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{{trope}}
[[File:gunboat diplomacy 6847.jpg|frame|"Oh, this old thing? She's nothing really. You should see the ''real'' heat I'm packing back home."<ref>President T. Roosevelt depicted as defending the United States' commercial interests in Latin America from the European powers.</ref>]]
{{quote|''"Speak softly, and [[Carry a Big Stick]]; you will go far."''
|'''[[Theodore Roosevelt]]'''}}
The use of a military force in a threatening manner, but without being blatant about it or actually opening fire on anyone.
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For example, conducting a military exercise off an enemy's coast would be a clear example of gunboat diplomacy. The idea is to remind your enemies (and your friends) that you have a capable military force and you are willing to use it to defend your interests. Also, if the other side calls your bluff and sinks the gunboat (or you arrange a [[False-Flag Operation]]), it gives you a perfectly good [[Pretext for War]].
Still pretty common
Compare with: [[Screw the Rules, I Have a Nuke]] and [[Aggressive Negotiations]]. Overlaps considerably with [[Flaunting Your Fleets]]. See also [[Leonine Contract]].
{{examples}}
== Film ==
* ''[[The Sand Pebbles]]'' depicts Western gunboat diplomacy in 1920s China. Quite literally: the setting is a gunboat.
== Literature ==
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* ''[[The War of the Worlds (novel)|The War of the Worlds]]'' is usually read as an allegory for the British Empire's gunboat diplomacy in the late nineteenth century.
* This is standard policy for the [[The Federation|Earth Federation]] when dealing with space-faring aliens in Mikhail Akhmanov's ''[[Arrivals From the Dark|Trevelyan's Mission]]'' series. This is justified, as humanity's first (and many subsequent) encounters with aliens haven't exactly been on friendly terms. As such, all ambassadors are ferried by top-of-the-line cruisers. Then again, given that this 'verse has instant [[Casual Interstellar Travel]], it's not that big a deal. The only time they did not do that is when a race of [[Technical Pacifist]]s (who can somehow accurately predict possible futures using an advanced form of intuition) requested that no warships be present at negotiations.
* In ''[[
==
* In just the second episode of ''[[Yes Minister]]'' Hacker finds himself faced with a tricky situation involving the new dictator of an African state who, for various reasons, they need something from, but who is threatening to cause an embarrassing incident. The foreign secretary muses jokingly that in the old days they would just send in a gunboat. Hacker then asks if that is, absolutely, out of the question, to shocked stares.
** In ''[[Yes Prime Minister]]'', Hacker (now PM), arranges for a full battalion of paratroopers to pay a goodwill visit to a small third-world country that may just be about to suffer from a Communist uprising, against Sir Humphrey's wishes.
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'''Sir Humphrey''': Reinforcements of what, Prime Minister?
'''Hacker''': Reinforcements of '''''goodwill''''', Humphrey! }}
* Happens quite often in the various versions of ''[[Star Trek]]''. Captain Kirk does it well because he is such a Badass.
** Federation Diplomacy seems to consist of sending two diplomats to discuss things in a patronising manner, then holding the talks on a massively over-armed starship in orbit above one of the party's homeworld.
*** To give them some credit, the interests they push with the show of force seem to be limited to "don't fight each other while you're supposed to be talking" and "don't try to fight us." Everything else is on the table pretty fairly.
** This is
** In Starfleet's defence, one of the reasons why it happens so often is that the first contact goes violent often enough that you have to back it up with firepower simply to be
* In ''[[The Sopranos]]'', a real estate agent refuses to do business with Tony, so he has some of his men park a boat next to the
* Done by Delenn in ''[[Babylon 5]]'', ''Severed Dreams''. Widely considered a CMOA.
** Earlier in the season, happens ''all over the place'' in ''A Voice In The Wilderness'', with over a half-dozen races (including Earth and a previously-unknown race) all pulling this at once when it is discovered that there is some very powerful, very advanced technology buried beneath the planet that the station orbits. {{spoiler|After a brief, inconclusive battle, ''the planet itself'', now acting through its new caretaker, '''[[Large Ham|DRALL]]''' informs all involved parties that ''none'' of them can have the planet, and that any who approach without permission will be destroyed.}}
** And [[Subverted]] in ''Rumors, Bargains, and Lies'', when Sheridan orders the Rangers to attack and destroy {{spoiler|some random asteroids. The League races know that the [[Cool Starship|White Stars]] have far superior sensors to anything they have, and thus assume that they were fighting an invisible enemy. Sheridan does nothing to convince them otherwise, and welcomes them into a new military alliance.}}
** A common accusation is the invitation for Earth to join the Interstellar Alliance happened during the end of the rebellion, and included dozens of advance warships doing a flyover of the capital.
* The whole reason of the High Guard having such fancy and overly [[Cool Starship|powerful warships]] designed by {{spoiler|Now extinct
** This didn't do much good against the Pyrians, whose ships were at least a match for the ''Glorious Heritage'' class. Also, unlike the Commonwealth, the Pyrians never went anywhere.
== Tabletop Games ==▼
* ''Leviathans'' notes this as a background for missions. In that there don't need to be a total war to have minor air fleet skirmishes around disputed or otherwise "hot" areas all the time, since inevitably some or other power is going to flex muscles now and then, and another may try to "show them who's the real boss here" outright, or just respond in kind and let it escalate.▼
== Theatre ==
* "Please Hello" from [[Stephen Sondheim]]'s ''Pacific Overtures'' has America, British, Dutch, Russian and French admirals bringing Japan their demands for treaty ports and such, demands which are punctuated by cannon shots.
== Video Games ==▼
* Pissing off a superpower in ''[[Tropico]]'' 1 and 3 will have them sent out a gunboat that will sail menacingly around your island. Continue to piss off the superpower, [[Nonstandard Game Over|and they'll follow up with troop deployments]].▼
* Works surprisingly well in ''[[Galactic Civilizations|
{{quote|"Oh, [Player Name], what a delight it is to speak with y- ...look, just don't hurt us, ok?"}}▼
** This doesn't even appear to be exclusively military - the [[Superweapon Surprise|ability to make one quickly]], [[Summon Bigger Fish|being friends with someone who has one]] or even the ability to culturally dominate them seems to be enough.▼
* In ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'', [[The Empire]] stations the [[Humongous Mecha|Heracles mobile fortress]] outside the city of Dahngrest during the negotiations with the leaders of the guilds, this is noted by the inhabitants of the guild city.▼
* You can play a variant of this in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei II]]'' if your main character is sufficiently high level, when trying to bind demons. When the demon demands payment for joining you, simply refuse. It starts kicking up a fuss. You can then either calm it down, or rebuke it... which will scare it enough to immediately stop fussing and join you, for fear of what you might do otherwise.▼
== [[Real Life]] ==
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** The man responsible for this reaction was [[The Viscount Palmerston]], who was infamous for this sort of thing. Perhaps the best known - and in China, infamous - event to his name was [[wikipedia:Second Opium War|the]] ''[[wikipedia:Second Opium War|Arrow War]]''.
* In order to construct the Panama Canal, US President Theodore Roosevelt encouraged the Panamanians to revolt against their Colombian rulers, promising assistance from the US Navy. The rebellion was successful mainly because the USS ''Nashville'' just happened to be in local waters, discouraging the Colombians from sending troops to quell the rebels.
* Used without end by both sides during the [[Cold War]] with various degrees of success. There were many versions, from troop movements around the border, military exercises that were either intentionally leaked or outright covered by the media, [[Nuke'Em|nuclear weapons testing]]... The who blinks first attitude shared by both sides nearly led to [[World War Three]] and
* Hilarious version: ''[[Running Gag|Every time]]'' [[Malaysia]] decides to [[I Shall Taunt You|taunt]] [[Indonesia]] about its territorial borders, Malaysia does indeed send a warship, only for Indonesia to send [[Disproportionate Retribution|several]] [[Summon Bigger Fish|bigger warships]] (sometimes with an extra [[Cool Plane]]).
* An interesting dueling version: During the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, the US sent in the Enterprise battle group to threaten India to stop [[Curb Stomp Battle|curb-stomping]] the Pakistanis, only for the Soviets (who were sympathetic to India) to do the same thing. To prevent this from becoming a [[Pretext for War]], the Americans stood down.
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* Both China and America have been sending their [[Sarcasm Mode|magnificent naval fleets]] to the South China Sea. The PRC, to defend the undersea resources they claim to be rightfully theirs;<ref>this isdespite being WAY out of what it should be in international law, which put a country's "EEZ" to 200 miles out from their coastline. The South China Sea dosn't actually align with China's Coastline, and much is beyond what would be their EEZ even if it was.</ref> America, to curb China's claim by protecting the interests of their South-East Asian allies, who under international law have a legal claim to it.
* Several Middle Eastern countries were suspected by the British secret service of being more cozy then they should with Germany during World War II. The result tended to be a large number of British soldiers showing up on their doorstep in a manner that Disraeli would approve no end.
