaffe