[jpster]

> "great powers" are using economic integration as "weapons."

This is so true and I think economic sanctions should be recognized as the weapons they actually are.

Just a taste: No Amazon, No Gmail: Trump Sanctions Upend the Lives of I.C.C. Judges President Trump’s retaliation against top officials at the International Criminal Court has shut them out of American services and made even routine daily tasks a challenge. https://archive.is/KflDP

Now consider the US has been doing this to entire countries for decades. Cuba, Venezuela, Iran. Forget Amazon, the inability to use the SWIFT banking system has all sorts of nasty consequences that get elided by a clinical sounding term.

From the Lancet:

Our findings showed a significant causal association between sanctions and increased mortality. We found the strongest effects for unilateral, economic, and US sanctions, whereas we found no statistical evidence of an effect for UN sanctions. Mortality effects ranged from 8·4 log points (95% CI 3·9–13·0) for children younger than 5 years to 2·4 log points (0·9–4·0) for individuals aged 60–80 years. We estimated that unilateral sanctions were associated with an annual toll of 564 258 deaths (95% CI 367 838–760 677), similar to the global mortality burden associated with armed conflict. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-1...

[JumpCrisscross]

> economic sanctions should be recognized as the weapons they actually are

You don’t need a study to conclude the mortality of actual weapons.

Sanctions are bad. But war is horrible.

[jpster]

Did you skip right over the Lancet sentence that concluded the annual toll caused by unilateral sanctions (over 564k) is comparable to armed conflict?

[JumpCrisscross]

> the annual toll caused by unilateral sanctions (over 564k) is comparable to armed conflict?

In aggregate. America isn’t in armed conflict with those folks. If everyone we sanctioned were attacked, more people would die.

[jpster]

I am saying that sanctions are weapon of sorts and have worse effects than people realize, and you seem to be saying their effects are not as bad as those of kinetic weapons. Despite Lancet concluding their tolls are comparable.

[s1artibartfast]

What are the economic death tolls of wars? It seems like those should be included.

Moreover, it's kind of consequentialist morality ignores the distinction of active harm versus failure to Aid.

This should play a role when one considers something an attack or weapon.

Is less than maximal charity an attack?

Is it an attack when someone refuses to sleep with someone else?

Norms around choice versus entitlement distinguish the two.

[jpster]

If I blockade you in your house, is that failure to aid? Or something else? Sanctions occur via commission, not omission. They’re not a failure to render aid or to be maximally charitable. They’re active harm.

[lovich]

If economic sanctions aren’t weapons, then why do sovereign nations deploy them against other sovereign nations to achieve their will?

[mlrtime]

Because actual weapons are much worse, don't you try to exhaust all options until you stop dropping bombs on people?

[lovich]

I replied to a comment mentioning deaths from sanctions.

Other than our monkey brains prioritizing physical violence as worse, I don’t see a functional different between deaths from sanctions and deaths from bombs.

[rchaud]

Sanctions are the prelude to inevitable war, as WW2, Afghanistan, Iraq and Ukraine have shown.

[jpster]

US Treasury Secretary in Davos this week:

When asked, “Do sanctions actually work (on Iran)?”, Bessent replied:

If you look at a speech I gave at the economic club of New York last March, I said that I believe the Iranian currency was on the verge of collapse, that if I were an Iranain citizen, I would take my money out.

President Trump ordered treasury and our OFAC division, (Office of Foreign Asset Control) to put maximum pressure on Iran, and it’s worked because in December, their economy collapsed, we saw a major bank go under, the central bank has started to print money, there is a dollar shortage, they are not able to get imports and this is why the people took to the streets.

He added, “This is economic statecraft, no shots fired, and things are moving in a very positive way here.” https://the307.substack.com/p/at-the-wef-scott-bessent-says-...