Gunboat diplomacy is the pursuit of

foreign policy Foreign policy, also known as external policy, is the set of strategies and actions a State (polity), state employs in its interactions with other states, unions, and international entities. It encompasses a wide range of objectives, includ ...

objectives with the aid of conspicuous displays of

naval power A navy, naval force, military maritime fleet, war navy, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations ...

, implying or constituting a direct threat of

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

fare should terms not be agreeable to the superior force. The term originated in the 19th century, during the

age of imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power ( diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism foc ...

, when

Western powers The Western world, also known as the West, primarily refers to various nations and states in Western Europe, Northern America, and Australasia; with some debate as to whether those in Eastern Europe and Latin America also constitute the West. ...

, especially the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States would use their superior military capabilities, particularly their naval assets, to intimidate less powerful nations into granting concessions. The mere presence of warships off a country's coast was often enough to have a significant effect, making the actual use of force rarely necessary.

Etymology

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

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

, when

from Europe and the United Stateswould

intimidate Intimidation is a behaviour and legal wrong which usually involves deterring or coercing an individual by threat of violence. It is in various jurisdictions a crime and a civil wrong (tort). Intimidation is similar to menacing, coercion, terror ...

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 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. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

Foreign Secretary

Lord Palmerston Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (20 October 1784 – 18 October 1865), known as Lord Palmerston, was a British statesman and politician who served as prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1855 to 1858 and from 1859 to 1865. A m ...

dispatch a squadron of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

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 ...

the

Greek Greek may refer to: 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 of all kno ...

port of

Piraeus Piraeus ( ; ; , Ancient: , Katharevousa: ) 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 Gulf in the Ath ...

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 Pacific ...

, in

Athens Athens ( ) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Greece, largest city of Greece. A significant coastal urban area in the Mediterranean, Athens is also the capital of the Attica (region), Attica region and is the southe ...

, and the subsequent failure of the

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a State (polity), state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive (government), execu ...

of King Otto to compensate the

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

-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 eff ...

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 the largest island of the Chagos Archipelago. It has been used as a joint UK–U.S. military base since the 1970s, following the expulsion of the Chagossians by the UK government. The Chagos Islands are set to become a former B ...

, 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, military outpost (military), outposts, and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a hegemony, dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the ...

. Peoples lacking the resources or technological innovations available to Western empires found that their own 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/Intermediate goods that are feedstock for future finished ...

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 *Marketing, the act of sat ...

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 Many words in the English vocabulary are of French language, French origin, most coming from the Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman spoken by the upper classes in England for several hundred years after the Norman conquest of England, Norman ...

. * 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 (alternatively spelled as mobilisation) 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 ...

(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 views held prior to the 18th century and influenced by

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

, who in ''

De jure belli ac pacis ''De iure belli ac pacis'' (English: ''On the Law of War and Peace'') is a 1625 work by Dutch jurist and philosopher Hugo Grotius, which is widely regarded as a foundational text in the development of international law. First published in Paris, ...

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

defence diplomacy In international relations, defence diplomacy (also known as military 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 o ...

", 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 l ...

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, either regional or global. In Ancient Greece (ca. 8th BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of ...

. 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 Thomas Woodrow Wilson (December 28, 1856February 3, 1924) was the 28th president of the United States, serving from 1913 to 1921. He was the only History of the Democratic Party (United States), Democrat to serve as president during the Prog ...

'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 () was an extended sequence of armed regional conflicts in Mexico from 20 November 1910 to 1 December 1920. It has been called "the defining event of modern Mexican history". It saw the destruction of the Federal Army, its ...

. Gunboat diplomacy in the post-

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

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 Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest displacement, at 4.5 million tons in 2021. It has the world's largest aircraft ...

'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 Be ...

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

administration Administration may refer to: Management of organizations * Management, the act of directing people towards accomplishing a goal: the process of dealing with or controlling things or people. ** Administrative assistant, traditionally known as a se ...

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 from 1991 to 2001 in what had been the Socialist Federal Republic of ...

of the 1990s (in alliance with the

Blair Blair is a Scots-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 ...

administration) and elsewhere, using sea-launched

Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Native Americans in the United States, Indian peoples and nations of North America, traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. Etymology The name comes from Powhatan langu ...

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

Henry Kissinger Henry Alfred Kissinger (May 27, 1923 – November 29, 2023) was an American diplomat and political scientist who served as the 56th United States secretary of state from 1973 to 1977 and the 7th National Security Advisor (United States), natio ...

, during his tenure as

United States Secretary of State The United States secretary of state (SecState) 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 secretary of state serves as the principal advisor to the ...

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

Notable examples

18th century

* Anson's visit to Canton in 1741
Britain's treaty with Oman
(1798)

19th century

Second Barbary War The Second Barbary War, also known as the U.S.–Algerian War and the Algerine War, was a brief military conflict between the United States and the North African state of Algiers in 1815. Piracy had been rampant along the North African "Barb ...

(1815) *

Haiti indemnity controversy The Haitian independence debt involves an 1825 agreement between Haiti and France that included France demanding an indemnity of 150 million francs in five annual payments of 30 million to be paid by Haiti in claims over property including Haitia ...

(1825) *

Pastry War The Pastry War (; ), 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 Centralist Republic of Mexico, Mexican ports and the capture of the ...

(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 Britain. It was triggered by the Chinese government's campaign to ...

