WEBVTT - How Do Sanctions Work?

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey

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<v Speaker 1>brain Stuff. Lauren Bogbaum here. On February twenty one, Russian

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<v Speaker 1>President Vladimir Putin gave an hour long speech where he

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<v Speaker 1>not only recognized the independence of two Russia BacT territories

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<v Speaker 1>in eastern Ukraine, but also delegitimized the sovereignty of Ukraine itself.

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<v Speaker 1>Putin expanded the idea that Ukraine's borders were drawn up

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<v Speaker 1>by the Soviet Union's founder, Vladimir Lenin and still exist

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<v Speaker 1>only because of the fall of the Soviet Union in

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<v Speaker 1>After the speech, Putin ordered troops into those eastern territories

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<v Speaker 1>under the guise of them being peacemakers. Many experts in

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<v Speaker 1>global geopolitics were concerned, if not horrified, by the speech

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<v Speaker 1>and invasion, suggesting it was Putin's way of rewriting history

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<v Speaker 1>as well as of providing a reason to launch what

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<v Speaker 1>could become the largest war in Europe's in the end

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<v Speaker 1>of World War Two. The speech came after Putin had

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<v Speaker 1>spent months building up Russian military forces surrounding Ukraine. He's

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<v Speaker 1>also demanded Ukraine not be allowed to join NATO, the

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<v Speaker 1>defensive alliance that currently includes thirty countries, So how is

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<v Speaker 1>the world responding? The NATO Ukraine Commission met in Brussels

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<v Speaker 1>on Tuesday, February twenty second two to address the situation.

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<v Speaker 1>NATO Secretary Yan Stoltenberg said it will stand by Ukrainian

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<v Speaker 1>sovereignty with force if necessary, but hoped Russia would still

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<v Speaker 1>choose diplomacy. So aside from a full on war, what

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<v Speaker 1>else are world leaders doing to deter Putin from invading Ukraine?

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<v Speaker 1>They're imposing sanctions. So today let's talk about what sanctions

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<v Speaker 1>are and how they're imposed, and also what sanctions are

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<v Speaker 1>supposed to accomplish and how they work. Very basically, sanctions

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<v Speaker 1>are sort of economic versions of weaponry designed to turn

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<v Speaker 1>up the pressure on another country and its regimes leaders

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<v Speaker 1>by hitting them in their wallets. For the article this

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<v Speaker 1>episode is based on How Stuff Works. Spoke with Ellen

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<v Speaker 1>laps In back In. She's the director of the Master's

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<v Speaker 1>in International Security degree program and the Center for Security

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<v Speaker 1>Policy Studies at George Mason University's Shore School of Policy

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<v Speaker 1>and Government and a former vice chair of the U.

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<v Speaker 1>S Government's National Intelligence Council. She explained sanctions are any

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<v Speaker 1>penalty or disruption in the normal economic relations between two countries. Usually,

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<v Speaker 1>sanctions are supposed to target a particular bad behavior or

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<v Speaker 1>send a signal to an unfriendly country. Sanctions often involve

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<v Speaker 1>freezing any of the target's assets, such as real estate

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<v Speaker 1>or funds and bank accounts that happened to be inside

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<v Speaker 1>the US, and threatening to punish any financial institution inside

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<v Speaker 1>or outside the US that does transactions for the adversary

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<v Speaker 1>or helps in some other way. But sanctions also can

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<v Speaker 1>take a variety of other forms as well, from interrupting

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<v Speaker 1>international trade to closing a border to suspending arms sales.

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<v Speaker 1>The sanctions can even be tailored to hit a specific

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<v Speaker 1>industry or part of another nations economy At any rate,

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<v Speaker 1>it's a form of what's called coercive diplomacy. Sanctions come

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<v Speaker 1>down to this, how do you get their attention so

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<v Speaker 1>they're feeling some pain and give themselves incentives to change

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<v Speaker 1>their behavior. Here in the US, the President has sweeping

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<v Speaker 1>authority to impose sanctions on other countries and leaders under

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<v Speaker 1>the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, of which allows him

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<v Speaker 1>or her to impose them quote to deal with any

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<v Speaker 1>unusual and extraordinary threat. Congress has the power to hit

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<v Speaker 1>other nations and people with sanctions as well. Back in

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<v Speaker 1>for example, legislators passed the magnet Ski Act to impose

