SANCTIONS AND SOVEREIGNTY: ASSESSING US PRESSURE TACTICS FOR STRATEGIC GAINS

Sanctions have been a preferred US tool for coercive diplomacy designed to compel the behaviour of states. Pakistan has been a long-term target of this dual track approach. This paper examines the strategic efficacy of US sanctions imposed on Pakistan’s missile programme from the 1970s through late 2024. The paper argues that despite successive waves of economic pressures, these measures have consistently failed to alter Pakistan’s trajectory in missile and strategic developments. Instead, the sanctions have produced inverse outcomes: tech innovation and indigenisation; institutionalisation; and geopolitical realignment towards non-western actors such as China and Russia. In part, this was also due to alignment of US strategic interests with Pakistan during the Cold War as well as in the post 9/11 period creating periodic spaces for selective engagement and flexibility. The comparative case study of Iran offers an alternative perspective whereby such vested US interests did not exist leading to more punitive measures. However, Iran still managed to develop and advance its military and missile programmes. Using a longitudinal case study methodology, the paper argues that coercive economic pressures rarely achieve the desired results specially when aimed at existential security and strategic doctrines of target states. Additionally, the utility of Pakistan as a strategic ally during key time-periods created pockets of flexibility. The analysis contributes to the debate on coercive statecraft, the durability of sanctions and their efficacy as policy tools aimed at altering state behaviour towards strategic military developments.