Sanction is not an effective tool for resolving international conflicts.

There are two main contentions from Con here, IMHO. The first is how sanctions can be successful, and the second is how it can be successful against major economic powers: specifically Japan. The first contention boils down to a simple reality: Consensus and Enforcement. No sanction is going to be effective if violating it is inconsequential. A perfect example of this is Cuba. The US embargo of Cuba has certainly had effects on Cuba, notably to impoverish the Island Nation but it has not lead to any real political change in Cuba. The reason? Because other major political and economic entities continue to trade with Cuba. The EU still operates there, many South American Nations overtly trade with Cuba. Even US goods are shipped through third countries, Cuba. So long as that is the case, Cuba will continue to limp along. Sanctions in this case are a failure because they lack the two things required to make sanctions work, consensus and enforcement. This contrasts very sharply with sanction that have worked. The sanction levelled against Iran were brought before the UN Security Council, where major economic blocks imposed severely restricting economic penalties on Iran. The oil embargo from the US and the EU hurt, forcing Iran in 'discounted' deal with China and India - essentially bribing them to take the oil if you will. The barring of Iran from international monetary institutions made even those transactions difficult. Companies that violate these restrictions are being actively policed and punished and the effect on Iran has been a significant economic contraction. And it has had the desired political effects. Iran is at the negotiating table and talking seriously about its nuclear program. That brings a third aspect of successful sanctions, they must leave the sanctioned a clear way out of the approbation and punishment. With Iran, its leaving a program in place with enough safeguard to prevent a nuclear weapon from being developed - which would ensure that Saudi Arabia developed their own nuclear weapon in response. Its not a reality that anyone wants in or outside the Middle East. Sanctions are clearly doing much better than the alternative did in Iraq. In short, sanctions work when they are build from consensus, are robustly enforced, and leave the sanctioned Nation a clear way out of the penalties. They often work very well in fact. The second point here is sanctioning a major economic power. Believe it or not this can work to. Take for example the previously mentioned Chinese restrictions on rare earth metals. This is aimed directly at Japan. The electronic industry is incredibly important to the Japanese bottom line. When China decided to flex its muscles about the East China Sea, rare earth metal restriction went along - many of which also are required in Hybrid vehicles (Toyota). That meant Japan, and the US/EU, had to take China to the WTO to get a ruling. And that takes years. http://www.nytimes.com... In the meantime, no one is telling a rising China that they cannot keep aggravating Japan over the Senkaku Islands or the East China Sea. China very effectively sees its economic strength and is quite willing to create monopolies and then use them to extract political leverage. It does so routinely, even with other major economic powers. The fear of running afoul of this has already lead to a far greater degree of caution in the US over issues such as the arming of Taiwan. Simply put, sanctions are used very effectively by China to extract political concessions and to prevent political action against it by its economic rivals. A second example would be Russia. They created Gazprom and have been using the gas as a means of extracting leverage over Western Europe for years. hat was seen in Georgia, and its been the barb that has held former Soviet States not in NATO to stay in a Russian Customs Union. The threat of turning off the gas and causing a huge spike in European prices has been enough to mollify political concerns. That is, until the Ukraine crisis erupted, and the manner in which Russia, rather brutishly and unadroitly, held Ukraine hostage with explicit economic threats. It certainly got the attention of Ukraine, and the outright bullying seems to have set off a civil war that Russia is now struggling to put back in the proverbial bag. This unadroit use of sanctions left Russia exposed to sanctions in retaliation. If turning off gas will cause pain in Europe, the inability to export gas will cause an equal amount of pain in Russia. Worse, Europe is aware of the advantage Russian gas monopoly has, and they are now fully aware of how rapacious the use of that power will be in a dispute. Europe is seeking diversify. Worse for Russia, as with Iran, is the threat of targeted sanctions against the financial sector which would cascade through the economic system - possibly leading to a full economic collapse. As Russia sought to extract advantage from its economic strength, when pushed to hard, other threatened sanctions that would remove that strength entirely. Russia backed down. Sanctions, just the threat, was enough to garner a more compliant Russia with an interest in maintaining security. Russia is aware itself of its vulnerability and is seeking to eliminate that vulnerability. If Europe cuts off the gas, Russia has no market. Ergo, it has been attempting to open a deal with China, and succeeded. This should, on paper, allow Russia to simply switch gas exports to China if Europe gets cold feet. http://www.foreignpolicy.com... As you can see, China is itself very much aware of this vulnerability. The concessions it extracted from Russia are immense, including opening a second oil field further to the east to supply the industry while the fields that supply Europe required a second deal, one very advantageous to China, to facilitate a switch - a very expensive option at that. Simply put, Nations are becoming increasingly aware of their interdependence. Monopolies are created as Nations seek competitive advantages, and when needed even the most economically powerful Nations will not hesitate to use that power against one another. Sanctions, particularly when a Nation understands their economic strengths and weaknesses, can be a powerful tool to extract concessions. With the rising interconnections of the world, sanctions can have real and immediate impact. If you want to see how they are used effectively, look no further than China. Simply put, sanctions are becoming more powerful and effective in the globalized world, and their use is likely to expand rather than contract. The reality is, they work.