Iran and the Nuclear Sanctions Debate

Iran and the Nuclear Sanctions Debate

08/27/14

Albert B. Wolf

Nonproliferation, Nuclear Weapons, Sanctions, Iran, United States

"With a few exceptions, the threat of sanctions serve as an effective deterrent against starting a nuclear program in the first place."

Whether or not a grand bargain is struck with Iran, we’re likely to have another debate in Washington over whether economic sanctions “work.” Economic sanctions are most likely to be effective where they are least likely to be used: against America’s allies. With a few exceptions, the threat of sanctions serve as an effective deterrent against starting a nuclear program in the first place. However, once states start nuclear programs, economic sanctions are unlikely to reverse their progress.

Sanctions Can Prevent Nuclear Weapons Programs, But They Don’t Stop Them

The biggest successes from economic sanctions come before they are ever used. After China had its first nuclear tests in the 1960s, members of the Kennedy administration feared that it would not only weaken the United States’ position in Asia, but unleash a cascade of proliferation that would ultimately result in West Germany’s acquisition of the bomb.

States that have relied on the United States’ conventional and nuclear umbrellas also relied on access to the open economic order constructed and supported by the United States after the Second World War. A number of states that have fallen under the United States’ “sphere of influence” have eschewed nuclearization—from Japan to South Korea, Taiwan and Germany, because the benefits of the bomb were outweighed by the costs of sanctions (namely, losing access to the international economy). Even where the logic of international anarchy would seem to dictate starting a nuclear program (as in the China case or, more recently, with North Korea’s series of nuclear tests), the prospect of incurring sanctions and losing access to American markets and security guarantees has deterred a number of states from attempting to join the nuclear club.

Sanctions Give Nuclear States Incentives to Redouble Their Nuclear Efforts

Social scientists and historians often focus on what they can observe. Because we seldom see sanctions preventing states from giving up the bomb, we mistakenly equate this with the idea that sanctions never work.

Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/iran-the-nuclear-sanctions-debate-11154