Originally Posted by
Taksin
You have to watch out for outliers being used to justify the endless use of a futile tactic.. here's the abstract from a paper on the matter:
"This paper considers the economic sanctions that were applied in the mid-1980s to pressure the South African government to end apartheid.
It asks what role those sanctions played in the eventual demise of the apartheid regime and concludes that the role was probably very small.
An alternative explanation for the regime change is offered: the communist bloc combined to bring about the change.
If one is to argue for the efficacy of sanctions, two key obstacles are their limited economic impact and the substantial lag between the imposition of sanctions and the political change.
Since sanctions preceded the change of government, it is impossible to rule them out as a determinant.
However, their principal effect was probably psychological. The implication is that the South African case should not serve as the lone major instance of effective sanctions."
I believe trade is the main motivator for peace between nations, so cutting off trade is very dicey as a tactic
This is nonsense.
You claimed that sanctions don't work.
You were given proof of a country where they DID in fact, work and then respond by quoting "some" paper that claims that it wasn't the sanctions that led to South Africa giiving up the apartheid regime.
(what was it, then? South Africa doesn't have the luxury of massive oile resources that can keep its economy afloat despite sanctions like countries like Russia or Iran or Venezuela do)
We don't even know where that "paper" is from, since you never bothered properly citing it, so it can't even be properly refuted.
Sanctions also worked in Libya to dissaude Gaddafi from pursuing a Nuclear weapons program back in the 1990's
(granted it was combined with the threat of military strikes - but the sanctions did play a larger role than just the threat)
but I'm sure your "paper" has something to say on that as well.
"The communist bloc was the one that really ended the apartheid regime"
What pure utter unadulterated drivel.
The same communist bloc that was in the midst of collapsing as an entity (i.e late 80's/ early '90's) at right around the same time the the South African apartheid regime was ending.
Right.
'I got told there's an English phrase, 'You don't win trophies with kids'. I didn't know that' ... - Jurgen Klopp
Stone-Cold Savage!
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