Track: Engineering Economy

Abstract

The results of a study in 1995 showed that about 70 percent of economic sanctions that have lasted more than 3 years have failed in the achievement of predetermined objectives in changing the behavior or political system in the target country. Then in 1997, a study was conducted that evaluated the effectiveness of economic sanctions about 34%. On the other hand, in terms of the objectives of sanctions, the sanctions are usually imposed for two main purposes: Punitive sanctions to change the behavior of governments (tactical sanctions), and comprehensive sanctions to change the political system or ruling government in the target country (strategic sanctions). This paper tries to supplement the 1995study by Van Bergeijk and Van Marrewijk to analyze the correlation between "the sanctions success " and "the sanctions duration ", and examine the hypothesis that these two variables have always had a negative correlation over the history of economic sanctions since World War II to the present time, and only two of the 13 cases of strategic economic sanctions have been successful (about 15%). Finally, with combination of these two hypotheses, it is concluded that long-term strategic sanctions are very likely doomed to failure. This approach can be used for strategic economic planning of Russia that are target of western strategic sanctions.