"...when the stakes warrant, where and when force can be effective, where no other policies are likely to be effective, where its application can be limited in scope and time, and where the potential benefits justify the potential costs and sacrifice.On the 16th of December 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt sent shockwaves across the world when he sent a multi-million dollar fleet of battleships—painted white—on tour around the globe as an expression of North American military might. “The Great White Fleet” as it was known spawned the term “gunboat diplomacy—what we call today “coercive diplomacy.” The idea of coercive diplomacy is that where words fail, display of might is often enough to save negotiations that have gone awry. A belligerent party in a sensitive deal is reminded of their place—below the hegemon—in the order of world power.
"There can be no single or simple set of fixed rules for using force ...Each and every case is unique."
-- President George Bush, "Remarks at the United States Military Academy," January 5, 1993[1].
When confronting another country to try to implement change, policymakers are faced with the uncomfortable question of how likely they are to succeed with any of the different tools available to them. Will it work to simply send in a large force to “shock and awe” the country into capitulation, or will long, drawn out conflict be necessary to effect change? The world today is no longer the world of Teddy Roosevelt. Two World Wars and a Cold War along with numerous skirmishes in Asia, Africa and recently in the Middle East have changed the world significantly. The question this paper addresses is how can we know if coercive diplomacy will be successful before we commit the resources? What factors influence the success or failure of gunboat diplomacy and is there data that allows us to predetermine the relative probability for success before employing a costly demonstration of force?
[1] Reprinted in Richard N. Haass. Intervention: The Use of American Military Force in the Post-Cold War World (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment, 1994), Appendix F, pp. 199-204