Eugine_Nier comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 18, chapter 87 - Less Wrong
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Look at how effective those are in the real world. You have countries ignoring sanctions and embargoes because there's a lot of money to be made that way. As for wars with large coalitions, you have the inevitable issues of members suspecting other members of not holding up their end of the war, or using the war to unfairly increase their power vis-a-vis the other members of the coalition.
Of course, it's not hard to solve all these problems using unbreakable vows, but well. ;)
But you also have success stories of sanctions and embargos inflicting serious pain: just to name the ones I know of off the top of my head, Japan apparently felt itself forced into WWII by a US embargo of necessary supplies, North Korea remains a hellhole and has trouble selling stuff like it used to which forced it to come to the negotiating table over the bank embargos, and Iran is currently grappling with uncontrollable inflation (which may result in hyperinflation) which is attributed to the existing relatively mild sanctions.