{"id":14524,"date":"2018-03-03T09:10:05","date_gmt":"2018-03-03T15:10:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=14524"},"modified":"2018-03-03T09:10:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-03T15:10:05","slug":"you-may-not-like-your-sanction-cake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2018\/03\/03\/you-may-not-like-your-sanction-cake\/","title":{"rendered":"You May Not Like Your Sanction Cake"},"content":{"rendered":"

On 38 North<\/strong><\/em> Andray Abrahamian looks back<\/a> at the sanctions levied on Myanmar as a way to predict what might happen in North Korea as sanctions are strengthened against the Kim regime:<\/p>\n

Imagine you could somehow go back to when US sanctions on Burma began in 1988. If you could tell Congress and President Reagan that over two decades, sanctions would not only cost ordinary citizens great hardships, but would entrench a class of mega-rich cronies whose fortunes were inexorably tied to the military government, would they still go ahead and begin the process of targeting the country?<\/p>\n

In 1988, Burma was renamed Myanmar, but in a more important shift, it also reconsidered socialism and embraced a market economy. The same year, however, the Junta killed hundreds of people in a vicious crackdown on protesters. Holding and then ignoring election results for two years later and further outrages against Aung San Suu Kyi led to the US imposing round after round of unilateral sanctions.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, this meant that just as the country was privatizing industries, access to training, foreign direct investment (FDI) and international financing became scarce. A new class of businessmen, leveraging political relationships with the military, took early concessions in extractive industries, import licenses or construction projects, and then reinvested revenues into expanding into a range of sectors. The scarcity of inputs meant there was no catching up for subsequent players.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Presumably you then see the early pioneers growing rich and entrenched, unmolested by later challengers who just don’t have the oomph to shift them out of their positions. His conclusion:<\/p>\n

Sanctions have often been derided as a \u201cblunt instrument,\u201d but this is a poor metaphor. A better comparison might be to an untested toxin or medicine injected into a patient. Some effects are understandable and predictable but the unintended side-effects can be extensive, enduring and in the end, contradictory to the goals of sanctions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And Andray thinks it unlikely that small actors will get much traction in the North Korea economy while sanctions bottle up the country. The early big actors, closely allied to the regime, will dominate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 38 North Andray Abrahamian looks back at the sanctions levied on Myanmar as a way to predict what might happen in North Korea as sanctions are strengthened against the Kim regime: Imagine you could somehow go back to when US sanctions on Burma began in 1988. If you could \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14524"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14537,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14524\/revisions\/14537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}