Objective: Motivate students using a second language, in our case, is English.

Professor: MONTOYA OMAR SUAREZ

¿How effective are the economic blockade to pressure governments?

By Victor De Currea-Lugo

Victor Currea-Lugo discusses how they have affected economic countries such as Cuba, Iran and North
Korea blocks, and explains why considered inhuman.

Block the enemy in their cities, lay siege to drown hunger, inciting an internal revolt of the
population; all this is part of an old strategy. Before the war was surrounding the walls
with troops and artillery, as in the famous siege of Constantinople, for months. But today
invasions and wars with checkbooks become more than soldiers. Embargoes and
economic pressures are the continuation of war by other means.

This strategy is not as effective, as shown by the evidence, but not countries like the
United States, they stop practicing. If extended for decades is the blockade against Cuba. I
was there the first time in the special period in 1992. At that time the question that arose
was: why did not the government falls? The mistake was in thinking that everything
depends on a full stomach as the only priority as if political positions were only the result
of a rational decision without count loves and hates.

On the other hand, the economic blockade of Iran was part of the package to force him to
not advance in their nuclear race. But the calculation was still wrong because it excluded a
reality of a fist States adapt to economic measures. Then, by closing markets in the West,
Iran sought them in the East, and China and Russia eventually strengthened in the Middle
East thanks to its investments in Iran. Meanwhile, the Iranian government is legitimized
against its people and its allies, and can stand up to the United States.

However, tensions with North Korea will not be solved by economic pressures, since 90
percent of its trade depends on China, not the West. The US also makes the mistake of
basing the solution of the conflict in two very fragile assumptions: Washington believes
the regime will one day fall (that has said for decades) that China is going to do the
homework to the United States to have under control North Korea. This is a clear example
of trading on outside variables.

Economic measures against Syria no longer anecdotal if compared with the reality of life
on the ground. States adapt to economic measures and seek new markets. Against Syria,
Barack Obama drew his red line on the potential use of chemical weapons by the Syrian
government; which finally it happened without there being consequences. Russia and
China, the UN, covering political, economic and military gaps left Washington.
Breathlessness suffered by the Palestinian people in Gaza, the West Bank and East
Jerusalem, is immense. Palestinians have no ports or own currency, so their imports and
exports are literally what you decide Israel. But none of these measures has affected the
Palestinian cause. The promise of Israeli development model does not affect the
Palestinian love for their land, whether to cultivate ancestral way.

Economic strangulation measures are not as effective as touts. No country is conquered

causing shortages, it is more: it is usually seen that leaders questioned locks are in political
fuel to maintain its legitimacy and unify its people behind a common enemy that causes
obvious damage. Thus, a blockage usually further strengthen the government of a country
that weaken it.

In addition, leaders seeking to discredit the blockade are not affected by these measures.
Neither Kim Jong-Un on the distant Korean Peninsula, and Syrian President Bashar Al-
Assad will be directly affected by the measures, but their peoples. That is, from an
American look, a contradiction because, ultimately, it punishes those who are supposed
must be freed "dictator".

But the damage to the population is real. Shortage induced price rise occurs in some
cases, it can lead to an inflationary phenomenon. This creates discomfort, but not the
mass protest being sought. The truth is that the blockade, as seen in the cases of Syria and
Venezuela (as it was lived in the Spanish Civil War) benefits hoarders and smugglers.

The Trojan horse is what makes winning the Achaeans, not the site of the city of Priam.
Today that horse is called free market. In Tunisia, he explained his minister of social
affairs, a loan was needed to save the revolt in the government, but the IMF required
them to establish neoliberal measures against which, precisely, the revolt was made.
"Betraying the revolt to save the revolt" was the dilemma in 2013.

Barack Obama was about to understand against Cuba: you would potentially harm the
Cuban government an economic opening that the blockade, but from Washington carrot
does not appear in the equation, only the garrote. And then ask: why hate and why its
foreign policy fails.

In Venezuela there is a little of everything in this multifactorial crisis; but part of that
whole is the series of US economic measures, affecting the purchase of medicines and
food in the international market. That does not explain the whole crisis, but it is striking
how many variable that evades analysis, joining another block: the born of lies.

Reflection questions:
a. Indicate and explain five central ideas of the document.
b. See the implications that the economic bloc has had for Venezuela, Iran, Cuba and North Korea.
c. How these countries could cope with the economic blockade. Explain widely.