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, 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, colony, colonial outposts, and expansion of empire. 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 materials or overseas Market (economics) , markets.

Theory

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

Distinctions

Gunboat diplomacy contrasts with the views held prior to the 18th century and influenced by Hugo Grotius, who in ''De jure belli ac pacis'' (1625) circumscribed the right to resort to force with what he described as "temperamenta". Gunboat diplomacy is distinct from "defence diplomacy", which is understood to be the peaceful application of resources from across the spectrum of defence to achieve positive outcomes in the development of Bilateralism , bilateral and multilateralism , 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. As the United States became a military power in the first decade of the 20th century, the Theodore Roosevelt, Rooseveltian version of gunboat diplomacy, Big Stick Diplomacy, was partially superseded by dollar diplomacy: replacing the big stick with the "juicy carrot" of American private investment. However, during Woodrow Wilson's presidency, conventional gunboat diplomacy did occur, most notably in the case of the United States occupation of Veracruz, U.S. Army's occupation of Veracruz in 1914, during the Mexican Revolution. Gunboat diplomacy in the post-Cold War world is still largely based on naval forces, owing to the United States Navy, U.S. Navy's overwhelming sea power. U.S. administrations have frequently changed the disposition of their major naval United States Navy#Fleets, fleets to influence opinion in foreign capitals. More urgent diplomatic points were made by the Bill Clinton, Clinton Presidency of Bill Clinton, administration in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s (in alliance with the Tony Blair, Blair administration) and elsewhere, using sea-launched Tomahawk missile, Tomahawk missiles, and E-3 AWACS airborne surveillance aircraft in a more passive display of military presence. Henry Kissinger, during his tenure as United States Secretary of State, summed up the concept as thus: "An aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons of diplomacy."

Notable examples

18th century

* George Anson, 1st Baron Anson, Anson's visit to Guangzhou, Canton in 1741

19th century

* Second Barbary War (1815) * Haiti indemnity controversy (1825) * Pastry War (1838–39) * Opium Wars (1840, 1856) * Pacifico incident, Don Pacifico Incident (1850) * Second Anglo-Burmese War (1852) * Opening of Japan by United States Navy Commodore (USN), Commodore Matthew C. Perry and his Black Ships (1853–54) * Paraguay expedition (1858–9) * Shimonoseki Campaign (1863–1864) * Christie Question, Christie Affair (1861–1865) * Shinmiyangyo in Korea (1871) * Ganghwa Island incident (1875) * Tonkin Flotilla (1883) British ships in Canton

* Môle Saint-Nicolas affair (1889–1891) * Baltimore crisis (1891) * Franco-Siamese War of 1893 * Anglo-Zanzibar War (1896) * Luders Affair (1897) * Yangtze River Patrol (1850s–1930s) * Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii (1893)

20th century

* Venezuela Crisis of 1902–1903 * Separation of Panama from Colombia#Separation, Panama separation from Colombia * Great White Fleet (1907) * Agadir Crisis (1911) * United States occupation of Veracruz, Occupation of Veracruz (1914) * Danzig crisis (1932) * First Taiwan Strait Crisis (1954–55) * Second Taiwan Strait Crisis (1958) * Operation Vantage (1961) * Bangladesh Liberation War, Liberation of East Pakistan (1971) * Third Taiwan Strait Crisis (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