(1840, 1856) * Paulet Affair (1843) * Don Pacifico Incident (1850) *

Second Anglo-Burmese War The Second Anglo-Burmese War or the Second Burma War ( ; 5 April 185220 January 1853) was the second of the three wars fought between the Burmese Empire and British Empire during the 19th century. The war resulted in a British victory with more ...

(1852) *

Opening of Japan ] The Perry Expedition (, , "Arrival of the Black Ships") was a diplomatic and military expedition in two separate voyages (1852–1853 and 1854–1855) to the Tokugawa shogunate () by warships of the United States Navy. The goals of this expedit ...

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

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

Matthew C. Perry Matthew Calbraith Perry (April 10, 1794 – March 4, 1858) was a United States Navy officer who commanded ships in several wars, including the War of 1812 and the Mexican–American War. He led the Perry Expedition that Bakumatsu, ended Japan' ...

and his

Black Ships The Black Ships (in , Edo period term) were the names given to both Portuguese merchant ships and American warships arriving in Japan in the 16th and 19th centuries respectively. In 1543, Portuguese initiated the first contacts, establishing a ...

(1853–54) * Paraguay expedition (1858–9) * Shimonoseki Campaign (1863–1864) * Christie Affair (1861–1865) * Shinmiyangyo in Korea (1871) *

Ganghwa Island incident The Ganghwa Island incident or the Japanese Battle of Ganghwa ( ''Unyo-ho sageon'' meaning "'' Un'yō'' incident"; ''Kōka-tō jiken'') was an armed clash between the Joseon dynasty of Korea and Japan which occurred in the vicinity of Ganghwa ...

(1875) *

Tonkin Flotilla The Tonkin Flotilla () of 1883 was a flotilla of French Imperial gunboats and despatch vessels used to enforce French Colonial rule on the waterways of Tonkin (modern-day northern Vietnam). It was organized during an episode of the French Conques ...

(1883)

German East Africa German East Africa (GEA; ) was a German colonial empire, German colony in the African Great Lakes region, which included present-day Burundi, Rwanda, the Tanzania mainland, and the Kionga Triangle, a small region later incorporated into Portugu ...

(1885) *

Samoan crisis The Samoan crisis was a standoff between the United States, the German Empire, and the British Empire from 1887 to 1889 over control of the Samoan Islands during the First Samoan Civil War. Background In 1878, the United States acquired a fuel ...

(1887-1889) *

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 cession ...

(1889–1891) *

1890 British Ultimatum The 1890 British Ultimatum was an ultimatum by the British government delivered on 11 January 1890 to the Kingdom of Portugal. Portugal had attempted to claim a large area of land between its colonies of Mozambique and Angola including most of pr ...

Baltimore crisis The ''Baltimore'' crisis was a diplomatic incident that took place between Chile and the United States, after the 1891 Chilean Civil War, as a result of the growing American influence in the Pacific Coast region of Latin America in the 1890s. It ...

(1891) *

Franco-Siamese crisis of 1893 The Franco-Siamese crisis of 1893, known in Thailand as the Incident of Rattanakosin Era 112 (, , ) was a conflict between the French Third Republic and the Kingdom of Siam. Auguste Pavie, French vice-consul in Luang Prabang in 1886, was the c ...

Anglo-Zanzibar War The Anglo-Zanzibar War was a military conflict fought between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and the Sultanate of Zanzibar on 27 August 1896. The conflict lasted between 38 and 45 minutes, marking it as the sh ...

(1896) * Lüders 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 initiated after the Battle of Muddy Flat, from 1854 to 1949 to protect American interests in th ...

(1850s–1930s)

20th century

Operation Paul Bunyan The Korean axe murder incident (), also known domestically as the Panmunjom axe atrocity incident (), was the killing of two United Nations Command officers, Captain Arthur Bonifas and First Lieutenant Mark Barrett, by North Korean soldiers on ...

Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 The Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 was a naval blockade imposed against United States of Venezuela, Venezuela by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain, French Third Republic, France, German Empire, Germany, and Kingdom o ...

* Panama separation from Colombia *

Dogger Bank Incident The Dogger Bank incident (also known as the North Sea Incident, the Russian Outrage or the Incident of Hull) occurred on the night of 21/22 October 1904, during the Russo-Japanese War, when the Baltic Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy mistook ...

(1904) *

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 July 1911 and the deployment of the German gunboat to Agadir, ...

(1911) * Occupation of Veracruz (1914) * Danzig crisis (1932) *

First Taiwan Strait Crisis The First Taiwan Strait Crisis (also known as 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 People's Rep ...

(1954–55) *

Second Taiwan Strait Crisis The Second Taiwan Strait Crisis, also known as the 1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis, was a conflict between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Taiwan, Republic of China (ROC). The PRC shelled the islands of Kinmen (Quemoy) and the Matsu Is ...

(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 K ...

(1961) * Operation Brother Sam (1964) * Liberation of East Pakistan (1971) *

Lebanese Civil War The Lebanese Civil War ( ) was a multifaceted armed conflict that took place from 1975 to 1990. It resulted in an estimated 150,000 fatalities and led to the exodus of almost one million people from Lebanon. The religious diversity of the ...

(1983-1984) *

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 * 2022 Chinese military exercises around Taiwan

Etymology

Theory

Distinctions

Modern contexts

Notable examples

18th century

19th century

20th century

21st century

See also

References

Further reading

In German