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Naval Diplomacy in the 21st Century
This book offers a detailed investigation of naval diplomacy, past and present,
and challenges the widely accepted Anglo-American school of sea power thought.
Despite the acknowledgement of the importance of the threat or use of force in
the pursuit of policy since the dawn of strategic thought, the utility of sea power
in operations other than war is poorly understood and articulated. Theorists have
invariably viewed sea power in peacetime through the lens of hard power effects
such as coercion and deterrence. Commentaries on engagement, interoperability
and the forging of friendships are largely conspicuous by their absence. This book
considers how all these strands of international politics can be better understood
for use in the 21st century.
The book explains and defines naval diplomacy, with existing theoretical
frameworks being critically analyzed. It reviews over 500 incidents from the
post-Cold War era, drawing on this empirical evidence to determine that naval
diplomacy remains a potent means of 21st-century statecraft. It finds that existing
understanding of naval diplomacy is insufficient and offers an alternative model,
drawing on basic communication and stakeholder theories. The implications of
the book relate directly to national security: naval deployments could be more
effectively targeted; foreign activity at sea could be better understood and, if
necessary, countered; finally, the ability of non-state actors to support national
interests from the sea could, potentially, be better harnessed.
This book will be of much interest to students of naval power, maritime security,
strategic studies and international relations.
Kevin Rowlands is Captain in the Royal Navy. He was awarded a PhD in war
studies from King’s College London and is the author of 21st Century Gorshkov
(2017).
Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies Series
Series Editors: Greg Kennedy, Tim Benbow and Jon Robb-Webb
Defence Studies Department, Joint Services Command and Staff College, UK
The Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies Series is the publishing platform
of the Corbett Centre. Drawing on the expertise and wider networks of the Defence
Studies Department of King’s College London, and based at the Joint Services
Command and Staff College in the UK Defence Academy, the Corbett Centre is
already a leading centre for academic expertise and education in maritime and
naval studies. It enjoys close links with several other institutions, both academic
and governmental, that have an interest in maritime matters, including the Devel-
opments, Concepts and Doctrine Centre (DCDC), the Naval Staff of the Ministry
of Defence and the Naval Historical Branch. The centre and its publishing output
aims to promote the understanding and analysis of maritime history and policy and
to provide a forum for the interaction of academics, policymakers and practitioners.
Books published under the aegis of the Corbett Centre series reflect these aims
and provide an opportunity to stimulate research and debate into a broad range of
maritime related themes. The core subject matter for the series is maritime strategy
and policy, conceived broadly to include theory, history and practice, military and
civil, historical and contemporary, British and international aspects. As a result,
this series offers a unique opportunity to examine key issues such as maritime
security, the future of naval power, and the commercial uses of the sea, from an
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affairs, and provide a forum for policy debate and analysis.
Early Naval Air Power

British and German Approaches
Dennis Haslop
Naval Diplomacy for the 21st Century

A Model for the Post-Cold War Global Order
Kevin Rowlands
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Corbett-

Centre-for-Maritime-Policy-Studies-Series/book-series/CCMPSS
Naval Diplomacy in the
21st Century
A Model for the Post-Cold War
Global Order
Kevin Rowlands
First published 2019
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2019 Kevin Rowlands
The right of Kevin Rowlands to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
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Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rowlands, Kevin, author.
Title: Naval diplomacy in the 21st century : a model for the post-cold war
global order / Kevin Rowlands.
Other titles: Naval diplomacy in the twenty-first century
Description: First edition. | London ; New York, NY : Routledge/Taylor &
Francis Group, 2019. | Series: Corbett centre for maritime policy
studies series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018025978 | ISBN 9781138624245 (hardback) |
ISBN 9780429460951 (e-book)
Subjects: LCSH: Sea-power. | Diplomacy.
Classification: LCC V25 .R69 2019 | DDC 359/.03—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018025978
ISBN: 978-1-138-62424-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-46095-1 (ebk)
Typeset in Times New Roman

by Apex CoVantage, LLC
Contents
List of figures vi
List of abbreviations vii
Introduction 1
1 Defining naval diplomacy 8
2 Theory through time 17
3 Surveying the historical record 46
4 The post-Cold War context 59
5 Pax Americana and US hegemony at sea 69
6 The return of great power rivalry 82
7 Towards a new model for 21st-century naval diplomacy 95
8 Applying naval diplomacy in today’s world 112
Conclusion 128
Appendix: chronological index of incidents of naval

diplomacy 139
Index 220
Figures
2.1 Interdependent classical naval diplomacy 21

2.2 Cable’s four mode model 25
2.3 Turner’s independent naval missions 27
2.4 Turner’s naval presence mission 28
2.5 Luttwak’s typology of naval suasion 29
2.6 Booth’s functions of navies 30
2.7 Naval diplomacy in the Cold War: an initial model 33
2.8 Prestige-focused naval diplomacy in the Cold War 34
2.9 Nye’s spectrum of power behaviours 38
2.10 Le Mière’s properties of maritime diplomacy visualised 39
2.11 Post-modern model of naval diplomacy 40
2.12 The basic principles underpinning existing models of naval
diplomacy 41
3.1 The ‘negative’/‘positive’ balance in naval diplomacy 52
3.2 Degrees of engagement in ‘soft’ naval diplomacy 53
3.3 Ratios of types of gunboat diplomacy according to Cable’s
classification 55
3.4 Ratios of survey results using composite classifications
(1991–2010 and control periods) 56
7.1 The basic elements of 21st-century naval diplomacy 96
7.2 A simplified representation of the message influence model 97
7.3 The production view of the firm 100
7.4 Stakeholder mapping 101
7.5 Stakeholder circle 102
7.6 Adriatic 1990s stakeholder circle 104
7.7 Tactics employed in naval diplomacy 108
7.8 A foundational model of 21st-century naval diplomacy 109
Abbreviations
A2AD Anti-access/Area Denial

AAW Anti-air Warfare
ADIZ Air Defence Identification Zone
AGI Auxiliary General Intelligence (spy ship)
ALTBMD Active Layered Theatre Ballistic Missile Defence System
APS Africa Partnership Station
ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations
ASUW Anti-surface Warfare
ASW Anti-submarine Warfare
AU African Union
BMD Ballistic Missile Defence
BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa
CIS Commonwealth of Independent States
CNA US Center for Naval Analyses
CSI Container Security Initiative
CVN Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carrier
DEA US Drug Enforcement Agency
EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone
EPAA European Phased Adaptive Approach to BMD
EU European Union
EW Electronic Warfare
FN French Navy
FPDA Five Power Defence Arrangement
FS French Ship
GCC Gulf Cooperation Council
GDP Gross Domestic Product
GFS Global Fleet Station
HADR/HADRO Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief/Operations
HMAS Her Majesty’s Australian Ship
HMCS Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship
HMNZS Her Majesty’s New Zealand Ship
HMS Her Majesty’s Ship
HSV High Speed Vessel
viii Abbreviations
IAEA International Atomic Energy Authority
ICBM Intercontinental Ballistic Missile
IMO International Maritime Organization
INS Indian Naval Ship
INTERFRET International Force East Timor
IR International Relations
JMSDF Japanese Maritime Self Defence Force
LeT Lashkar-e-Taiba (group behind 2008 Mumbai terror attacks)
LST Landing Ship Tank
LTTE Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (or ‘Tamil Tigers’)
MCM Mine Counter Measures
MCMV Mine Counter Measures Vessel
MEND Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta
MEU US Marine Expeditionary Unit
MIOPS Maritime Interdiction Operations
MSO Maritime Security Operations
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization
NEO Non-combatant Evacuation Operation
NGO Non-governmental Organization
PfP Partnership for Peace
PLA Chinese People’s Liberation Army
PLAN Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (sometimes PLA(N)
PRC People’s Republic of China
PSO Peace Support Operation
RAF Royal Air Force
RAN Royal Australian Navy
RFA Royal Fleet Auxiliary
RIMPAC Rim of the Pacific (US-led maritime exercise)
RN Royal Navy
RNLN Royal Netherlands Navy
RNZN Royal New Zealand Navy
RoC Republic of China (Taiwan)
ROK Republic of Korea (South Korea)
RSN Republic of Singapore Navy
SADC South African Defence Community
SAR Search and Rescue
SEATO South East Asian Treaty Organization
SLNS Sri Lanka Naval Ship
SLOCs Sea Lines of Communication
SSBN Nuclear Powered Ballistic Missile Firing Submarine
SSGN Nuclear Powered Guided Missile Firing Submarine
SSN Nuclear Powered Submarine
STANAVFORLANT NATO Standing Naval Force Atlantic
STANAVFORMED NATO Standing Naval Force Mediterranean
TAGOS Tactical Auxiliary General Ocean Surveillance
Abbreviations ix
TLAM Tomahawk Land Attack Missile
UN United Nations
UNCLOS United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea
UNSCR United Nations Security Council Resolution
USN United States Navy
USNS United States Naval Ship
USS United States Ship
WEU Western European Union
Introduction
Though not the raison d’être of navies, naval diplomacy has an enduring role to
play in the exercise of sea power. From Thucydides’ accounts of the coercive
power of the Athenian Fleet to the hegemonic stability delivered by the Royal
Navy in 19th-century Pax Britannica, great powers have used their naval forces
to shape the world according to their vision. Rising powers have followed suit.
Germany, the United States, the Soviet Union, China and India all staked a claim
for global status, in part through their fleets and their activities at sea. The Cold
War may have seen a different pattern of naval diplomacy from that which went
before, primarily based on the might of the Eastern and Western blocs, but it was
all, in the main, a state-centric understanding of effect.
But what of now? Is coercive diplomacy involving the threat and actual use of
naval force alive and well? The two Koreas or China and Japan might believe that
it is. Are alliances and coalitions built at sea? It is certainly an expectation, because
states invest substantial amounts of time, effort and money pursuing them. Does
naval diplomacy even have to be carried out by the uniformed forces of a recog-
nized state? The Gaza Freedom Flotilla’s interaction with Israel in 2010 certainly
made news and grabbed the attention of powerful states, as do Greenpeace’s envi-
ronmental campaigns at sea today. Perhaps getting the message across is a good
enough outcome in what is essentially a communicative process.
Is naval diplomacy merely a subset of coercive diplomacy? Not necessarily,
because there are myriad ‘soft’ power initiatives from capacity building to the
cultivation of friendships, the reassurance of allies, humanitarian assistance and
disaster relief, just ‘being there’ for nationals abroad and providing venues for
defence sales which might fall under the umbrella of the topic. To echo the com-
ment made by one former practitioner, naval diplomacy is about what navies actu-
ally do, rather than what they train for. One can add to that statement that it is
certainly what navies do, but what naval theorists tend not to write about.
Mahan in America and Corbett in England – the writers with the greatest lasting
impact on naval strategy – had much to say about sea power, but any reader must
look hard at their work to find anything more than an oblique reference to the
utility of navies in the pursuit of national political goals when not fighting wars.
In the Cold War, economist, game theorist and Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling
published Arms and Influence, which set out the principles of a coercive strategy
2 Introduction
and its effect on decision makers. Much of his work informed that which was to
come later, but it was general in nature. Only in the 1970s did naval diplomacy
begin to be studied as a subject in its own right. In the East Sergei Gorshkov, the
man who shaped the Soviet Navy, wrote about it in his classic work, The Sea
Power of the State. Simultaneously, in the West naval presence became a core
mission of the US Navy and the American Edward Luttwak wrote of ‘naval sua-
sion’, but scratch the surface and the political motivations of those works quickly
become apparent.
Ken Booth set out what navies were for (the trinity of military, constabulary
and diplomatic roles) and his thoughts were later subsumed into the official doc-
trine of numerous Western powers. But it was the seminal study by Sir James
Cable, Gunboat Diplomacy, first published in the 1970s and running to three
editions, which most influenced the understanding of the topic for the rest of the
century. However, post-Cold War commentators such as Joseph Nye provided
a fresh understanding of power, and naval practitioners and academics such as
Mike Mullen and Geoffrey Till looked at old ideas through a new, ‘post-modern’
lens.
This book looks at each of these to determine what the old ideas were and to
ask if they are still relevant in the 21st century. That question is important because
after the end of the Cold War the purely military war-fighting role of navies, par-
ticularly Western ‘post-modern’ navies, has diminished as their principal focus.
With no peer competitors, the combined fleets of the West effectively exercised
command of the oceans for a quarter of a century. It is only now, with Russia
reasserting its global influence and with the rising powers in the East, particularly
China and India, militarily increasingly active in the maritime environment that
physical confrontation might once again take centre stage.
However, this shift in emphasis between war fighting, constabulary tasks and
diplomatic mission may be more nuanced than initial conjecture implies and it is
not necessarily a new phenomenon. Navies have always been peacetime policy
instruments of the state and the tools of grand strategy, as well as the fighters of
wars at sea. Oliver Cromwell famously declared that ‘a man-o-war is the best
ambassador’; a 21st-century equivalent shows the US Navy depicted in posters
and on T-shirts as an aircraft carrier over the caption ‘90,000 tons of diplomacy’.
The images may be different but the message is the same. So perhaps the opening
sentence of this introduction should be revisited – perhaps the advancement of
political and economic goals is the raison d’être of navies.1
Gunboat diplomacy is an instantly recognizable term, probably conjuring
thoughts of 19th-century coercion and unwelcome, strong-arm tactics. It is also
inaccurate. Not all diplomatic activity carried out at and from the sea is done by
ships with guns. And not all diplomatic activity carried out at and from the sea
is coercive. Co-operation, collaboration and mutual assistance are increasingly
common in the globalized, interdependent world of today. A far better term is
naval diplomacy, but that lacks a universally accepted definition. Indeed, is it
naval (of ships) or is it maritime (of the sea)? Is it diplomacy at all, in the sense
of codified discourse between recognized states, or is it part of a wider wielding
Introduction 3
of influence by a multitude of state and non-state actors? It is, of course, all of the
above and more.
Whatever it is, the topic certainly deserves attention.
The purpose of this book and its working hypotheses

The purpose of this book is to address a series of questions about the place of
naval diplomacy in the post-Cold War global order and to understand whether
macro-level issues from terrorism to climate change, from financial instability to
ungoverned spaces, are subject to political influence from the sea. Interagency co-
operation and multinational coalitions and alliances are features of contemporary
maritime strategy and these too must be taken into consideration when trying to
make sense of the uses of sea power today. The broad questions it asks are:
1 What is naval diplomacy? How does it differ from or build upon other forms
of military/defence diplomacy?
2 What are the traditional models of naval diplomacy? Who conducts it, how,
with what aim and against whom?
3 What, if anything, is new in the post-Cold War era? Have ‘globalization’ and
the perceived increasing importance of non-state actors affected naval diplo-
macy? Has the incidence of naval diplomacy changed over time?
4 Are the existing models for naval diplomacy still valid? To what extent do
they require revision? Do they appropriately encompass likely target audi-
ences (potential adversaries, potential allies and domestic constituencies)?
5 Can a new model be constructed? If so, what should be its key tenets?
In attempting to answer these questions a series of working hypotheses have been

framed which are implicitly tested and refined through the course of the book. The
hypotheses relate to the nature of naval diplomacy itself and its correlation to the
exercise of power in international relations.
The first hypothesis is that naval diplomacy is a subset of general diplomacy
and not simply a ‘free good’ of military capability. Of course, there is a direct
relationship between capability and credibility and this too must be acknowl-
edged. Diplomacy is the formal and informal means of communication between
international actors on the world stage; any communication can be carried out in
innumerable ways and actors will seek to communicate via the means which they
have at their disposal. Maritime states with naval forces will, therefore, engage in
naval diplomacy.
Hypothesis: naval diplomacy is a subset of general diplomacy and will be

used as a means of communication by maritime states in pursuit of their
national interest.
Since most states experience varying degrees of peace more frequently than all-out
war then, logically, armed forces are more often used in peaceful modes than for
4 Introduction
fighting an enemy. Ken Booth’s widely accepted ‘trinity’ of naval roles (military,
policing and diplomatic)2 is a useful theoretical model for the understanding of
naval power but it can be misinterpreted. The roles are not equally balanced, nor
are they mutually exclusive. The prime reason to create and maintain a navy (as
opposed to a coastguard) is for its military role. However, a navy may rarely or
even never exercise its military role in full. The use of limited force and policing
or constabulary responsibilities to maintain ‘good order at sea’3 therefore become
a navy’s day-to-day, year-to-year employment – employment which inevitably has
a communicative dimension. Nevertheless, for understandable reasons, the war-
fighting role is the focus of most historical and theoretical writing on sea power.
Hypothesis: the diplomatic role of naval forces is more prevalent than the
academic literature suggests.
To many, naval diplomacy is synonymous with coercive ‘gunboat diplomacy’.4

