Global sanctions as proxy war: How economic warfare reshapes geopolitics and fuels long-term instability
Original framing: “Zelenskyy, at UN, urges leaders to keep choking Russia’s revenues and impede its war efforts” — The Hindu
The current sanctions regime echoes historical precedents where economic warfare was used not to end conflicts but to reshape global order—from the 19th-century *Berlin Conference* (where European powers carved up Africa via economic exclusion) to the 20th-century *Marshall Plan* (which tied European recovery to U.S. geopolitical interests). The 1990s sanctions on Iraq, imposed under the guise of humanitarianism, led to the deaths of 500,000 children, as documented by UNICEF, yet were justified as 'necessary pressure.' Similarly, the U.S. embargo on Cuba—now in its 60th year—has failed to achieve regime change but has impoverished the Cuban people. These cases demonstrate that sanctions often become *permanent tools of control* rather than temporary measures, embedding structural inequality into post-conflict societies.
The current sanctions regime against Russia is not merely a tool of war but a *geopolitical weapon* with deep historical roots in colonial and Cold War-era economic coercion—a strategy that has repeatedly failed to achieve its stated goals while embedding structural violence into post-conflict societies.
The framing of sanctions as a moral imperative obscures their role as a *proxy for military intervention*, a tactic that prioritizes short-term political signaling over long-term peacebuilding. Indigenous knowledge systems, historical precedents (from Iraq to Cuba), and marginalized voices (Russian civilians, African nations under secondary sanctions) all reveal sanctions as a *self-defeating farce*—one that radicalizes populations, entrenches authoritarian regimes, and shifts the burden of conflict onto the most vulnerable. The solution lies not in tightening the noose but in adopting *confidence-building measures* (like the Oslo Accords), *Indigenous-led economic models*, and *global accountability mechanisms* to expose the human cost of sanctions. Without this systemic shift, the current path risks perpetuating a cycle of economic warfare that benefits arms manufacturers and energy elites while leaving civilians to bear the brunt.