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Gunboat diplomacy

February 15, 2024

Gunboat diplomacy is the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power, implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare should terms not be agreeable to the superior force.[1]

SMS Panther, an example of the use of German gunboat diplomacy

Etymology edit

 
William Allen Rogers's 1904 cartoon recreates the big-stick diplomacy of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt as an episode in Gulliver's Travels.
 
Damage to the palace complex of the sultan of Zanzibar after bombardment by Royal Navy cruisers and gunboats on 27 August 1896. The Anglo-Zanzibar War lasted less than 45 minutes.

The term "gunboat diplomacy" comes from the nineteenth-century period of imperialism,[2] when Western powers – from Europe and the United States – would intimidate 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.[citation needed]

A notable example of gunboat diplomacy, the Don Pacifico affair in 1850, saw the British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston dispatch a squadron of the Royal Navy to blockade the Greek port of Piraeus in retaliation for the assault of a British subject, David Pacifico, in Athens, and the subsequent failure of the government of King Otto to compensate the Gibraltar-born (and therefore British) Pacifico.[citation needed]

The effectiveness of such simple demonstrations of a nation's projection of force capabilities meant that nations with naval power and command of the sea could establish military bases (for example, Diego Garcia, 1940s onwards[3]) 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.[citation needed]

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 markets.

Theory edit

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."[4] 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 the German Reich in central Europe in the 1940s), or appropriately timed and situated military manoeuvres ("exercises").

Distinctions edit

Gunboat diplomacy contrasts with 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".[5]

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 bilateral and multilateral relationships.[citation needed] "Military diplomacy" is a sub-set of this, tending to refer only to the role of military attachés and their associated activity.[citation needed] 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,[6] and bilateral military talks.[7]

Modern contexts edit

 
The Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, a powerful capital ship currently in service
 
E-3 AWACS, surveillance and radar aircraft often used in a modern-day form of gunboat diplomacy

Gunboat diplomacy is considered a form of hegemony.[8] 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: 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 U.S. Army's occupation of Veracruz in 1914, during the Mexican Revolution.[9]

Gunboat diplomacy in the post-Cold War world is still largely based on naval forces, owing to the U.S. Navy's overwhelming sea power. U.S. administrations have frequently changed the disposition of their major naval fleets to influence opinion in foreign capitals.[citation needed] More urgent diplomatic points were made by the Clinton administration in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s (in alliance with the Blair administration) and elsewhere, using sea-launched Tomahawk missiles,[10] and E-3 AWACS airborne surveillance aircraft in a more passive display of military presence.[11][12][13] 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."[14]

Notable examples edit

18th century edit

19th century edit

20th century edit

 
1903 cartoon, "Go Away, Little Man, and Don't Bother Me", depicts President Roosevelt intimidating Colombia to acquire the Panama Canal Zone.

21st century edit

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ Cable, James. "Gunboat Diplomacy: Political Applications of Limited Naval Force" Chatto and Windus for the Institute for Strategic Studies, 1971, p. 10
  2. ^ The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the phrase back as far as 1927: "gun-boat". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  3. ^ Bandjunis, Vytautas Blaise (2001). "How Diego Garcia Began". Diego Garcia: Creation of the Indian Ocean Base. iUniverse. p. 6. ISBN 9780595144068. Retrieved 5 November 2022. During World War II the Royal Air Force used Diego Garcia as a radio station, a PBY Catalina flying boat base, and by the Royal Navy [sic] as an anchorage. A garrison of Indian troops was also established.
  4. ^ J. Cable, Gunboat diplomacy, 1919–1991: political applications of limited naval force (third edition), Basingstoke: Macmillan/IISS, 2016, p. 14.
  5. ^ Draper, G. I. A. D. (1992). "Grotius' Place in the Development of Legal Ideas about War". academic.oup.com: 177–208. doi:10.1093/0198277717.003.0005. ISBN 978-0-19-827771-2. Retrieved 2023-07-05.
  6. ^ Link to security sector reform http://www2.parl.gc.ca/content/lop/researchpublications/prb0612-e.pdf 2014-01-05 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ Link to UK Ministry of Defence paper that initiated larger dialogue http://www.mod.uk/NR/rdonlyres/BB03F0E7-1F85-4E7B-B7EB-4F0418152932/0/polpaper1_def_dip.pdf 2009-08-05 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ^ Rowlands, K. (2012). "Decided Preponderance at Sea”: Naval Diplomacy in Strategic Thought. Naval War College Review, 65(4), 5–5. Retrieved from [1] Link to article: [2]
  9. ^ Rowlands, K. (2012). "Decided Preponderance at Sea”: Naval Diplomacy in Strategic Thought. Naval War College Review, 65(4), 5–5. Retrieved from [3] Link to article: [4]
  10. ^ "Tomahawk Diplomacy". October 19, 1998.
  11. ^ Smith, Perry M., "Assignment Pentagon: Pentagon: A Guide to the Potomac Puzzle Palace", Brassey's Publishing, 2001, p. 50.
  12. ^ . Archived from the original on 2016-12-30. Retrieved 2008-05-08.
  13. ^ Colombia, Gun Boat Diplomacy, The floating world 2008-05-13 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ "The slow death of the carrier air wing". jalopnik.com. 19 July 2017. from the original on 11 January 2018. Retrieved 10 January 2018.
  15. ^ "Anson's Voyage Round the World".

