Blockade in the context of "International sanctions"

A siege (from Latin sedere 'to sit') is a military blockade of a city, or fortress, with the intent of conquering by attrition, or by well-prepared assault. Siege warfare (also called siegecraft or poliorcetics) is a form of constant, low-intensity conflict characterized by one party holding a strong, static, defensive position. The attacking party is said to be laying siege. Consequently, an opportunity for negotiation between combatants is common, as proximity and fluctuating advantage can encourage diplomacy.

A siege occurs when an attacker encounters a city or fortress that cannot be easily taken by a quick assault, and which refuses to surrender. Sieges involve surrounding the target to block provision of supplies and reinforcement or escape of troops (a tactic known as "investment"). This is typically coupled with attempts to reduce the fortifications by means of siege engines, artillery bombardment, or mining (also known as sapping), or the use of deception or treachery to bypass defenses.

Investment is the military process of surrounding an enemy fort (or town) with armed forces to prevent entry or escape. It serves both to cut communications with the outside world and to prevent supplies and reinforcements from being introduced.

A contravallation is a line of fortifications built by the attackers around the besieged fortification facing towards an enemy fort to protect the besiegers from sorties by its defenders and to enhance the blockade. The contravallation can be used as a base to launch assaults against the besieged city or to construct further earthworks nearer to the city.

The Grass Crown (Latin: corona graminea) or Blockade Crown (corona obsidionalis) was the highest and rarest of all military decorations in the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire. It was presented only to a general, commander, or officer whose actions saved a legion or the entire army. One example of actions leading to awarding of a grass crown would be a general who broke the blockade around a beleaguered Roman army. The crown took the form of a chaplet made from plant materials taken from the battlefield, including grasses, flowers, and various cereals such as wheat; it was presented to the general by the army he had saved.

Commerce raiding is a form of naval warfare used to destroy or disrupt logistics of the enemy on the open sea by attacking its merchant shipping, rather than engaging its combatants or enforcing a blockade against them. Privateering is a form of commerce raiding conducted by independent operators.

The Darien scheme was an unsuccessful attempt, backed largely by investors of the Kingdom of Scotland, to gain wealth and influence by establishing New Caledonia or Britain-in-Panama, a colony in the Darién Gap on the territory of present-day Panama, in the late 1690s. The plan was for the colony, located on the Gulf of Darién, to establish and manage an overland route to connect the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The backers knew that the first sighting of the Pacific Ocean by Vasco Núñez de Balboa was after crossing the isthmus through Darién. The expedition also claimed sovereignty over "Crab Isle" (modern day Vieques, Puerto Rico) in 1698, yet sovereignty was short-lived. The settlement attempt failed; more than 80 percent of participants died within a year, and the settlement was abandoned twice.

There are many potential explanations for the disaster, including poor planning and provisioning; divided leadership; a lack of trade with local indigenous tribes or neighbouring Dutch and English colonies; epidemics of tropical disease; widespread opposition to the scheme from commercial interests in England; and a failure to anticipate a military response from the Spanish Empire. The settlement was abandoned in March 1700 after a siege by Spanish forces that also blockaded the harbour.

The French conquest of Algeria (French: Conquête de l'Algérie par la France; Arabic: الغزو الفرنسي للجزائر) took place between 1830 and 1847. In 1827, an argument between Hussein Dey, the ruler of the Regency of Algiers, and the French consul escalated into a blockade, following which the Kingdom of France invaded Algiers in 1830, and seized other coastal communities. Amid internal political strife in France, decisions were repeatedly taken to retain control of the territory, and additional military forces were brought in over the following years to quell resistance in the interior of the country. Although the conquest of Algeria largely ended by 1847, shortly before its formal annexation by France, it was not until 1903 that France fully secured its colonial borders, incorporating the Saharan south.

Initially, the Algerian resistance was mainly divided between forces under Ahmed Bey at Constantine, seeking to reinstate the Regency of Algiers, primarily in the east, and nationalist forces in the west and center. Treaties with the nationalists under Emir Abdelkader enabled the French to first focus on the elimination of the remnants of the Deylik, achieved with the 1837 siege of Constantine. Abdelkader continued to wage stiff resistance in the west. Finally driven into Morocco in 1842, by large-scale and heavy-handed French military action, he continued to wage a guerrilla war until the Moroccan government, under French diplomatic pressure following its defeat in the Franco-Moroccan War, attacked him and drove him out of Morocco. He surrendered to French forces in 1847. Various governments and scholars have considered France's conquest of Algeria as constituting a genocide.

The Union blockade in the American Civil War was a naval strategy by the United States to prevent the Confederacy from trading.

The blockade was proclaimed by President Abraham Lincoln in April 1861, and required the monitoring of 3,500 miles (5,600 km) of Atlantic and Gulf coastline, including 12 major ports, notably New Orleans and Mobile. Those blockade runners fast enough to evade the Union Navy could carry only a small fraction of the supplies needed. They were operated largely by British and French citizens, making use of neutral ports such as Havana, Nassau and Bermuda. The Union commissioned around 500 ships, which destroyed or captured about 1,500 blockade runners over the course of the war.

The Treaty of Lutatius was the agreement between Carthage and Rome of 241 BC (amended in 237 BC), that ended the First Punic War after 23 years of conflict. Most of the fighting during the war took place on, or in the waters around, the island of Sicily and in 241 BC a Carthaginian fleet was defeated by a Roman fleet commanded by Gaius Lutatius Catulus while attempting to lift the blockade of its last, beleaguered, strongholds there. Accepting defeat, the Carthaginian Senate ordered their army commander on Sicily, Hamilcar Barca, to negotiate a peace treaty with the Romans, on whatever terms he could negotiate. A draft treaty was rapidly agreed upon, but when it was referred to Rome for ratification it was rejected.

Rome then sent a ten-man commission to settle the matter. This in turn agreed that Carthage would hand over what it still held of Sicily; relinquish several groups of islands nearby; release all Roman prisoners without ransom, although ransom would need to be paid to secure the release of prisoners held by the Romans; and pay an indemnity of 3,200 talents of silver – 82,000 kilograms (81 long tons) – over 10 years. The treaty received its name from the victorious Gaius Lutatius Catulus, who also negotiated the initial draft.