ABSTRACT
Political sanctions consist of efforts to deprive the nation of full participation in the international political system. Economic sanctions are intended to cost the offending nation so much financially, that a cost-benefit analysis will lead that nation to abandon whatever it is doing that sparked the sanctions. Sanctions are designed to influence a target nation to undertake or to desist an action, policy, or behavior. The effectiveness of sanctions may be diluted by a fourth factor, the ability of the targeted nation to retaliate and levy unacceptable damage on the country undertaking sanctions. Nations pursuing nuclear weapons capability ordinarily do so because they believe that possession will deter or counter a perceived threat. In some cases, the motivation may be prestige or aggression. In any case, the threat posed by potential sanctions would have to have greater value to the proliferant than fulfilling the objective of weapons acquisition.
