In international politics, the term gunboat diplomacy refers to the pursuit of

foreign policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...

objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power, implying or constituting a direct threat of

war War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regular o ...

fare should terms not be agreeable to the superior force.

Etymology

The term "gunboat diplomacy" comes from the nineteenth-century period of

imperialism Imperialism is the state policy, practice, or advocacy of extending power and dominion, especially by direct territorial acquisition or by gaining political and economic control of other areas, often through employing hard power (economic and ...

, when Western powersfrom Europe and the United Stateswould

intimidate Intimidation is to "make timid or make fearful"; or to induce fear. This includes intentional behaviors of forcing another person to experience general discomfort such as humiliation, embarrassment, inferiority, limited freedom, etc and the victi ...

other, less powerful entities into granting concessions through a demonstration of Western superior military capabilities, usually represented by their naval assets. A coastal country negotiating with a Western power would notice that a warship or fleet of ships had appeared off its coast. The mere sight of such power almost always had a considerable effect, and it was rarely necessary for such boats to use other measures, such as demonstrations of firepower. A notable example of gunboat diplomacy, the

Don Pacifico affair The Don Pacifico affair was a diplomatic episode which occurred in 1850 and concerned the governments of Greece, the United Kingdom and Portugal, and is considered an example of gunboat diplomacy. The affair is named after David Pacifico, a Jewis ...

in 1850, saw the

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

Foreign Secretary The secretary of state for foreign, Commonwealth and development affairs, known as the foreign secretary, is a minister of the Crown of the Government of the United Kingdom and head of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Seen as ...

Lord Palmerston Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865) was a British statesman who was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century. Palmerston dominated British foreign policy during the period ...

dispatch a squadron of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

blockade A blockade is the act of actively preventing a country or region from receiving or sending out food, supplies, weapons, or communications, and sometimes people, by military force. A blockade differs from an embargo or sanction, which are le ...

the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

port of

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; el, Πειραιάς ; grc, Πειραιεύς ) is a port city within the Athens urban area ("Greater Athens"), in the Attica region of Greece. It is located southwest of Athens' city centre, along the east coast of the Saronic ...

in retaliation for the assault of a British subject,

David Pacifico David Pacifico, known as Don Pacifico (1784? – 12 April 1854), was a Portuguese Jewish merchant and diplomat. He was considered a British subject by birth and was the central figure in the Anglo-Greek dispute of 1850, known as the Don Pacifico Af ...

, in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

, and the subsequent failure of the government of King Otto to compensate the

Gibraltar ) , anthem = " God Save the King" , song = " Gibraltar Anthem" , image_map = Gibraltar location in Europe.svg , map_alt = Location of Gibraltar in Europe , map_caption = United Kingdom shown in pale green , mapsize = , image_map2 = Gib ...

-born (and therefore British) Pacifico. The effectiveness of such simple demonstrations of a nation's

projection of force Power projection (or force projection or strength projection), in international relations, is the capacity of a state to deploy and sustain forces outside its territory. The ability of a state to project its power into an area may serve as an e ...

capabilities meant that nations with naval power and

command of the sea Command of the sea (also called control of the sea or sea control) is a naval military concept regarding the strength of a particular navy to a specific naval area it controls. A navy has command of the sea when it is so strong that its rivals ...

could establish military bases (for example,

Diego Garcia Diego Garcia is an island of the British Indian Ocean Territory, a disputed overseas territory of the United Kingdom. It is a militarised atoll just south of the equator in the central Indian Ocean, and the largest of the 60 small islands o ...

, 1940s onwards) and arrange economically advantageous relationships around the world. Aside from military conquest, gunboat diplomacy was the dominant way to establish new trade relationships, colonial outposts, and expansion of

empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

. Peoples lacking the resources or technological innovations available to Western empires found that their own peaceable relationships were readily dismantled in the face of such pressures, and some therefore came to depend on the imperialist nations for access to

raw material A raw material, also known as a feedstock, unprocessed material, or primary commodity, is a basic material that is used to produce goods, finished goods, energy, or intermediate materials that are feedstock for future finished products. As feedst ...

s or overseas

market Market is a term used to describe concepts such as: * Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand * Market economy *Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market Geography *Märket, a ...

