Short answers, pulled from the story.
Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by states or institutions against states, groups, or individuals. They work by disrupting economic exchange to coerce a target into changing its behavior, either compelling an actor to act differently or deterring it from certain actions. Common forms include trade barriers, asset freezes, travel bans, arms embargoes, and restrictions on financial transactions.
Effectiveness is heavily debated. Hufbauer, Schott, and Elliot found a 34 percent success rate in their 2008 study, but when Robert A. Pape reexamined their data, he found only 5 of their 40 reported successes were actually effective, reducing the real rate to 4 percent. The Targeted Sanctions Consortium found in 2016 that targeted sanctions met their policy goals only 22 percent of the time.
A 2025 article in The Lancet Global Health linked US and EU sanctions to 38 million deaths from 1970 to 2021. Scholars John Mueller and Karl Mueller argued in "Sanctions of Mass Destruction" that economic sanctions have caused more deaths than all biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons in history, including the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A study by Neuenkirch and Neumeier found UN sanctions reduced targeted countries' GDP growth by 2.3-3.5 percent per year, with effects typically lasting a decade.
Smart sanctions, also called targeted sanctions, are measures like asset freezes, travel bans, and arms embargoes designed to pressure political leaders and elites while minimizing harm to ordinary civilians. They emerged as a response to controversy over country-wide sanctions; since the mid-1990s, UN Security Council sanctions have predominantly targeted individuals and entities rather than entire countries. As of 2016, the Targeted Sanctions Consortium found they met policy goals only 22 percent of the time.
The shadow fleet refers to tankers that move sanctioned crude oil and refined products outside regular monitoring and service networks, most closely associated with Russian crude exports after 2022 but also documented for Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea. Dark fleet vessels hide identity by changing flags, using complex ownership chains, and switching off tracking transponders; grey fleet vessels keep transponders on but manipulate data. Economic research by Cardoso et al. shows that tightening sanctions does not necessarily reduce revenue if evasion capacity can expand at low cost.
The Continental System was an economic embargo promulgated by Napoleon I of France in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars of 1803-1815. It forbade European nations from trading with the United Kingdom, aiming to cripple the British economy. In practice, the French Empire could not fully enforce the embargo, and it proved as harmful, if not more so, to the continental nations involved as to Britain itself.