Dr. Zachary Selden provides a detailed examination of how sanctions can and cannot be used effectively to further U.S. foreign interests. In the post-Cold War era, sanctions are becoming a frequently used tool of foreign policy, but Selden offers an important cautionary note. Sanctions are often counterproductive, and they create interest groups within the target country who have a vested interest in seeing that sanctions and the policies that brought them to bear are maintained. While sanctions aimed at capital flows can be highly effective, those aimed at trade often become the functional equivalent of a protective tariff, stimulating Import Substitution Industrialization (ISI) and creating groups of producers or suppliers who take steps in the political arena to ensure that their economic windfall is maintained. After demonstrating the ISI effects in a large sample of cases, Selden goes on to demonstrate how sanctions fueled the rise of a powerful criminal elite in Yugoslavia who sponsored extreme nationalist political figures and how sanctions were twisted to Saddam Hussein's personal benefit in Iraq. More than simply of academic interest, this study serves as a guide for the more effective use of sanctions. It will be of particular interest to scholars, researchers, and policy makers involved with American foreign and military policy.

For over 50 years, the United States has pledged to help its European allies defend themselves against outside aggression under the Washington Treaty of 1949. The 1998 debate over enlarging the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) to include three Central European democracies reignited the long-standing debate as to whether the United States bears an unfair share of the burden of the common defence. This new book examines several measures of defence burdensharing to determine how much the United States contributes to the collective defence relative to what other NATO allies contribute. It looks at traditional measures of defence budgets as well as military personnel and other metrics that measure countries' efforts to enhance collective security.