What is the embargo, what are its consequences and how to deal with it

The war can be waged by various means. In essence, it never stops, and that phase in which guns, tanks, rockets and airplanes go into action, is simply its extreme form. The states of the world, and in particular the superpowers, constantly test each other for strength, trying to observe their interests, and, if possible, press competitors. One of the ways of "peaceful war" is most often the provision of economic pressure, denoted by the Spanish word embargo, translated as "prohibition". What is the embargo, what are its consequences for the conflicting parties, and how are the countries that are most often struggling with it? First, you need to understand the very essence of this punitive sanction.

Assessing the effectiveness of the embargo

Before starting a conflict, it is necessary to determine the chances of success, this rule is mandatory for all cases. If there is no complete certainty of victory, there is no reason to challenge. The same applies to measures of economic impact. Suppose a neighbor has taken offense at something for some reason. It does not matter whether their anger is justified, or they are just accustomed to the privileges that they were suddenly deprived of. It is possible that the leadership of this country is actually pursuing an aggressive policy or simply defending its security, seeing how the hostile forces are getting closer to its borders. And the neighboring powers want to "press", but they are not sure that such an embargo will be an effective measure of compulsion to the solution necessary for them.

For example, after the Soviet troops entered the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan in 1979, the American company Coca-Cola announced its refusal to supply refreshments to guests of the Moscow Olympics. The measure is, of course, terrible, but the USSR was not the same.

Wheat embargo

Lemonade, of course, is not the most important thing, but the grain is an important product. Despite the abundance of land, including chernozem, the Soviet Union has not achieved complete food autonomy for its entire history. Dependence on cereals supplies from the United States took place, in 1975 an annual import contract worth about a billion dollars was signed (at that time it was very big money). Of course, after the introduction of troops into the DRA, it was difficult to expect that the Americans would not take advantage of the opportunity to "strike at the pain point". The US economy suffered from such punitive measures , because the sale of agricultural products is a very important component of the foreign trade balance. However, the ambitions turned out to be stronger, and the hope that such an embargo, combined with the boycott of the Games, will force the USSR to retreat immediately, was nevertheless. Again, Coca-Cola ...

The blow was strong, but not fatal, the import substitution occurred almost instantly, wheat began to be sold with great pleasure by many countries with a developed agricultural industry: Canada, Argentina, Australia and even Spain. Perhaps, if the Western world proved more solid, we would have to learn how to grow good harvests ourselves, and perhaps even to dissolve the collective farms ...

Prohibition of purchase or sale?

The meaning of the word embargo can be twofold. The ban on the sale of some products of strategic economic or military importance, as a rule, is combined with the restriction of imports of goods produced in a rogue country. There are many examples, and not always such measures lead to bad consequences, sometimes they cause quite the opposite effect. For example, the ban on the sale of large-diameter pipes from Germany in its time (in 1963) forced the Soviet leadership to allocate funds for the development of technology and production of these products in the Soviet Union.

In 1974, the OPEC states, offended by Western democracies for supporting those of Israel, declared an oil embargo. The importance of hydrocarbons has always been and remains huge for the world economy, prices immediately skyrocketed, ordinary citizens of Europe, the United States and even Japan felt this measure of impact directly on their wallets. However, the Arab embargo also played a positive role. Citizens of rich countries began to get used to saving, developed a number of progressive energy-saving technologies, many of them switched to small cars and took many more measures to reduce the consumption of petroleum products.

The longest embargo

Perhaps the longest case of imposing an embargo is the economic blockade of the "Island of Freedom" - Cuba. After nationalizing the property of US transnational companies and establishing socialism in this country, the Americans tried to resolve the issue of returning unjustly (in their opinion) the taken property by military means, but they received quite worthy armed rebuff. Then the "sugar bowl of the United States" was decided to die, having concluded in a foreign trade vacuum. Presidents, from Kennedy to Obama, now believe, after decades of economic pressure, that such an embargo will force the Cubans to overthrow the Castro, hated for them, by making another revolution (perhaps, it would be called "sweet"). Despite the geographical proximity to Florida, this has not happened yet. Perhaps, the American administration has more important things to do ...