Further reading edit

  • Arnold, Bruce Makoto (2005). Diplomacy Far Removed: A Reinterpretation of the U.S. Decision to Open Diplomatic Relations with Japan (Thesis). University of Arizona. [5]
  • Cable, James: Gunboat diplomacy. Political Applications of Limited Naval Forces, London 1971 (re-edited 1981 and 1994)
  • Graham-Yooll, Andrew. Imperial skirmishes: war and gunboat diplomacy in Latin America (2002).
  • Healy, D. Gunboat Diplomacy in the Wilson Era. The U.S. Navy in Haiti 1915–1916, Madison WIS 1976.
  • Hagan, K. J. American Gunboat Diplomacy and the Old Navy 1877–1889, Westport/London 1973.
  • Preston, A. and J. Major. Send a Gunboat! A study of the Gunboat and its role in British policy, 1854–1904, London 1967.
Articles
  • Long, D. F.: "Martial Thunder": The First Official American Armed Intervention in Asia, in: Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 42, 1973, pp. 143–162.
  • Willock, R.: Gunboat Diplomacy: Operations of the (British) North America and West Indies Squadron, 1875–1915, Part 2, in: American Neptune, Vol. XXVIII, 1968, pp. 85–112.
  • Bauer, K. J.: The "Sancala" Affair: Captain Voorhees Seizes an Argentine Squadron, in: American Neptune, Vol. XXIV, 1969, pp. 174–186

In German edit

  • Krüger, Henning: Zwischen Küstenverteidigung und Weltpolitik. Die politische Geschichte der preußischen Marine 1848 bis 1867 (Between coastal defence and world policy. The political history of the prussian navy 1848 to 1867), Bochum 2008.
  • Wiechmann, Gerhard: Die preußisch-deutsche Marine in Lateinamerika 1866–1914. Eine Studie deutscher Kanonenbootpolitik (The Prussian-German Navy in Latin America 1866–1914. A study of German Gunboat diplomacy), Bremen 2002.
  • Wiechmann, Gerhard: Die Königlich Preußische Marine in Lateinamerika 1851 bis 1867. Ein Versuch deutscher Kanonenbootpolitik (The royal Prussian navy in Latin America 1851 to 1867. An attempt of German gunboat diplomacy), in: Sandra Carreras/Günther Maihold (ed.): Preußen und Lateinamerika. Im Spannungsfeld von Kommerz, Macht und Kultur, p. 105–144, Münster 2004.
  • Eberspächer, Cord: Die deutsche Yangtse-Patrouille. Deutsche Kanonenbootpolitik in China im Zeitalter des Imperialismus (The German Yangtse patrol. German Gunboat diplomacy in China in the age of imperialism), Bochum 2004.
  • N.N.: Die Vernichtung des haitianischen Rebellenkreuzers "Crete à Pierrot" durch S.M.Kbt. "Panther" (The destruction of the Haitian rebel cruiser "Crete à Pierrot" through His Majesty´s gunboat "Panther"), in: Marine-Rundschau, 13. Jahrgang, 1902, pp. 1189–1197.
  • Rheder: Die militärische Unternehmung S.M.S.S. "Charlotte" und "Stein" gegen Haiti im Dezember 1897 (The military enterprise of His Majesty´s schoolships "Charlotte" and "Stein" against Haiti in December 1897), in: Marine-Rundschau, 41. Jahrgang, 1937, pp. 761–765.

