Sanctions Are a Silent War on Humanity
U.S.-led economic warfare punishes the world’s most vulnerable while failing to achieve its foreign policy goals.
The U.S. is waging a silent war on humanity in the pursuit of Washington, D.C.'s geopolitical priorities. Economic sanctions, largely imposed by the U.S. government, punish and coerce nations by imposing restrictions on a target country's trade and financial relations.
Since 2001, sanctions have been a tool of "first resort" in the American foreign policy toolbox. Despite being touted for preserving national security and human rights, sanctions are a collective punishment imposed on innocent civilians for the sins of their governments. According to a recent study by The Lancet Global Health, U.S. and E.U. sanctions were responsible for 564,258 deaths annually between 1971 and 2021, which is more than the annual number of battle-related casualties.
Sanctions trigger significant declines in living standards, with adverse effects on per capita income, poverty, and inequality, by inducing economic disruptions. Restrictions on imports deprive civilians of medicines, medical equipment, food, and basic services. Sanctioned societies often experience intense misery, malnourishment, and starvation. Appointed by the Human Rights Council as an independent expert, Idriss Jazairy (a former U.N. special rapporteur), argued that U.S. sanctions imposed on Cuba, Venezuela, and Iran constitute violations of international law, highlighting that "[sanctions] lead to the denial of basic human rights."
The inhumanity is evident in who ultimately pays the price of sanctions. While elites circumvent trade restrictions through indirect exports and smuggling, sanctions indiscriminately target innocent civilians, and vulnerable populations—especially infants, children, and women—are the ones who are disproportionately affected.
The U.S. has claimed to address these concerns with exemptions and licenses for humanitarian goods; these carve-outs are a moral cover for an otherwise ruthless sanctions regime. For those living under the weight of sanctions, the consequences of economic shocks overshadow the limited reprieve offered by humanitarian donations.
Driven by concerns over reputational costs and legal ambiguity, financial and commercial actors from other nations often overcomply with sanctions. This excessive fear causes currency depreciation, capital outflows, and inflation—conditions that leave countries unable to afford humanitarian goods and strangle the private sector. Driven by anxiety over sanctions, international banks have blocked legal transfers, even to humanitarian agencies, which has left legitimate NGOs struggling to find banks willing to process aid transactions.
For proponents of sanctions, civilian suffering is justified as a necessary cost for achieving strategic objectives. Besides this logic being perversely callous, the purported geopolitical benefits of sanctions are fundamentally flawed. According to a comprehensive review, sanctions "appear to work less than ten percent of the time." To circumvent sanctions, countries are diversifying their economic partnerships and turning to digital currencies for financing. In response to import restrictions, countries strengthen their domestic industrial capacity.
The Iranian case demonstrates how targeted regimes can mitigate the effects of sanctions. Iran sustains its economy through alternative industries and informal payment systems that circumvent the banking system. Sanctions spurred growth in Iran's domestic manufacturing industries, especially in defense and military technologies. A rise in cryptocurrency adoption in Iran allows the regime to safeguard financial flows against sanctions.
Instead of promoting regime change, sanctions often backfire, causing a tightening of authoritarian control while fueling nationalism. Dictators can often blame economic crises on Western sanctions rather than their mismanagement. Sanctions may have even boosted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's popularity, further entrenching authoritarianism in the country. Faced with economic instability, sanctioned governments scapegoat minority groups, heightening ethnic divisions and increasing the risk of civil war.
The West drastically overestimated the effectiveness of sanctions on Russia's economy. Economic coercion also failed to halt North Korea's nuclear and missile developments. Economic sanctions did not contain Iran's nuclear advancements—instead, sanctions exacerbated regional tensions and empowered Iranian hardliners.
Like armed conflict, sanctions lead to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people yearly and destabilize countries. American economic statecraft suffers from a sanctions-industrial-complex problem, where the U.S. insists on using punishment as policy and devastation disguised as diplomacy.
