158 CHAPTER FivE ■ The STaTe
A state’s ability to use these instruments of economic statecraft depends on its
power potential. States with a variety of power sources have more instruments at their
disposal. Clearly, only eco nom ically well- endowed countries can grant licenses, offer
investment guarantees, grant preferences to specific countries, house foreign assets,
or boycott effectively. Radicals often point to this fact to illustrate the hegemony of
the international cap i tal ist system.
Although radicals disagree, liberals argue that developing states do have some
leverage in economic statecraft under special circumstances. If a state or group of
states controls a key resource whose production is limited, their power is strength-
ened. Among the primary commodities, petroleum has this potential, and it gave the
Arab members of the Or ga ni za tion of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
the ability to impose oil sanctions on the United States and the Netherlands when
those two countries strongly supported Israel in the 1973 Arab- Israeli War.
The ability of sanctions to alter a target state’s be hav ior appears mixed. South
Africa illustrates a case of relative success in the use of economic sanctions. When the
Reagan administration’s “constructive engagement” policy failed to work, the U.S.
Congress approved harsh sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid regime in 1986,
over a presidential veto. Under the Comprehensive Anti- Apartheid Act, the United
States joined with other countries and the United Nations, which had already imposed
economic sanctions. In 1992, the white- controlled South African regime announced a
po liti cal opening that led to the end of apartheid and white- minority rule. Most com-
mentators conclude that sanctions prob ably had an impor tant effect on the regime’s
decision to change policy, but that was not the sole explanation.
Economic statecraft does not always lead to the intended outcome. In 1960, the
United States imposed an economic, commercial, and financial embargo against Cuba,
designed to punish the communist regime under Fidel Castro; those restrictions were
strengthened and codified in 1992, making it the longest trade embargo in history.
Only in 2000 were some of the restrictions relaxed for agribusiness and medicine.
But, in late 2014, the Obama administration deci ded that sanctions had not worked
and a new era of positive engagement would begin. Talking with Cuba’s leaders and
bureaucrats, re- opening the U.S. embassy in Havana, and using executive power to
loosen a host of travel and commercial restrictions, including removing Cuba from
the list of states sponsoring terrorism, would begin the engagement pro cess. While
only Congress can lift the economic embargo, the Obama administration embarked
on a totally diff er ent strategy, to the consternation of some Florida- based older Cubans
and many Republicans.
Iraq and Rus sia represent cases of ambiguous results for sanctioning, albeit for dif-
fer ent reasons, and illustrate the difficulty in evaluating the policy’s effectiveness.
Between 1991 and 2003, Iraq was subject to comprehensive sanctions designed to pres-
sure the Saddam Hussein regime to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction and