Sanctions Busters in the Post-Cold War Environment

Abstract

The Cold War being over caused the Soviet empire to break down and rearranged foreign challenges to the United States. However, the passage of time did not decrease the use of economic sanctions, there was even a peak in the annual number of sanctions cases in the first half of the 1990’s. The international economy has become even more integrated and new goals and armed conflicts arise all over the world that may change the focus of economic sanctions policy. Next to that, growing interdependence may have increased the freedom of movement and the ability to sanctions-bust for third party countries (Early 2009, 68). This paper offers a comprehensive explanation of the incentives of sanctions busters that have emerged in the pre-Cold War and post-Cold War period, and demonstrates the effect of sanctions-busters incentives on the effectiveness of economic sanctions.