Theory

Diplomat and naval thinker

James Cable Sir James Eric Sydney Cable (15 November 1920 – 27 September 2001) was a British diplomat and naval strategic thinker. As an author, he became well known for a series of his works published between 1971 and 1994 about gunboat diplomacy. ...

spelled out the nature of gunboat diplomacy in a series of works published between 1971 and 1993. In these, he defined the phenomenon as "the use or threat of limited naval force, otherwise than as an act of war, in order to secure advantage or to avert loss, either in the furtherance of an international dispute or else against foreign nationals within the territory or the jurisdiction of their own state." He further broke down the concept into four key areas: * Definitive Force: the use of gunboat diplomacy to create or remove a

fait accompli Many words in the English vocabulary are of French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman Conquest, before the language settled into what became Modern Engli ...

. * Purposeful Force: application of naval force to change the policy or character of the target government or group. * Catalytic Force: a mechanism designed to buy a breathing space or present policy makers with an increased range of options. * Expressive Force: use of navies to send a political message. This aspect of gunboat diplomacy is undervalued and almost dismissed by Cable. The term "gunboat" may imply naval power-projection - land-based equivalents may include military

mobilisation Mobilization is the act of assembling and readying military troops and supplies for war. The word ''mobilization'' was first used in a military context in the 1850s to describe the preparation of the Prussian Army. Mobilization theories and t ...

(as in Europe in the northern-hemisphere summer of 1914), the massing of threatening bodies of troops near international borders (as practised by the German Reich in central Europe in the 1940s), or appropriately-timed and -situated military manoeuvres ( "exercises").

Distinctions

Gunboat diplomacy contrasts with the views held prior to the 18th century and influenced by

Hugo Grotius Hugo Grotius (; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Huig de Groot () and Hugo de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, poet and playwright. A teenage intellectual prodigy, he was born in Delft ...

, who in ''

De jure belli ac pacis ''De iure belli ac pacis'' (English: ''On the Law of War and Peace'') is a 1625 book in Latin, written by Hugo Grotius and published in Paris, on the legal status of war. It is now regarded as a foundational work in international law. The work t ...

'' (1625) circumscribed the right to resort to force with what he described as "temperamenta". Gunboat diplomacy is distinct from "

defence diplomacy In international politics, defence diplomacy refers to the pursuit of foreign policy objectives through the peaceful employment of defence resources and capabilities. Origin of concept Defence diplomacy as an organizing concept for defence-relate ...

", which is understood to be the peaceful application of resources from across the spectrum of defence to achieve positive outcomes in the development of

bilateral Bilateral may refer to any concept including two sides, in particular: * Bilateria, bilateral animals *Bilateralism, the political and cultural relations between two states *Bilateral, occurring on both sides of an organism ( Anatomical terms of ...

and multilateral relationships. "Military diplomacy" is a sub-set of this, tending to refer only to the role of military attachés and their associated activity. Defence diplomacy does not include military operations, but subsumes such other defence activity as international personnel exchanges, ship and aircraft visits, high-level engagement (e.g., ministers and senior defence personnel), training and exercises, security-sector reform, and bilateral military talks.

Modern contexts

Gunboat diplomacy is considered a form of

hegemony Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states. In Ancient Greece (8th BC – AD 6th ), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of the ''hegemon'' city-state over oth ...

. As the United States became a military power in the first decade of the 20th century, the Rooseveltian version of gunboat diplomacy, Big Stick Diplomacy, was partially superseded by

dollar diplomacy Dollar diplomacy of the United States, particularly during the presidency of William Howard Taft (1909–1913) was a form of American foreign policy to minimize the use or threat of military force and instead further its aims in Latin America and ...

: replacing the big stick with the "juicy carrot" of American private investment. However, during

Woodrow Wilson Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was an American politician and academic who served as the 28th president of the United States from 1913 to 1921. A member of the Democratic Party, Wilson served as the president of ...

's presidency, conventional gunboat diplomacy did occur, most notably in the case of the U.S. Army's occupation of Veracruz in 1914, during the

Mexican Revolution The Mexican Revolution ( es, Revolución Mexicana) was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from approximately 1910 to 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It resulted in the destruction ...

. Gunboat diplomacy in the post-

Cold War The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...

world is still largely based on naval forces, owing to the

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage of ...

's overwhelming sea power. U.S. administrations have frequently changed the disposition of their major naval

fleet Fleet may refer to: Vehicles *Fishing fleet *Naval fleet *Fleet vehicles, a pool of motor vehicles *Fleet Aircraft, the aircraft manufacturing company Places Canada *Fleet, Alberta, Canada, a hamlet England * The Fleet Lagoon, at Chesil Beach, ...

s to influence opinion in foreign capitals. More urgent diplomatic points were made by the

Clinton Clinton is an English toponymic surname, indicating one's ancestors came from English places called Glympton or Glinton.Hanks, P. & Hodges, F. ''A Dictionary of Surnames''. Oxford University Press, 1988 Clinton has frequently been used as a given ...

