The Fire Next Time by Vincent Smith (oil and sand on canvas, 1969). Detroit Art Institute. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair.

As the United States’ position of dominance in the world has been challenged in recent decades, economic sanctions have taken a more central position in its strategy for maintaining global power and influence. As Stuart Davis and Immanuel Ness noted in a 2022 article arguing that sanctions are a form of war, “the US has depended increasingly on economic, political and cultural hegemony as partial substitutes for military power through the application of economic sanctions.”