February 15, 2024
gunboat, diplomacy, this, article, lead, section, short, adequately, summarize, points, please, consider, expanding, lead, provide, accessible, overview, important, aspects, article, march, 2023, pursuit, foreign, policy, objectives, with, conspicuous, display. This article s lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article March 2023 Gunboat diplomacy is the pursuit of foreign policy objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of naval power implying or constituting a direct threat of warfare should terms not be agreeable to the superior force 1 SMS Panther an example of the use of German gunboat diplomacy Contents 1 Etymology 2 Theory 2 1 Distinctions 3 Modern contexts 4 Notable examples 4 1 18th century 4 2 19th century 4 3 20th century 4 4 21st century 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 7 1 In GermanEtymology edit nbsp William Allen Rogers s 1904 cartoon recreates the big stick diplomacy of U S President Theodore Roosevelt as an episode in Gulliver s Travels nbsp Damage to the palace complex of the sultan of Zanzibar after bombardment by Royal Navy cruisers and gunboats on 27 August 1896 The Anglo Zanzibar War lasted less than 45 minutes The term gunboat diplomacy comes from the nineteenth century period of imperialism 2 when Western powers from Europe and the United States would intimidate 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 citation needed A notable example of gunboat diplomacy the Don Pacifico affair in 1850 saw the British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston dispatch a squadron of the Royal Navy to blockade the Greek port of Piraeus in retaliation for the assault of a British subject David Pacifico in Athens and the subsequent failure of the government of King Otto to compensate the Gibraltar born and therefore British Pacifico citation needed The effectiveness of such simple demonstrations of a nation s projection of force capabilities meant that nations with naval power and command of the sea could establish military bases for example Diego Garcia 1940s onwards 3 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 citation needed 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 markets Theory editDiplomat 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 4 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 the German Reich in central Europe in the 1940s or appropriately timed and situated military manoeuvres exercises Distinctions edit Gunboat diplomacy contrasts with 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 5 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 bilateral and multilateral relationships citation needed Military diplomacy is a sub set of this tending to refer only to the role of military attaches and their associated activity citation needed 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 6 and bilateral military talks 7 Modern contexts edit nbsp The Nimitz class aircraft carrier a powerful capital ship currently in service nbsp E 3 AWACS surveillance and radar aircraft often used in a modern day form of gunboat diplomacyGunboat diplomacy is considered a form of hegemony 8 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 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 U S Army s occupation of Veracruz in 1914 during the Mexican Revolution 9 Gunboat diplomacy in the post Cold War world is still largely based on naval forces owing to the U S Navy s overwhelming sea power U S administrations have frequently changed the disposition of their major naval fleets to influence opinion in foreign capitals citation needed More urgent diplomatic points were made by the Clinton administration in the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s in alliance with the Blair administration and elsewhere using sea launched Tomahawk missiles 10 and E 3 AWACS airborne surveillance aircraft in a more passive display of military presence 11 12 13 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 14 Notable examples edit18th century edit Anson s visit to Canton in 1741 15 19th century edit Second Barbary War 1815 Haiti indemnity controversy 1825 Pastry War 1838 39 Opium Wars 1840 1856 Don Pacifico Incident 1850 Second Anglo Burmese War 1852 Opening of Japan by United States Navy Commodore Matthew C Perry and his Black Ships 1853 54 Paraguay expedition 1858 9 Shimonoseki Campaign 1863 1864 Christie Affair 1861 1865 Shinmiyangyo in Korea 1871 Ganghwa Island incident 1875 Tonkin Flotilla 1883 nbsp Royal Navy ships in Canton during the First Opium War in 1841 German East Africa 1885 Mole Saint Nicolas affair 1889 1891 1890 British Ultimatum Baltimore crisis 1891 Franco Siamese crisis of 1893 Anglo Zanzibar War 1896 Luders Affair 1897 Yangtze River Patrol 1850s 1930s Overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii 1893 20th century edit nbsp 1903 cartoon Go Away Little Man and Don t Bother Me depicts President Roosevelt intimidating Colombia to acquire the Panama Canal Zone Venezuelan crisis of 1902 1903 Panama separation from Colombia Dogger Bank Incident 1904 Great White Fleet 1907 Agadir Crisis 1911 Occupation of Veracruz 1914 Danzig crisis 1932 First Taiwan Strait Crisis 1954 55 Second Taiwan