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal ** Administrative assistant, Administrative Assistant, traditionally known as a Secretary, or also known as an admini ...

in the

Yugoslav wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related#Naimark, Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and Insurgency, insurgencies that took place in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, SFR Yugoslavia from ...

of the 1990s (in alliance with the

Blair Blair is an English-language name of Scottish Gaelic origin. The surname is derived from any of the numerous places in Scotland called ''Blair'', derived from the Scottish Gaelic ''blàr'', meaning "plain", "meadow" or "field", frequently a “ba ...

administration) and elsewhere, using sea-launched

Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Indigenous peoples and nations of North America. It traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. In pre-colonial times the head was made of stone, bone, or antler, and Europ ...

missiles, and E-3 AWACS airborne surveillance aircraft in a more passive display of military presence.

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (; ; born Heinz Alfred Kissinger, May 27, 1923) is a German-born American politician, diplomat, and geopolitical consultant who served as United States Secretary of State and National Security Advisor under the presid ...

, during his tenure as

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state is a member of the executive branch of the federal government of the United States and the head of the U.S. Department of State. The office holder is one of the highest ranking members of the president's Ca ...

, summed up the concept as thus: "An aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons of diplomacy."

Notable examples

18th century

Anson Anson may refer to: People * Anson (name), a give name and surname ** Anson family, a British aristocratic family with the surname Place names ;United States * Anson, Indiana * Anson, Kansas * Anson, Maine ** Anson (CDP), Maine * Anson, Missouri * ...

's visit to

Canton Canton may refer to: Administrative division terminology * Canton (administrative division), territorial/administrative division in some countries, notably Switzerland * Township (Canada), known as ''canton'' in Canadian French Arts and ent ...

in 1741

19th century

Second Barbary War The Second Barbary War (1815) or the U.S.–Algerian War was fought between the United States and the North African Barbary Coast states of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. The war ended when the United States Senate ratified Commodore Stephen De ...

(1815) *

Haiti indemnity controversy The Haiti indemnity controversy involves an 1825 agreement between Haiti and France that included France demanding a 150 million French franc, franc indemnity to be paid by Haiti in claims over property – including Slavery in Haiti, Haitian slav ...

(1825) *

Pastry War The Pastry War ( es, Guerra de los pasteles; french: Guerre des Pâtisseries), also known as the First French Intervention in Mexico or the First Franco-Mexican War (1838–1839), began in November 1838 with the naval blockade of some Mexican po ...

(1838–39) *

Opium Wars The Opium Wars () were two conflicts waged between China and Western powers during the mid-19th century. The First Opium War was fought from 1839 to 1842 between China and the United Kingdom, and was triggered by the Chinese government's cam ...

(1840, 1856) *

Don Pacifico Incident The Don Pacifico affair was a diplomatic episode which occurred in 1850 and concerned the governments of Greece, the United Kingdom and Portugal, and is considered an example of gunboat diplomacy. The affair is named after David Pacifico, a Jewis ...

(1850) *

Second Anglo-Burmese War The Second Anglo-Burmese War or the Second Burma War ( my, ဒုတိယ အင်္ဂလိပ် မြန်မာ စစ် ; 5 April 185220 January 1853) was the second of the Anglo-Burmese Wars, three wars fought between the Konbaung dy ...

(1852) *

Opening of Japan was the final years of the Edo period when the Tokugawa shogunate ended. Between 1853 and 1867, Japan ended its isolationist foreign policy known as and changed from a feudal Tokugawa shogunate to the modern empire of the Meiji government. ...

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

Commodore Commodore may refer to: Ranks * Commodore (rank), a naval rank ** Commodore (Royal Navy), in the United Kingdom ** Commodore (United States) ** Commodore (Canada) ** Commodore (Finland) ** Commodore (Germany) or ''Kommodore'' * Air commodore, a ...

Matthew C. Perry Matthew Calbraith Perry (April 10, 1794 – March 4, 1858) was a commodore of the United States Navy who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). He played a leading role in the op ...

and his

Black Ships The Black Ships (in ja, 黒船, translit=kurofune, Edo period term) was the name given to Western vessels arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries. In 1543 Portuguese initiated the first contacts, establishing a trade route linking G ...

(1853–54) *

Paraguay expedition The Paraguay expedition (1858–1859) was an American diplomatic mission and nineteen-ship squadron ordered by President James Buchanan to South America to demand redress for certain wrongs alleged to have been done by Paraguay, and seize its cap ...

