جنگ و تحریم های اقتصادی در سیاست خارجی امریکا در دوران پساجنگ سرد

با افزایش استفاده از ابزار تحریم، و همزمان کاهش توسل به جنگ در سیاست خارجی امریکا در چند دهه اخیر، پرسش‌هایی در مورد اهمیت نسبی این دو ابزار اجبار در سیاست خارجی و احتمال جایگزینی تحریم‌های اقتصادی به‌جای جنگ به‌عنوان ابزار غالب در این سیاست مطرح شده است. بروز رویدادهای بین‌المللی مانند مداخله نظامی امریکا در بوسنی، افغانستان و عراق، و حضور نیروهای نظامی غرب در خاورمیانه برای مبارزه با تروریسم، به پررنگ‌تر شدن اهمیت جنگ در مقایسه با ابزار غیرنظامی برای رسیدن به اهداف سیاست خارجی واشنگتن کمک کرد. در این پژوهش به این پرسش پاسخ داده خواهد شد که چگونه از ابزار تحریم به‌عنوان زمینه‌ساز یا جایگزین جنگ در سیاست خارجی ایالات متحده استفاده شده است. با در نظر گرفتن تفاوت بین تحریم‌های مذاکره‌ای و تنبیهی، لزوم کاستن از فشار تحریمی در پاسخ به همکاری دولت هدف، و نگاه به تحریم به‌منزله جایگزین جنگ، فرضیه مورد آزمون طرح شده است. ازاین‌رو، استدلال می‌شود که در سیاست خارجی امریکا، میزان فشار تحریمی (حذف، کاهش یا افزایش تحریم‌ها) به اهمیت تحریم به‌عنوان جایگزین، زمینه‌ساز یا مکمل جنگ بستگی دارد و به میزان همکاری دولت هدف چندان وابسته نیست. برای آزمون این فرضیه از روش مطالعه موردی مقایسه‌ای اعمال تحریم و یا اقدام به جنگ علیه کره شمالی و عراق در بازه زمانی مشخص، تحلیل رویدادها و مواضع اعلامی دولت واشنگتن با توجه به نظرهای کارشناسان استفاده شد.

Economic Sanctions and War in US Foreign Policy in the PostCold War Era

The adoption of coercive instruments by governments has a longer history than foreign policy itself. In the absence of diplomacy, armed conflicts were the primary means of communication among countries. Over time and with the growing interdependence of countries, military means (i.e., armed conflicts) as the sole conduit of coercion in foreign policy were supplanted by a wide range of coercive means available for governments to use. However, war as the ultimate inevitable option or the last resort has remained relevant. Economic sanction has been one of the most important nonmilitary coercive instruments of foreign policy that has increasingly been used by the United States in recent years.Many questions have been raised regarding the relationship between this coercive economic tool of foreign policy and the traditional tool of coercion (i.e., war). These questions seek to examine the role of sanctions as an independent or complementary tool of foreign policy, and to explain how sanctions play a role in substituting or preparing the grounds for war. In this paper, the authors attempt to find an answer for the following questions: What role do economic sanctions play in U.S. foreign policy? How is sanction used as the forerunner of war or its alternative? In the research hypothesis, it is asserted that understanding economic sanction as an alternative to war leads to decreasing the pressure of sanctions in response to targeted government’s cooperation, while perceiving economic sanction as a complement (and precursor) to war leads to maintaining (or increasing) the pressure of sanctions, despite the targeted state’s relative acceptance of the demands of the coercive state.To answer these questions, the authors first explain the importance of coercive tools in US foreign and security policy based on the differences between  militarycivilian  coercive  tools, and the distinction between soft power, athard power and “power to coerce” (P2C). Accordingly, we distinguish between the forced “use of force” to defend and the “use of force” to initiate wars. Also, the boundaries between implicit coercion and absolute coercion are drawn. In the next step, we identify the relative position of economic sanction (and war) as the coercive tools of US foreign policy; and the relationship between coercive diplomacy and economic sanction is also explained. Then,  the typology of sanctions and specifically the distinction between bargaining and punitive sanctions are explored. Sanctions are not used in a vacuum, and are primarily imposed against adversaries, the next section provides a chronology of events showing the nature of US relations with two of its nemeses, namely North Korea and Iraq in order to collect data required to test the research hypothesis, using event data analysis.The findings show that economic sanction can play a role as either the precursor or an alternative to war. Given the US government's ultimate strategy toward the targeted state and the latter’s potential to create significant costs for the US, this role is defined at three levels: regional, international and US domestic arena. The event data analysis of USNorth Korean relations shows that the high destructive power of the North Korean government (given its possession of nuclear weapons) led to the role of economic sanction as an alternative to war against that country. In contrast, the case of Iraq reflects the strategy of regime change towards that country, a strategy that was facilitated by the use of economic sanction as an instrument of weakening an adversary before waging a fullscale war to accomplish foreign policy objectives.