Coercion is certainly a possible use of naval power short of war but it is not
the whole. Joseph Nye’s ‘spectrum of behaviour’ between international actors,
in which power is classified from ‘hard’ to ‘soft’,5 offers a simple framework for
situating naval diplomacy. At the ‘hard’ end, naval forces can be used to inflict
punitive damage on an actor in order to secure behavioural changes. At the ‘soft’
end, they can make friendly port calls and open their doors to visitors to impress,
educate and influence, to foster relationships with partners and to build their
capacity. In between are countless possibilities for interaction which in some way
further the interests of their state.
Hypothesis: naval diplomacy spans a broad spectrum from hard to soft power.
Few if any dedicated studies of naval diplomacy were undertaken until the 1970s,
when the study of limited war and military influence became of interest to both
East and West. The works published in that decade became a privileged discourse
on naval diplomacy and in the main complemented each other. However, they
were written by academics and practitioners living with the political realities of
the day and should be viewed with that in mind.
Hypothesis: existing models of naval diplomacy were conceived in the Cold

War and are products of their time.
The existing models of naval diplomacy assume bilateral, mechanistic relation-

ships; that is, one party carries out an action against another party in order to
produce a reaction which it calculates will be favourable to its own interests. This
action-reaction model, described by James Cable in terms of an ‘assailant’ and a
‘victim’, need not be limited to coercion and is applicable across the spectrum of
naval diplomacy. However, it is limited. The reality of international relations is
far more complex; multiple audiences and stakeholders exist within every com-
municative relationship.
Introduction 5
Hypothesis: existing models of naval diplomacy are limited by generally
assuming a bilateral, mechanistic relationship between the actors involved.
Different levels of communication in naval diplomacy can be explained by use

of a sporting analogy. If Team ‘A’ were playing against Team ‘B’, then the two
teams are clearly the primary competitors in the game. The approach of previous
theorists to the sporting analogy would examine the action of ‘A’ and the reaction
of ‘B’ and declare one a winner, one a loser or an equal draw. There are, however,
many more interested parties, all of whom are stakeholders in the wider competi-
tion. Both teams will have supporters and, potentially, sponsors. There will be
other teams not involved in that particular fixture but who are competing in the
same league; they will be interested in the game, as will their supporters and spon-
sors; the game could affect their own standing. Relative positioning and context
is important, as a draw for one team may mean the maintenance of its place in
the league, while for the other a draw may result in relegation. Importantly, the
result for either team may determine who they play next. Returning to the military
dimension, one side can win a battle but lose the war.
Hypothesis: a revised model of naval diplomacy should not be solely event

based but take into account different levels of communication and the multi-
tude of stakeholders involved.
Acknowledging that, though not the raison d’être of navies, naval diplomacy is
a fundamental role has implications for politicians, planners and practitioners.
Force structures, capabilities, deployments and training could be adapted to maxi-
mize the potential benefits to be gained. The requirements for naval platforms to
perform constabulary tasks are well understood and are fuelling debate, as the
words of the former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates demonstrate: ‘You
don’t necessarily need a billion dollar guided missile destroyer to chase down
and deal with a bunch of teenage pirates wielding AK47s and rocket propelled
grenades’.6 A similar level of debate on the subject of naval diplomacy is needed.
Hypothesis: an understanding of contemporary naval diplomacy can aid

the development of appropriate force structures and capabilities of maritime
states.
Book structure and findings

