My second book project seeks to understand the motivations and processes that drive countries to develop workarounds to evade US economic sanctions. Since the sanctions decade of the 1990s, the use of economic sanctions as a tool of statecraft by the United States has exploded. While scholars have studied the use and overuse of economic sanctions by the US, few scholars have paid much attention to the workarounds that third-party states (and some targets) develop to evade US sanctions. The US’ use of sanctions creates tensions between both US allies and rivals, and this tension has led to the emergence of sanctions evasion measures.
This project makes two important contributions: chronicling the emergence and distinctiveness of these sanctions evasion measures and evaluating their effectiveness against US economic power. I intend to argue that while many of these mechanisms are seemingly ineffective at curbing US power, they reflect a growing consensus of the illegitimate use of US economic power via sanctions. What makes these measures ‘smart’ is: 1) their ability to indirectly challenge the legitimacy of US power within the rules-based global economic order, 2) providing states challenging US power with the ability to assert and protect their sovereignty and interests, and 3) serving as a mechanism that stimulates learning with each iteration of ‘smart’ evasion measures.
First draft should be completed by June 2025.