Gunboat diplomacy

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.

[citation needed] 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 materials or overseas markets.

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: 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").

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".