It is important to understand the concept of economic sanctions before examining cyber sanctions because cyber sanctions are the extension of economic sanctions, and the goal of the both instruments is to use economic/financial instruments to change the target state's undesired behaviors. According to David Baldwin, economic sanctions are the options that have dynamic nature, meaning that they can escalate to interstate wars or deescalate to diplomatic negotiations. Thus, we can categorize economic sanctions as choice of options between the use military or negotiations. In the first category, the conflicting parties confront in the war theater, and in the second category the conflicting parties meet at the tables. However, when it comes to the economic sanctions, there is no need for the conflicting parties to meet with one another. These kinds of situations are seen when there are enduring rivalries between countries. For example, the relations between the USSR, later Russia, and the Western countries, especially the United States. Also, the relations between the US and North Korea can be another example for the use of economic sanctions for many decades. Scholars usually argue that economic sanctions are not effective when it comes to change the target state behaviors. However some argue that economic sanctions work at the threatening stage rather than imposition. Others argued that sanctions work when they are used selectively rather than comprehensively. According to Peterson Institute's international economics scholar Hufbauer et al., the implications of the economic sanctions should not be underestimated because, given the results of their datasets, almost 30% of all economic sanctions economic sanctions cases since the Second World War worked successfully. As can be seen from these arguments, we have no consensus on the effectiveness of economic sanctions in the scholarly world.
