Global Business and Economics Program Assistant Director Andrew Chrismer writes for US News and World Report on why the United States must work to broaden future sanctions regimes to incorporate more countries:
The U.S. should work on broadening future sanctions regimes to incorporate more countries, because growing influence in emerging economies will erode Western-led sanctions based solely on the transatlantic alliance. The United States and European Union have threatened broad and potentially long-term economic sanctions to deter Russia from escalating its attacks of recent months against Ukraine. But a shift in the world’s economy – the emergence of fast-growing national economies outside the West – will make sanctions less effective by giving Russia (or other governments sanctioned in the future) more options for circumventing them.
To keep sanctions effective against future Russian aggression or other international crises, the regimes governing them will have to be broader than in the past, to more reliably bring in emerging economies (such as those of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) that now are outside the sphere of America’s close allies. The U.S. government should be working on a long-term strategy to achieve this, so that future conflicts can be dealt with in a more global manner. Emerging economies should be more engaged in future sanctions processes, using institutions such as the G-20 and the United Nations to build cooperation and international consensus.