The Art of Sanctions: A View from the Field (Center on Global Energy Policy Series) - Hardcover

Nephew, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0231180268 ISBN 13: 9780231180269

Publisher: Columbia University Press, 2017

Synopsis

Although sanctions have increasingly been used as a foreign policy tool, they are ineffective if executed without a clear strategy that is responsive to the nature and changing behavior of the target. In The Art of Sanctions, Richard Nephew offers a much-needed practical framework for planning and applying sanctions that focuses not just on the initial sanctions strategy but also, crucially, on how to calibrate along the way and how to decide when the sanctions have achieved maximum effectiveness.

Nephew--a leader in the design and implementation of sanctions on Iran--develops guidelines for interpreting targets' responses to sanctions based on two critical factors: pain and resolve. The efficacy of sanctions lies in the application of pain against a target, but targets may have significant resolve to resist, tolerate, or overcome this pain. Understanding the interplay of pain and resolve is central to using sanctions successfully and humanely. With attention to these two key variables, and to how they change over the course of the sanctions regime, policy makers can pinpoint when diplomatic intervention is likely to succeed or when escalation is necessary. Focusing on lessons from sanctions on both Iran and Iraq, Nephew provides policy makers with practical guidance on how to measure and respond to pain and resolve in the service of strong and successful sanctions regimes.

About this title

About the Author

Richard Nephew is a senior research scholar and program director at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Prior to this, Nephew spent over a decade in the U.S. government, serving in his last two assignments as Director for Iran on the National Security Council at the White House and as Deputy Coordinator for Sanctions Policy at the State Department. Nephew was the lead sanctions expert for the U.S. team negotiating with Iran from August 2013 to December 2014.

Edition details

• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0231180268
• ISBN 13: 9780231180269
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 232