Blockade

A blockade is an effort usually (but not always, see below) at sea, to prevent supplies from reaching the enemy.

A blockade is also the attritional aspect of a siege, with the besiegers preventing food supplies from reaching the besieged. If the siege lasts long enough, defenders and civilians are reduced to eating anything vaguely edible to avoid starvation—family pets, the leather from shoes, and even each other. In modern times, the related "low-impact" attritional weapon of economic sanctions has been applied to blockade whole countries (for instance, Cuba, South Africa, Libya and Iraq).

Historical blockades include:

• 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 of the Confederacy during the American Civil War
• British blockade of Germany during World War I as a part of the First Battle of the Atlantic.
• The Second Battle of the Atlantic during World War II
• United States blockade of Japan during World War II
• United States blockade of Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962
• Soviet land blockade of West Berlin, 1948–1949, known as the Berlin Blockade.