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<v Speaker 1>sanctions against Russia. The law is named after a corruption

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<v Speaker 1>exposing lawyer who died in a Russian prison cell. In

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<v Speaker 1>two thousand nine, a Congress imposed additional sanctions against Russia

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<v Speaker 1>for an invasion of Ukraine. In given the current Russia

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<v Speaker 1>Ukraine crisis, President Joe Biden announced on February twenty two

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<v Speaker 1>that the US would impose sanctions would extend further than

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<v Speaker 1>those implemented in including sanctions that will prohibit American financial

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<v Speaker 1>institutions from processing transactions for large Russian banks. This will

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<v Speaker 1>effectively inhibit those banks from transactions involving US dollars. Leipson

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<v Speaker 1>explained that Congress often resorts to sanctions to avoid having

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<v Speaker 1>tensions with another country explode into armed conflict. She said,

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<v Speaker 1>Congress often believes, let's go carefully up the escalatory ladder.

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<v Speaker 1>Let's express our disapproval in a resolution. If they don't

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<v Speaker 1>pay attention, will then threaten sanctions. If they still don't

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<v Speaker 1>pay attention, we'll impose those sanctions, and then will impose

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<v Speaker 1>more sanctions. It's a longer continuum from peace to war.

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<v Speaker 1>Either way. Once sanctions are imposed, the Treasury Department's Office

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<v Speaker 1>of Foreign Asset Control enforces the restrictions. Of course, other

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<v Speaker 1>countries can impose sanctions as well, though according to Leipson,

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<v Speaker 1>nobody utilizes the economic weapon as frequently is the US does. Instead,

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<v Speaker 1>most only want to participate in multinational sanctions, such as

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<v Speaker 1>those imposed by the U N Security Council, which have

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<v Speaker 1>included economic and trade sanctions as well as arms embargoes

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<v Speaker 1>and travel bands. Since nineteen sixty six, the U N

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<v Speaker 1>has used such measures thirty times, punishing regimes ranging from

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<v Speaker 1>apartheid era South Africa to North Korea. Okay, but so

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<v Speaker 1>do sanctions actually work? Leipson said, There's always this range

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<v Speaker 1>of opinion about whether sanctions work or not. It depends

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<v Speaker 1>on what your intentions were. If your intention was to punish,

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<v Speaker 1>then just measuring the economic pain on another country is

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<v Speaker 1>a way of saying the sanctions are working. If your

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<v Speaker 1>intention is to truly change the behavior of the other country,

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<v Speaker 1>you have to use a very different metric, and in

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<v Speaker 1>that case, most sanctions fail because countries become resistant. They're

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<v Speaker 1>willing to absorb the pain for nationalistic reasons. They don't

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<v Speaker 1>want to concede to a more powerful country instead of

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<v Speaker 1>giving in. For example, a targeted nation may find another

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<v Speaker 1>more powerful nation to act as its patron. For example,

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<v Speaker 1>after the US imposed a sweeping embargo on the communist

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<v Speaker 1>regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba in nineteen sixty, the

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<v Speaker 1>island nation relied upon trade with the Soviet Union, which

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<v Speaker 1>for years bought Cuban sugar at five to six times

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<v Speaker 1>the world market price as a way of tweaking the

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<v Speaker 1>United States It's Cold War adversary. There's also increasing political

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<v Speaker 1>pushback against the sort of sanctions that broadly target and

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<v Speaker 1>nation's economy, out of concern that they punish the population

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<v Speaker 1>rather than the government. As Lapson explained, that's led to

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<v Speaker 1>a shift towards the so called smart or targeted sanctions,

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<v Speaker 1>which might be designed to target regimes leaders but allow

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<v Speaker 1>the country to import needed medicines. Targeted sanctions might also

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<v Speaker 1>include arms embargoes, financial sanctions on the assets of individuals

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<v Speaker 1>and companies, travel restrictions on the leaders of a sanctioned state,

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<v Speaker 1>and trade sanctions on particular goods. Today's episode is based

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<v Speaker 1>on the article why countries use economic sanctions to prevent conflict?

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<v Speaker 1>On how s Toffworks dot com written by Patrick J. Keaiger.

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<v Speaker 1>Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio in partnership

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<v Speaker 1>with hous Tofworks dot Com and is produced by Tyler

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<v Speaker 1>Clang and Ramsey Young. For more podcasts my heart Radio,

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