Sanctions of Mass Destruction

John Mueller and Karl Mueller

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 1999

Article preview: first 500 of 3,817 words total.

Summary:  As Cold War threats have diminished, so-called weapons of mass destruction -- nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and ballistic missiles -- have become the new international bugbears. The irony is that the harm caused by these weapons pales in comparison to the havoc wreaked by a much more popular tool: economic sanctions. Tally up the casualties caused by rogue states, terrorists, and unconventional weapons, and the number is surprisingly small. The same cannot be said for deaths inflicted by international sanctions. The math is sobering and should lead the United States to reconsider its current policy of strangling Iraq.

John Mueller is Professor of Political Science at the University of Rochester. Karl Mueller is Assistant Professor of Comparative Military Studies at the School of Advanced Airpower Studies at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The opinions expressed herein are their personal views.

THREAT ASSESSMENT

With the demise of the Cold War, virtually all the major problems that afflicted great power relations over the last half-century have been resolved. Many argue, however, that new dangers such as those posed by "rogue states" and terrorism have emerged to replace the old ones of conventional or nuclear war. As part of this shift in how threats are constructed and perceived, old worries about nuclear weapons have been subsumed under the new concept of "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD), lumped together with arms that have killed relatively few people to date (biological weapons), arms of much lower potential lethality (chemical weapons), and dramatic but costly and often ineffective delivery vehicles (ballistic missiles).

As these have become prominent bogeymen, the maturation of another impressive method, if not exactly a weapon, of mass destruction has been largely overlooked. The irony is that in contrast to the others, this device -- economic sanctions -- is deployed frequently, by large states rather than small ones, and may have contributed to more deaths during the post-Cold War era than all weapons of mass destruction throughout history. Comparing the record of these various threats to human well-being is an instructive exercise -- and one that casts U.S. policy toward Iraq, which levies sanctions to impede WMD programs, in a new and disturbing light.

TERRORISTS AND ROGUES

However dramatic terrorist attacks are, and however tragic for the innocent victims and their families, the total damage they have caused to date has been quite low and hardly constitutes grounds for panic and hysteria. On average, far fewer Americans are killed each year by terrorists than are killed by lightning, deer accidents, or peanut allergies. To call terrorism a serious threat to national security is scarcely plausible.

This is not to suggest that terrorism be ignored, of course. It is clearly an outrage that should be dealt with somehow -- but more as a form of crime than a form of warfare. For all the attention individual attacks generate, moreover, the situation is probably improving rather than deteriorating. Although there was a rise at the time of the Gulf War, international terrorism has declined in frequency from the late Cold War for a variety of reasons including enhanced prevention measures and better international cooperation. Many activists and states that once saw terrorism as an effective political tool have abandoned it in frustration. Since the effects of terrorism stem less from its actual consequences than from the alarm it inspires, governments, scholars, and the media should depict terrorism for what it is -- the pathetic action of the weak and desperate -- instead of stoking popular fears and magnifying the destructive capabilities of terrorists to cosmic proportions.

Something similar can be said for rogue states. When big problems go away, small problems tend to rise in perceived importance. The "rogue state" concept has accordingly been invented and treated as if it described a new problem in international affairs. Yet there were plenty of such states ...

End of preview: first 500 of 3,817 words total.