Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests

Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Syria, Russia – the seemingly endless list of countries under international and targeted sanctions shows how much they have become a hot-button policy issue. Sanctions are notably much discussed among Western countries – which are at the forefront of sanctioning noncompliant states – including in the US, where the country’s regulator oversees the implementation of most of the ongoing sanctions regimes. Backfire: How Sanctions Reshape the World Against U.S. Interests offers a critical contribution to the field by explaining to laypersons, policymakers and international affairs experts alike what sanctions are about and what they do in ‘real’ life. Agathe Demarais uses an impressive number of examples and anecdotes to surgically decipher how sanctions work, first by looking at the different types of sanctions and explaining their force-multiplier effect, before exploring their consequences on the US-centric financial order. This is where Backfire takes an innovative approach to discussing the topic of sanctions: explaining how they are mostly US-designed, -engineered and -implemented. Modern Western sanctions mirror the Bretton Woods-inherited financial institutions and will only work as well (and for as long) as the US keeps its worldwide financial dominance. Sanctions are an instrument of power at the disposal of states (and the US in particular) seeking to deter or alter the behaviour of another state. Sanctions are an integral part of the ‘toolkit’ (p. 6) of modern Western policy and represent a form of economic, financial and psychological warfare. If sanctions are a form of modern deterrence, it means they must have an impact on targeted countries. Despite the existence of factors determining the effect of sanctions and measurable metrics, Demarais explains with honesty that ‘gauging whether sanctions will work is akin to fortune-telling’ (p. 39). From the reviewer’s perspective, the example of Russia is quite telling. Moscow has been under US (and international) sanctions since 2014 and the illegal invasion of Crimea. However, the multiplication of sanctions regimes did not achieve the intended deterrence effect against the Kremlin leadership. Sanctions did not prevent Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine a second time in 2022. Sanctions cannot deter a worldview shaped by 30 years of grievances against the West and the alleged trauma inherited from the fall of the Soviet Union. The economic and financial impact of sanctions against Russia, however, can be clearly measured: increased capital flight; decreased foreign direct investments; asset freezes; price hikes for most commodities; currency slump; and depreciation of the value of the oil and gas sector, to name a few.