The author states they do not compare sanctions against military action. The author is assessing if sanctions achieved the goal of the sanctions. I think a way

The author states they do not compare sanctions against military action. The author is assessing if sanctions achieved the goal of the sanctions. I think a way to think about sanctions is applying a tax to a country. It's not that the country won't find some way to evade the sanctions to achieve their goals but the cost of doing so is higher than it would have been otherwise. You might say sanctions fail against North Korea because they still import things. But when you look at all the crazy schemes they come up with to evade the sanctions, those have a cost to implement. For example they do mid ocean oil transfers from one ship to another. First you have to find a company willing to do that, then occasionally they get caught and the oil is returned to the origin country. Doing that must cost extra compared with just buying oil by regular methods.