The book is made up of three parts. The first part (Chapters 1 and 2) explores the
theoretical approaches taken to naval diplomacy over time. After defining the
place of naval diplomacy in the context of international relations and sea power,
the historiography is told through three broad phases: pre-Cold War, Cold War
and post-Cold War, where Western, Eastern and non-aligned writings are evalu-
ated alongside more recent contributions of contemporary commentators. As
might be expected, the development of ideas has been evolutionary; hard power
6 Introduction
concepts such as coercion and deterrence feature heavily throughout, but it is the
later writers who place the greatest emphasis on the 21st-century soft power con-
cepts of co-operation, assistance and persuasion.
The second part (Chapters 3–6 and the book’s Appendix) attempts to provide
a reality check. It considers what has actually happened at sea since the end of
the Cold War. The Appendix is a chronological database of over 500 incidents
of naval diplomacy along with two ‘control’ periods from the Cold War itself,
which can be used by present and future practitioners and scholars for their own
purposes. A brief, thematic analysis of the data is conducted, which includes dis-
cussion of the forging of amity and enmity between the actors involved, the role
of international engagement and disengagement, prestige and symbolism and the
numerical incidence of naval diplomatic events.
The second part then expands on the lived experience by drawing on a series of
specific examples of incidents of naval diplomacy since the end of the Cold War
for a more in-depth case study. Each example considers a different aspect of the
topic during a time in which the global order underwent drastic and rapid change.
Fragmentation and the uncertain security situation in the immediate aftermath of
the fall of Communism, nationalism and opportunism, Pax Americana and resis-
tance to US hegemony, and the return of great power rivalry are all considered. It
also includes examples of the political use of the sea by non-state actors attempt-
ing to further their own agendas.
Finally, the third part (Chapters 7 and 8) attempts to do something new. It con-
cludes that existing mechanistic ‘assailant-victim’ models are not appropriate to
the 21st century, and instead it proposes an alternative based on an interdisciplin-
ary application of communication and stakeholder theories. This new ‘founda-
tional’ model is then applied to a different series of case studies drawn from both
the Cold War and post-Cold War periods.
The main findings and conclusions may be broken down into six key areas.
First, the book defines naval diplomacy as the use of naval and maritime assets
as communicative instruments in international power relationships to further the
interests of the actors involved.
Second, it reports that only around a quarter of the incidents of naval diplomacy
in the post-Cold War period could be described as indicative of enmity between
the parties involved. Conversely, some 90 per cent have some degree of amity, or
relationship building, in their purpose. The sum is more than the whole because
the two are not mutually exclusive and purposes are rarely binary; in complex
relationships signals of enmity and amity can be, and are, made concurrently.
Third, it shows that there are varying degrees of engagement and disengage-
ment within naval diplomacy and the state of a relationship can often be assessed
by the type of activity practiced. At the lowest end of the scale, goodwill visits
can be a means of ongoing ‘relationship maintenance’ between established allies
or symbolic first forays for those with a more adversarial connection. Complexity
and interoperability progressively increase until only the very closest allies are
capable of fully integrated operations in difficult scenarios.
Introduction 7
Fourth, the book identifies that the incidence of non-state actors making use of
the seas to exert influence is increasing. Fifth, and closely linked, it identifies that
the incidence of naval forces being used for humanitarian assistance is also on the
rise. These two findings offer confirmatory evidence to support assumptions that
have become widely held since the end of the Cold War.
Finally, the book concludes that existing models and frameworks for naval
diplomacy are, essentially, event-based approximations of state actors’ use of the
‘spare capacity’ inherent in military navies when not at war to influence other
state actors. They are therefore insufficient for the 21st century.
Notes
1 Patalano defines naval diplomacy as the use advancement of naval assets to secure or
advance political or economic goals. Patalano, Alessio. ‘Commitment by Presence:
Naval Diplomacy and Japanese Defense Engagement in Southeast Asia.’ In Brown,
James & Kingston, Jeff (Eds.). Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia. (Abingdon: Rout-
ledge, 2018).
2 Ken Booth. Navies and Foreign Policy. (London: Croom Helm, 1977), pp. 15–16.
3 Till, Geoffrey. Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century, 2nd Ed. (Abingdon:
Routledge, 2009), p. 286.
4 James Cable. for example, limits his study to incidents of coercion. Cable, James. Gun-
boat Diplomacy 1919–1991: Political Applications of Limited Naval Force, 3rd Ed.
(Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1994), p. 3. Ian Speller, however, suggests that naval diplo-
macy is a wider concept, inclusive of more ‘benign applications.’ Speller, Ian. Under-
standing Naval Warfare. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014), p. 76.
5 Nye, Joseph S. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. (New York: Public
Affairs, 2004), p. 5.
6 Gates, Robert. ‘Remarks of Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates.’ U.S. Naval War Col-
lege Review 63, No. 4 (2010): p. 14.
1 Defining naval diplomacy
What is diplomacy?
If contemporary naval diplomacy is little understood, it is perhaps because it is
a subset of a broader topic which despite a long history and great study remains
remarkably ill-defined. The common perception of diplomacy is one of for-
mal state-to-state communication. That is certainly the meaning given in the
1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.1 Martin Griffiths and Terry
O’Callaghan echo many in the field of international relations when they state
that diplomacy is ‘the entire process through which states conduct their foreign
relations’;2 but if that is the case, what exactly is meant by foreign relations?
The same authors talk of diplomacy as ‘the means for allies to co-operate and
for adversaries to resolve conflicts without force’, which does go some way to
answering the question, but such an explanation rather limits the scope of what
diplomacy is and what it has to offer. It is not simply codified discourse.
A broader view situates diplomacy at the very heart of international relations,
and the theorists John Baylis, Steve Smith and Patricia Owens offer what at first
reading appears to be a reasonable contemporary definition:
In foreign policy it refers to the use of diplomacy as a policy instrument pos-