**Alan Moorehead happened to be in Iran in the aftermath of a joint Allied-Russian coup in Iran to chase away a local German enclave and by the way, get a hold of a trucking route to Russia via the Persian Gulf. This was one of the few actual joint ops between the Western Allies and the Soviets on more then the tiniest scale(though separate offensives sometimes took place at the same time at distances apart and were likely coordinated to do so).
**Vichy got a lot of this from ''both'' sides
**Germany several times did this to recalcitrant clients who wanted to defect or weren't all that enthusiastic about the whole thing in the first place. Usually this ended in a German occupation. One notable exception was Finland which turned out to be as good at killing Germans as Russians.
*At one time in the 1800's a British ship was in a Turkish port when someone got the [[Sarcasm Mode|charming]] idea of holding an anti-Armenian [[Rape, Pillage and Burn|pogram.]] Whereupon the
**On a similar occasion when a pogram took place with an American Warship in port the American Captain simply threatened to [[Death From Above|blow up the the town.]]
* During [[World War I]] the Germans made several attempts to subvert India, all unsuccessful but enough to cause nervousness in the British. At one time the Afghan tribes were starting to get yet another notion of going on Jihad and incidently plundering a lot. So the British governor at Peshawar invited hundreds of chiefs to a jirga (diplomatic congress) along with those of their followers who had come to decorate their bosses dignity or just to enjoy the partying. At the jirga the British governor gave them an increase in subsidy as a [[Sarcasm Mode|generous gift of gratitude]] for their [[Blatant Lies|loyal friendship.]] During the feast the British governor had them [[Sarcasm Mode|entertained]] by having the British Bomber Command do fly overs and target practice. As a result the tribes decided to be peaceful.
* Rome (of course) had its own version of this. While despite [[The Empire|the reputation]] they were often wise enough to use it with [[Pragmatic Villainy|reasonable thrift]] they certainly had no problem making their displeasure known.
**St. Paul a couple of times appealed for this from local officials when in danger of rioters or assassins on the grounds of being a Roman Citizen. It is from this that we get the phrase [[Badass Boast|''Civis Romanus Sum'']], "I am a Roman."
▲== Tabletop Games ==
* The original ''[[Big Book of War|Marine Small Wars Manual]]'' was a handbook on this for the US Marines, especially for long term operations. Applications range from the brutal and [[Values Dissonance|embarrasing by modern standards ]] sorts of things through "operations other than war" (low key favors to allies, public relations, etc, like escorting food caravans, being a first responder, etc) and it just requires a flexible imagination on the part of the man on the spot. Much of the book is about things like logistics, local relations, and so forth. It was based on a more generic guidebook published by a British soldier and in turn was updated for the modern era.
▲* ''Leviathans'' notes this as a background for missions. In that there don't need to be a total war to have minor air fleet skirmishes around disputed or otherwise "hot" areas all the time, since inevitably some or other power is going to flex muscles now and then, and another may try to "show them who's boss here" outright, or just respond in kind and let it escalate.
▲== Video Games ==
▲* Pissing off a superpower in ''[[Tropico]]'' 1 and 3 will have them sent out a gunboat that will sail menacingly around your island. Continue to piss off the superpower, [[Nonstandard Game Over|and they'll follow up with troop deployments]].
▲* Works surprisingly well in [[Galactic Civilizations|GalCiv 2]]. Sure, your enemies won't ''like'' it, and they'll try to politically undermine you every chance they get, but hell if they aren't polite.
▲{{quote|"Oh, [Player Name], what a delight it is to speak with y- ...look, just don't hurt us, ok?"}}
▲** This doesn't even appear to be exclusively military - the [[Superweapon Surprise|ability to make one quickly]], [[Summon Bigger Fish|being friends with someone who has one]] or even the ability to culturally dominate them seems to be enough.
▲* In ''[[Tales of Vesperia]]'' [[The Empire]] stations the [[Humongous Mecha|Heracles mobile fortress]] outside the city of Dahngrest during the negotiations with the leaders of the guilds, this is noted by the inhabitants of the guild city.
▲* You can play a variant of this in ''[[Shin Megami Tensei II]]'' if your main character is sufficiently high level, when trying to bind demons. When the demon demands payment for joining you, simply refuse. It starts kicking up a fuss. You can then either calm it down, or rebuke it... which will scare it enough to immediately stop fussing and join you, for fear of what you might do otherwise.
{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Military and Warfare Tropes]]
[[Category:Politics Tropes]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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