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A blockade is any effort to prevent supplies, troops, information or aid from reaching an opposing force. Blockades are the cornerstone to nearly all military campaigns and the tool of choice for economic warfare on an opposing nation. The International Criminal Court plans to include blockades against coasts and ports in its list of acts of war in 2009.

1861 Cartoon map of the Union Blockade in the American Civil War

Blockades can take any number of forms from a simple garrison of troops along a main roadway to utilizing dozens or hundreds of surface combatant ships in securing a harbor, denying its use to the enemy, and even in cutting off or jamming broadcast signals from radio or television. As a military operation, blockades have been known to be the deciding factor in winning or losing a war.

Blockades are planned around four general rules:

• Value of thing to become blockaded
• Blockading strength is equal to or greater than the opposing force
• Suitability of terrain to aid in the blockade
• Willpower to maintain the blockade

First, the value of the item being blockaded must warrant the need to blockade. For example, during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the items to be blockaded (or "quarantined", the more legally- and politically-neutral term selected by President John F. Kennedy) were medium-range missiles, capable of delivering nuclear weaponry, bound for Cuba. The need for the blockade was high because of the value of the missiles as a military threat against the United States.

Second, the strength of the blockading force must be equal to or greater in strength than the opposition. The blockade is only successful if the 'thing' is prevented from reaching its receiver. Again the Cuban blockade illustration shows that the United States put to sea a number of warships to inspect and blockade the waters around Cuba. This show of strength showed the U.S. Navy forces were much larger and stronger in the area compared to their Soviet Navy counterparts.

Third, in the case of land blockades, choosing suitable terrain. Knowing where the force will be travelling through will help the blockader in choosing territory to aid them: for example, forcing a garrison between a high mountain pass in order to bottleneck the opposing force.

Fourth, willpower to maintain a blockade. The success of a blockade is based almost entirely on the will of the people to maintain it. The Cuban blockade is an example of maintaining willpower to block the missiles from reaching Cuba despite the risk of starting a world wide nuclear war.

• Naval blockade, an effort at sea, to prevent supplies from reaching the enemy, e.g. mining of Haiphong harbor.
• Siege
• Electronic Warfare Jamming

Historical blockades include:

• The Spartan blockade of Athens following the Battle of Aegospotami, depriving Athens of the ability to import grain or communicate with its empire.
• The Dutch Republic's blockade of the Scheldt between 1585 and 1792, denying Spanish-ruled Antwerp's access to international trade and shifting much of its trade to Amsterdam.
• British blockade of France and its allies during the French Revolutionary War and Napoleonic War
• British blockade of the United States east coast during the War of 1812
• Union Blockade - the Union blockading the coasts of the Confederacy during the American Civil War
• Battle of Iquique during the War of the Pacific
• British blockade of Germany during World War I as a part of the First Battle of the Atlantic resulted in the death of about 750,000 [1] civilians during the War. Many more had to die from starvation after the Armistice in November 1918 as the blockade was continued in the Aftermath of World War I and into 1919, in order to force Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919
• The Second Battle of the Atlantic during World War II
• United States blockade of Japan during World War II
• The German blockade of the Scheldt between September 1944 and November 1944, denying to allied shipping use of the port of Antwerp. (See Battle of the Scheldt.)
• Soviet land blockade of West Berlin, 1948–1949, known as the Berlin Blockade.
• Egyptian blockades of the Straits of Tiran prior to the 1956 Suez War and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.
• United States blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962
• India blockade of East Pakistan during the 1971 Bangladesh War
• NATO blockade of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 1993–1996 during Operation Sharp Guard
• Israeli sea and land blockade of the Gaza Strip since the outbreak of the Second Intifada (2000) and up to the present.
• Israeli blockades of some or all the shores of Lebanon at various times during the Lebanese Civil War (1975–1990), the 1982 Lebanon War, and the 1982-2000 South Lebanon conflict - resumed during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict.

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• Siege
• Union Blockade
• Scheldt
• blockade runner