Economic Sanctions: Strategic Stiletto or Blunt Force Bludgeon

Economic sanctions are increasingly being used to promote the full range of American foreign policy objectives. But too often sanctions are not well conceived or implemented which reflects mostly an expression of U.S. political expediency that hurts American economic interests without changing the targets behavior for the better. U.S. economic sanctions need to be less unilateral, more coordinated and more focused on the foreign policy problem at hand, not a broad-brush, unenforceable panacea. There needs to be more rigorous oversight of sanctions, both prior to adopting them and regularly thereafter, to ensure that the expected benefits outweigh likely costs and that sanctions accomplish the intended foreign policy objectives.