Review Sheet Exam 2 Kirsher Article Key Concepts and Questions for Reading from Section 2 Coercion These are the central government and the core groups whose political support allows the regime to remain in power Pg 42 o There are two sets of actors that should be identified for maximum pressure o Pressure on these two sets of actors represents direct and indirect methods of accomplish a goal Direct pressure on the central government gives elites incentives to change policies Pressure on core support groups creates indirect incentives by motivating those groups to pressure the government to change course and by raising fears that dissatisfaction among such groups will cause them to conclude that their interests can be better served under new leadership The greatest challenge to sanctions often comes not from the failure of such measures to have an economic effect but from the failure of that economic effect to translate into the desired political outcome Pg 41 o The problem derives from the most costly error resulting from the study of sanctions in an aggregate sense the treatment of the target as a unitary actor o Sanctions feature distinct attributes o Sanctions affect groups in society differently o The success of sanctions depends no on their impact on the target economy as a whole but on the extent to which the groups are hurt For Kirshner the key to sanctions success is o Identifying and targeting the right groups is the key to maximizing the chances that sanctions will be successful According to Kirshner were U S sanctions against Panama in the late 1980 s successful Explain o There was an uprising in Panama outside of the U S Embassy the Reagan administration suspended U S economic and military aid until paid for the damage inflicted on the embassy o The Panamanian government paid the money for the damages but the U S opted not to resume aid o Relations took a turn for the worse and President Reagan suspended Panama s sugar quota and moved to prevent it from gaining new loans from international organizations o It is widely recognized that the sanctions ere devastating o The imposed sanctions included asset seizure and a suspension of payments to the government of Panama for the operation of the Panama Canal o Leader of Panama stayed strong o The sanctions failed because Monetary sanctions hurt broad sectors of the economy especially the middle and lower class but this was not in the leadership s core group of support The government was not highly sensitive to the perception of its economic management Sanctions missed the target Panama s economy is dominated by services and was not highly vulnerable to such sanctions The sanctions were insufficiently severe The sanctions were not sufficiently focused on the target the leader and his core support group the military The domestic political structure of the target rendered the instruments available to the sending state poorly focused in this particular case According to Kirshner were U S sanctions against the Dominican Republic between 1960 and 1962 successful Explain o Attempting to remove dictator from power o Broke diplomatic relations and suspended arms sales o Terminated the modest military it had been providing o Restricted sugar imports o Eventually sanctions included petroleum trucks and spare parts o The most vulnerable part of the Dominican Republic was sugar the leader s wealth was also immersed in the sugar market o The sanctions were successful because The costs of the sanctions could not be shifted easily to groups outside the core and there was no expectation that the weight of sanctions would dissipate over time if anything it could be tightened further The sanctions hurt the regime directly and emboldened opposition groups The sanctions limited the leader s ability to shield core groups from their impact Leader was assassinated Central government was directly affected by the sanctions This reduced its resource base and made it difficult to ease the sting that the sanctions were also imparting on its traditional allies Sanctions were not only leveled in such a way as to weaken the target government and undermine the base of support but they also simultaneously emboldened the opposition and provided a pressing rationale for policy change Hovi et al Article Sanctions are most likely to be successful at what stage of conflict Were the economic sanctions against Iraq in the 1992 successful according to Hovi et al o The threat stage Explain o No because There was no choice to concede the change harm was imposed The sanctions were considered to be a form of brute force not coercion There was nothing Saddam could have done to avoid the sanctions To be coercive violence has to be anticipated and it has to be avoidable by accommodation Sanctions that are the least successful are the ones that have to be imposed What are the three key factors that affect the success of threatened sanctions 1 Credibility 2 Potency 3 Contingent Resolve depends on how your target perceives you Potency is political cost on the leadership What is necessary according to Hovi et al for a target to concede to imposed sanctions o When the target miscalculates the senders threat on Credibility of the target believed the treat was not credible and sanctions are unexpectedly imposed then the target may be forced to reconsider very rare Potency If the target underestimates the potency of the threat it then forces the actual cost of sanctions once they are imposed and the target might then decide to yield Contingency If the target believed sanctions were non contingent after sanctions are imposed the sender must make it clear that sanctions will be lifted if the target reconsiders in which case the target might then decide to yield Clausewitz No other activity is so continuously or universally bound up with o Chance o Being scared to lose o Element of uncertainty What game does war resemble the most o Poker War is what type of activity o Political evaluation o Military objective depends on political drive o War military actions without politics is a fantasy o War is a political activity What is the paradoxical trinity that forms war 1 Politics political purpose 2 Violence use of force 3 Chance probability uncertainty What does Clausewitz mean by friction o Any force that goes against you o With every military campaign there is a chance of something unexpected happening o Countless minor incidents the kind you can never foresee o Makes war
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