If Sanctions Failed on Cuba, why Should they Work against Russia?
The irony is striking: just as the United States prepares to double down on sanctions against Russia, it has admitted that 50 years of sanctions against Cuba have been a failure.
"We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests," said President Barack Obama on Wednesday as he drew the curtain on what one expert calls the "most drawn-out foreign policy mistake in U.S. history".
"It has been a complete disaster," said Alex von Tunzelmann, author of "Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean" which tracks the US-Cuba relationship.
"Sanctions were supposed to bring an end to Castro's regime, and instead the regime has lasted half a century and is still going strong."
Yet the long-awaited admission that sanctions had failed against Cuba came just a day after the White House said it would pass a law allowing still-tougher sanctions against Havana's old Cold War ally, Moscow, over its actions in Ukraine.
One of the things that makes sanctions so controversial is that they give targeted regimes an excuse for all their problems.
"The Castros have been kept in power this whole time by the sanctions, which have allowed them to claim that anything going wrong on the island -- economic hardship, shortages -- is because of the U.S. blockade," said Tunzelmann.
Similarly, Russia has managed to paint Western sanctions as an unprovoked attack.
"Sometimes I think maybe they'll let the bear eat berries and honey in the forest, maybe they will leave it in peace," said President Vladimir Putin at a press conference on Thursday, invoking his country's symbol as a bear.
"They will not. Because they will always try to put him on a chain, and as soon as they succeed in doing so they tear out his fangs and his claws."
The U.S. began imposing sanctions after Fidel Castro seized power in Cuba in 1959 and nationalized more than $1 billion in American assets on the island. Diplomatic relations were broken off in 1961 and a full economic blockade became official a year later.
"What was the purpose of sanctions in Cuba? I'm not sure anyone knew anymore," said Tom Keatinge, an expert on finance and security at the Royal United Services Institute in London.
"The people who voted for them in the first place are probably all dead. It was an anachronism that has stayed in place for political reasons."
Still, he says the international community has learned a lot about the best way to apply sanctions.
"They have become more intelligent in their approach. Rather than just blanket sanctions, which was how it started in Cuba, in the Russia case they are trying to pick off individuals and certain businesses," said Keatinge.
Iran is held up as an example of sanctions being effective, pushing the country to open negotiations over its nuclear program -- although those talks are far from concluded.
A diplomatic, cultural and trade embargo of South Africa in the 1980s also helped bring an end to apartheid.
But other uses have been highly controversial, particularly the sanctions against Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1990s which impoverished the population and emptied hospitals of medicine while being easily evaded by the rich.
The Kremlin has taken a defiant stand, refusing to change its position on Ukraine or return the Crimean peninsula that it annexed in March.
But the sanctions are starting to bite. Putin on Thursday said they contributed "25-30 percent" of the current economic crisis.
The problem is that the pain of sanctions has a tendency to spread.
"We are now in a world of interdependence and globalization. If Russia collapses as a result of sanctions, it will also cause problems in Poland, Germany, or France," said Bertrand Badie, an international relations expert in Paris.
That is unlikely to stop their use for the simple reason that countries have few, if any, alternatives.
"In the Russia-Ukraine situation, the only alternative anyone would contemplate was doing nothing, and that wasn't an option," said Keatinge.
"The imposition of sanctions was as much about showing support to Ukraine as they were about punishing Russia and drawing a line so he understood the path he was going down was unacceptable."
But Cuba may have taught the West to think carefully about how long economic measures should be kept in place.
"The lesson from Cuba is that sanctions don't break regimes," said Tunzelmann. "They just stir up resentment."
Source: Agence France Presse
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