Policy:The Goals of Sanctions

Experts in the field of sanctions categorize the goals which sanctions can achieve as coercion, constraint, and signaling.

Coercion is an attempt to influence the voluntary behavior of the sanctioned party: to convince an arms manufacturer to stop selling to a third party, for instance.

Constraint is an attempt to directly curtail the actions of the sanctioned party: to stop a DDoS by blocking resolution of the domain name by which it locates its command and control, for instance.

Signaling is an attempt to communicate a community's strong disapproval to the sanctioned entity and the public: to convey to the world that army is operating outside the bounds of legal armed conflict and this should not be tolerated, for instance.

The success of a sanction may not be directly quantifiable, but it may be directed toward any or all of these goals simultaneously, and need only succeed in one of them in order to be effective.