Gunboat Diplomacy: Difference between revisions

Still pretty common today -- it just involves aircraft carriers.

 

 

 

== Film ==

** Threatened to happen in ''[[X Wing Series|Starfighters of Adumar]]''. Both the Empire and the New Republic were trying to win over a neutral world, and both had beforehand signed treaties stating that if they were not the favored party, they would withdraw all forces for three days and not return except under "formal banners of truce or war". The Empire intended to ignore that if it came to it, but the Imperial in charge hated being ordered to break his word so much that the New Republic ambassador, [[Ambadassador|Wedge Antilles]], was able to talk him out of it.

* One of the space ships in [[Iain M Banks|Iain M. Banks]] [[The Culture|Culture]] novels is actually named ''Gunboat Diplomat''.

** The ''Admiral Peary'' is armed with nukes, as a safeguard against the lizards doing anything bad to Earth in their absense. If that isn't gunboat diplomacy, I don't know what is. The ''Commodore Perry'' is an FTL-capable ship that took only 5 weeks to get to Tau Ceti. The mere fact that is was able to do that freaked out the Race more than the weapons it carried. Even if they managed to destroy the ship, the humans would just send another that could attack as soon as it arrived in orbit in a matter of weeks, as opposed to decades.

* In the [[Vorkosigan Saga]], Aral Vorkosigan pulls a clever reversal of this; he draws up a list of a neighbouring polity's top five requested diplomatic concessions and suggests it as an agenda for a summit. The diplomacy, in this case, is purely so that he can get his gunboat closer to where he suspects the action will take place. He's right, and it results in one hell of a [[Gunship Rescue]] moment.

** [[Older Than They Think]] once you find on a map where the Barbary States were located. The [[Semper Fi|Marine Corps]] hymn doesn't mention the Shores of Tripoli because of anything they did in the ''20th'' century.

** The Barbary Coast states were known as pirates and slave takers until visited in turn by the Americans, the British, and the French at the beginning of the nineteenth century. These three each persuaded them to turn to more gentle ways of life by the use of [[Semper Fi|exceedingly]] [[Wooden Ships and Iron Men|strong]] [[Legion of Lost Souls|persuasions]].

** The crisis also demonstrated the potential for gunboat diplomacy to backfire. The crisis was precipitated by the Chinese military conducting missile tests less than 40 miles from ROC-controlled territory as well as a mobilization of Chinese troops in Fujian province (the province closest to Taiwan) and several live-fire exercises. The actions were intended to scare the Taiwanese populace into not re-electing then-President Lee Teng-hui, who was seen by China as being pro-independence - the crisis actually ''boosted'' Lee's popularity in the 1996 election and gave him an outright majority in the polls as opposed to a mere plurality. China has since learned its lesson and hasn't tried anything so radical in subsequent Taiwanese elections.

* Perhaps most famously, the diplomatic mission of Commodore Matthew C. Perry ([[Friends|not that one]]) to the Empire of Japan.

** 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 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Opium_War the] ''[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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.

* Hilarious version: ''[[Running Gag|Every time]]'' [[Useful Notes/Malaysia|Malaysia]] decides to [[I Shall Taunt You|taunt]] [[Useful Notes/Indonesia|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.

[[Category:Politics Tropes]]

[[Category:Gunboat Diplomacy]]