Strait Crisis 1958 Operation Vantage 1961 Operation Brother Sam 1964 Liberation of East Pakistan 1971 Third Taiwan Strait Crisis 1995 96 21st century edit Spratly Islands disputeSee also editFleet in being Deterrence theory Peace through strength Intervention international law Interventionism politics Police actionReferences edit Cable James Gunboat Diplomacy Political Applications of Limited Naval Force Chatto and Windus for the Institute for Strategic Studies 1971 p 10 The Oxford English Dictionary traces the use of the phrase back as far as 1927 gun boat Oxford English Dictionary Online ed Oxford University Press Subscription or participating institution membership required Bandjunis Vytautas Blaise 2001 How Diego Garcia Began Diego Garcia Creation of the Indian Ocean Base iUniverse p 6 ISBN 9780595144068 Retrieved 5 November 2022 During World War II the Royal Air Force used Diego Garcia as a radio station a PBY Catalina flying boat base and by the Royal Navy sic as an anchorage A garrison of Indian troops was also established J Cable Gunboat diplomacy 1919 1991 political applications of limited naval force third edition Basingstoke Macmillan IISS 2016 p 14 Draper G I A D 1992 Grotius Place in the Development of Legal Ideas about War academic oup com 177 208 doi 10 1093 0198277717 003 0005 ISBN 978 0 19 827771 2 Retrieved 2023 07 05 Link to security sector reform http www2 parl gc ca content lop researchpublications prb0612 e pdf Archived 2014 01 05 at the Wayback Machine Link to UK Ministry of Defence paper that initiated larger dialogue http www mod uk NR rdonlyres BB03F0E7 1F85 4E7B B7EB 4F0418152932 0 polpaper1 def dip pdf Archived 2009 08 05 at the Wayback Machine Rowlands K 2012 Decided Preponderance at Sea Naval Diplomacy in Strategic Thought Naval War College Review 65 4 5 5 Retrieved from 1 Link to article 2 Rowlands K 2012 Decided Preponderance at Sea Naval Diplomacy in Strategic Thought Naval War College Review 65 4 5 5 Retrieved from 3 Link to article 4 Tomahawk Diplomacy October 19 1998 Smith Perry M Assignment Pentagon Pentagon A Guide to the Potomac Puzzle Palace Brassey s Publishing 2001 p 50 Air Occupation Asking the Right Questions Archived from the original on 2016 12 30 Retrieved 2008 05 08 Colombia Gun Boat Diplomacy The floating world Archived 2008 05 13 at the Wayback Machine The slow death of the carrier air wing jalopnik com 19 July 2017 Archived from the original on 11 January 2018 Retrieved 10 January 2018 Anson s Voyage Round the World Further reading editArnold Bruce Makoto 2005 Diplomacy Far Removed A Reinterpretation of the U S Decision to Open Diplomatic Relations with Japan Thesis University of Arizona 5 Cable James Gunboat diplomacy Political Applications of Limited Naval Forces London 1971 re edited 1981 and 1994 Graham Yooll Andrew Imperial skirmishes war and gunboat diplomacy in Latin America 2002 Healy D Gunboat Diplomacy in the Wilson Era The U S Navy in Haiti 1915 1916 Madison WIS 1976 Hagan K J American Gunboat Diplomacy and the Old Navy 1877 1889 Westport London 1973 Preston A and J Major Send a Gunboat A study of the Gunboat and its role in British policy 1854 1904 London 1967 ArticlesLong D F Martial Thunder The First Official American Armed Intervention in Asia in Pacific Historical Review Vol 42 1973 pp 143 162 Willock R Gunboat Diplomacy Operations of the British North America and West Indies Squadron 1875 1915 Part 2 in American Neptune Vol XXVIII 1968 pp 85 112 Bauer K J The Sancala Affair Captain Voorhees Seizes an Argentine Squadron in American Neptune Vol XXIV 1969 pp 174 186In German edit Kruger Henning Zwischen Kustenverteidigung und Weltpolitik Die politische Geschichte der preussischen Marine 1848 bis 1867 Between coastal defence and world policy The political history of the prussian navy 1848 to 1867 Bochum 2008 Wiechmann Gerhard Die preussisch deutsche Marine in Lateinamerika 1866 1914 Eine Studie deutscher Kanonenbootpolitik The Prussian German Navy in Latin America 1866 1914 A study of German Gunboat diplomacy Bremen 2002 Wiechmann Gerhard Die Koniglich Preussische Marine in Lateinamerika 1851 bis 1867 Ein Versuch deutscher Kanonenbootpolitik The royal Prussian navy in Latin America 1851 to 1867 An attempt of German gunboat diplomacy in Sandra Carreras Gunther Maihold ed Preussen und Lateinamerika Im Spannungsfeld von Kommerz Macht und Kultur p 105 144 Munster 2004 Eberspacher Cord Die deutsche Yangtse Patrouille Deutsche Kanonenbootpolitik in China im Zeitalter des Imperialismus The German Yangtse patrol German Gunboat diplomacy in China in the age of imperialism Bochum 2004 N N Die Vernichtung des haitianischen Rebellenkreuzers Crete a Pierrot durch S M Kbt Panther The destruction of the Haitian rebel cruiser Crete a Pierrot through His Majesty s gunboat Panther in Marine Rundschau 13 Jahrgang 1902 pp 1189 1197 Rheder Die militarische Unternehmung S M S S Charlotte und Stein gegen Haiti im Dezember 1897 The military enterprise of His Majesty s schoolships Charlotte and Stein against Haiti in December 1897 in Marine Rundschau 41 Jahrgang 1937 pp 761 765 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Gunboat diplomacy amp oldid 1197428988, 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