US Needs Economic Statecraft 'Doctrine,' Former Biden Adviser Says

The U.S. needs to create a formal doctrine to outline guardrails for deploying sanctions, export controls and other economic statecraft tools, said Daleep Singh, President Joe Biden’s former deputy national security adviser, speaking during an April 25 Atlantic Council event. He also said the U.S. needs to conduct an assessment of its past use of those trade and financial measures to determine when they worked best and make sure they aren’t being overused.

Singh, who left the Biden administration last year after helping to craft the U.S. sanctions response to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, said he learned several lessons that the U.S. should deploy in future sanctions responses. Although the U.S. was able to work with nearly 40 countries to impose the measures, Singh suggested they could have deployed the restrictions more effectively. “The truth is most countries did not join the sanctions regime,” he said, “and many have sounded caution about it.”

He said the U.S. can help convince more allies to join in on sanctions measures in the future by articulating a “doctrine of economic statecraft” at “the highest levels of government.” The U.S. has “spent hundreds of years refining one for military engagement, but we don't have one for the use of incredibly potent tools of economic statecraft,” Singh said, naming “sanctions, export controls, tariffs, price caps, entity listings and the like.”

The doctrine would outline “guiding principles that both constrain our use of those tools and prevent overuse,” he said. They would also give “comfort” to third countries that the U.S. won’t “deploy these tools in a way that's arbitrary and capricious.”

The U.S. also needs to improve its “collective analytical infrastructure” to allow it to better take inventory of its economic statecraft tools. An assessment of past uses of sanctions and export controls could help the government answer questions like: “When do they work well? What are their limitations? What are their spillovers? What have we learned from history?” Singh said. “And how can we use them alone or in tandem, unilaterally or multilaterally?”

He also urged the government to use those tools “with balance.” They shouldn’t be the only measures used by the U.S. to incentivize behavioral change, Singh said, adding that they can be coupled with infrastructure finance, debt relief, bilateral aid and trade agreements.

“Sanctions and export controls, they are negative coercive devices: ‘if you don't change behavior, we will cause you pain.’ That does not win hearts and minds,” he said. The U.S. should explore other options that “offer the prospect of mutual gain, not just unilateral pain.”

Jonathan Black, who left the U.K. government last year after serving as the U.K. prime minister’s deputy national security adviser, said he agrees “with all of that,” adding that the use of trade restrictions could continue to increase. “I do think economic statecraft is here to stay,” he said. “I also believe that carefully, carefully done, it can be an important tool alongside the rest of what we have in support of stability of peace and prosperity.”

Black said countries that deploy these measures need to evaluate their successes and failures in part to prepare for the next time the “global order is challenged.” Black said the countries imposing sanctions against Russia have a “remarkable alliance,” but that alliance hasn’t been as “broad” as they would like.

“It's certainly not one that's as large as the number of countries who are willing to condemn Russia's actions in the [U.N.] Security Council,” Black said. “Thinking about how we can build those sorts of mechanisms that command that broader base I think is a really important exercise that we need to do.”