Just Say No to an 'Economic NATO'

Sanctions are a crude, indiscriminate, and ineffective tool, so I see no reason why other governments should want to join the U.S. in a formal arrangement to impose more of them.

Bruce Stokes wants an alliance modeled on NATO for the purpose of imposing broad sanctions on target countries:

With U.S. leadership, European cooperation, and the involvement of other key allies, an Economic Article 5 could help keep peace far beyond NATO’s borders.

Sanctions are a crude, indiscriminate, and ineffective tool, so I see no reason why other governments should want to join the U.S. in a formal arrangement to impose more of them. Unless the goal is to impoverish and starve even more people, I don’t see how an “economic NATO” would achieve anything. Organizing this would-be alliance around the G-7 might seem useful because of their collective economic power, but it would underscore that sanctions are the weapons of the wealthiest and most powerful states in the world against much weaker states. As such, it would be and would be perceived very much as a Western club created to destroy the economies of states that step out of line. Much of the rest of the world would view the creation of such an alliance with wariness and fear that their countries might be the next target. Modeling a new organization on NATO may seem appealing, but the confluence of interests that makes an alliance like NATO work will not be replicable when it comes to waging economic wars against other countries.