Passover and Sanctions

Daniel Drezner has a nice list of things Passover can teach us about international relations including this key point:

Sanctions against an autocratic regime will rarely yield significant concessions. To get the Pharaoh to let the Jews go, God imposes an escalating series of sanctions against Egypt. These sanctions crippled Egyptian agriculture, health, sanitation and, er, sunlight, inflicting great suffering against the Egyptian people. Not until the first-born male children are killed, however, does Pharaoh relent for a sufficiently long time for the Egyptians to make their escape. Not coincidentally, that plague is the only one to truly hurt the autocrat personally, as his son was killed in the plague as well. Compellence strategies would seem to have a greater chance of success if they target autocratic elites.

This is part of the reason that Ta-Nehisi Coates is right to slam Rep Bobby Rush for getting so lovey-dovey with Fidel Castro. The sanctions policy against Cuba is horribly misguided and has taken a terrible toll on innocent Cubans. But Castro personally is a dictator and a bad guy, and insofar as it’s possible to be hard on him personally rather than inflicting collective punishment on the entire population one should do so. I think there’s a limited amount that can be accomplished in this regard, but saying things like “It was almost like listening to an old friend” is not a promising start.