Using Economic Sanctions to Prevent Deadly Conflict Elizabeth S ...

In short, the sanctions had a substantial impact on policy making in Yugoslavia. Their failure tobring peace to Bosnia sooner resulted partly from the U.S. pursuit of grandiose aims and partly from thedifficulty of the task.These three cases show that when an international coalition has had the will to impose strongsanctions it has achieved positive results. At a minimum, the economic damage done by these sanctionswarns the world that the United States can assemble a sanctions' coalition and impose high economiccosts on miscreant states and regimes. Beyond this, the sanctions did compel the target states to makeclear positive changes in their behavior. Without sanctions it seems likely that Saddam Hussein wouldhave withheld his concessions on weapons of mass destruction and further built up his military, theHaitian elites would not have accepted Aristide's return, and Yugoslav President Milosevic would nothave pressured the Bosnian Serbs to make concessions for peace.In sum, the post-cold war experience suggests that the future prospects for the success ofserious multilateral sanctions are bright. Sanctions are not always effective, but they often producesubstantial compliance if they are forcefully applied. In each of the three cases discussed above, thesanctions achieved marked positive results that are traceable to tough, total economic sanctions.III. SANCTIONS AND PREVENTING DEADLY CONFLICTThis section first analyzes the prospects for using economic sanctions to prevent internal andinternational conflict, then presents recommendations for applying sanctions.A. Preventing Internal Conflict