(1858–9) *

Shimonoseki Campaign The refers to a series of military engagements in 1863 and 1864, fought to control the Shimonoseki Straits of Japan by joint naval forces from Great Britain, France, the Netherlands and the United States, against the Japanese feudal domain of ...

(1863–1864) * Christie Affair (1861–1865) *

Shinmiyangyo The United States expedition to Korea, known in Korea as the ''Shinmiyangyo'' () or simply the Korean Expedition, was the first American military action in Korea and took place predominantly on and around Ganghwa Island in 1871. The reason fo ...

in Korea (1871) *

Ganghwa Island incident The Ganghwa Island incident or the Japanese Battle of Ganghwa ( ko, 운요호 사건 ��揚號事件} ''Unyo-ho sageon'' meaning "'' Un'yō'' incident"; ja, 江華島 ''Kōka-tō jiken''), was an armed clash between the Joseon dynasty of Kore ...

(1875) *

Tonkin Flotilla The Tonkin Flotilla (french: flottille de Tonkin), a force of despatch vessels and gunboats used for policing the rivers and waterways of the Tonkin Delta, was created in the summer of 1883, during the period of hostilities of the Tonkin campaign (1 ...

(1883)

Môle Saint-Nicolas affair The Môle Saint-Nicolas affair was an 1891 diplomatic incident between Haiti and the United States when in an act of gunboat diplomacy, President of the United States Benjamin Harrison ordered Rear-Admiral Bancroft Gherardi to persuade the cessati ...

(1889–1891) * Baltimore crisis (1891) * Franco-Siamese War of 1893 *

Anglo-Zanzibar War The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom and the Zanzibar Sultanate on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, marking it as the shortest recorded war in history. The immediate ca ...

(1896) * Luders Affair (1897) *

Yangtze River Patrol The Yangtze Patrol, also known as the Yangtze River Patrol Force, Yangtze River Patrol, YangPat and ComYangPat, was a prolonged naval operation from 1854–1949 to protect American interests in the Yangtze River's treaty ports. The Yangtze P ...

(1850s–1930s) *

Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom was a ''coup d'état'' against Queen Liliʻuokalani, which took place on January 17, 1893, on the island of Oahu and led by the Committee of Safety (Hawaii), Committee of Safety, composed of seven foreign ...

(1893)

20th century

Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

* Panama separation from Colombia *

Great White Fleet The Great White Fleet was the popular nickname for the group of United States Navy battleships which completed a journey around the globe from December 16, 1907 to February 22, 1909 by order of President Theodore Roosevelt. Its mission was t ...

(1907) *

Agadir Crisis The Agadir Crisis, Agadir Incident, or Second Moroccan Crisis was a brief crisis sparked by the deployment of a substantial force of French troops in the interior of Morocco in April 1911 and the deployment of the German gunboat to Agadir, a ...

(1911) *

Occupation of Veracruz The United States occupation of Veracruz (April 21 to November 23, 1914) began with the Battle of Veracruz and lasted for seven months. The incident came in the midst of poor diplomatic relations between Mexico and the United States, and was re ...

(1914) *

Danzig crisis (1932) The Danzig crisis of 1932 was an incident between the Free City of Danzig (modern Gdańsk, Poland) and Poland concerning whether the Polish government had the right to station warships in Danzig harbour, together with Poland's claim to represent Dan ...

First Taiwan Strait Crisis The First Taiwan Strait Crisis (also the Formosa Crisis, the 1954–1955 Taiwan Strait Crisis, the Offshore Islands Crisis, the Quemoy-Matsu Crisis, and the 1955 Taiwan Strait Crisis) was a brief armed conflict between the Communist People's ...

(1954–55) *

Second Taiwan Strait Crisis The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, also called the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, was a conflict that took place between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC). In this conflict, the PRC shelled the islands of Kinme ...

(1958) *

Operation Vantage Operation Vantage was a British military operation in 1961 to support the newly independent state of Kuwait against territorial claims by its neighbour, Iraq. The UK reacted to a call for protection from Sheikh Abdullah III Al-Salim Al-Sabah of Ku ...

(1961) * Liberation of East Pakistan (1971) *

Third Taiwan Strait Crisis The Third Taiwan Strait Crisis, also called the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis or the 1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis, was the effect of a series of missile tests conducted by the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the waters surrounding Taiwan ...

(1995–96)

21st century

* Spratly Islands dispute

Etymology

Theory

Distinctions

Modern contexts

Notable examples

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

See also

References

Further reading

In German