Trade Warfare

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Rhodesia was ultimately strengthened in some ways by trade sanctions because the country was forced to develop its own industry to manufacture such essential products as railway cars and steel tubing. "In the decade from 1965 to 1975," writes Renwick, "the Rhodesian economy was transformed from virtually total dependence on the importation of manufactured goods in exchange for raw materials to a remarkable degree of self-sufficiency in most areas except oil and industrial plant and machinery." It was a spreading guerrilla war, rather than trade warfare, that finally forced the white regime of Prime Minister Ian Smith to step down in 1979.

Despite the lackluster record of embargoes, Renwick argues that they have a useful, if mainly symbolic, purpose. They are often the only way, short of war, for one nation to express its outrage at the conduct of another. Concludes Renwick: "To abandon altogether the idea of recourse to sanctions in response to acts of aggression or other flagrant violations of international law would be to reduce the choice of response to one between military action and acquiescence—an unattractive choice at the best of times and particularly so in a nuclear age." That said, Renwick cautions against any great expectations about what sanctions can accomplish.