sibly in association with other instruments such as economic or military force
to enable an international actor to achieve its policy objectives. Diplomacy
in world politics refers to a communications process between international
actors that seeks through negotiation to resolve conflict short of war. This
process has been refined, institutionalized and professionalized over time.3
These writers are careful not to limit diplomacy to recognized states and they
place it alongside ‘other instruments’ of policy though, interestingly, they still see
it as separate and discrete. Yet, like Griffiths and O’Callaghan, they narrow the
field again by connecting it directly to conflict resolution. International actors may
indeed rely on diplomatic means to resolve conflict but that is just one part of the
story. Similarly, the assertion that diplomacy operates ‘short of war’ surely needs
to be challenged. Paul Sharp, a leading figure in the study of diplomatic theory,
neatly counters this:
Defining naval diplomacy 9
When force is resorted to, diplomacy need not necessarily come to an end. . . .
In the age of total war diplomacy continued, with even the attacks on Hiro-
shima and Nagasaki having their communicative components spelled out by
unofficial and third party contacts.4
Relating diplomacy to the exercise of power is one way to potentially clarify

its role and purpose. If Joseph Nye’s description of power as ‘the ability to influ-
ence the behaviour of others to get the outcomes one wants’5 is accepted, then
perhaps a more accurate assessment would be to refer to diplomacy not in terms
of conflict resolution but as a communications process that seeks to further the
interests of an international actor, whatever those interests or whoever that actor
might be.
Of course, many observers acknowledge that diplomacy has grown to become
a ‘profession’; perhaps it always was. By extrapolation, a profession requires
professionals, and these we call diplomats. Paul Sharp states that ‘we can find
an uneasy consensus around the idea that diplomacy is whatever diplomats do,
but it quickly falls apart again around the question of who are the diplomats’.6 He
investigates the notion of diplomacy and diplomats in the formal sense – that is,
as international actors on the world stage – and concludes that quite what diplo-
macy is remains a mystery. However, he does acknowledge that at a practical
level diplomacy consists merely of people doing the normal things of human
interaction such as bargaining, representing, lobbying and, of course, communi-
cating that we find in all walks of life.7 In this informal sense we are all diplomats,
though some of us may be better at it than others.
Niche diplomacy
Viewed this way, diplomacy can be exercised in a near-infinite number of ways,
adapted as required to best suit the circumstances of the case. Some actors, be they
individuals, organizations or states, by virtue of their particular strengths, weak-
nesses, interests and culture may favour one or more methods over another and
they can develop a methodology to serve their particular purpose.
Andrew Cooper coined the term ‘niche diplomacy’ in the mid-1990s and, at
state level, he discussed a range of ‘middle powers’ and how they differ in their
diplomatic approach to international relations. For example, he explained how
Canada tends to apply low-key institution-building policies while Argentina
forges economic ties with its neighbours to gain influence and Turkey empha-
sizes its strategic geographical position. Of non-state actors Cooper has more
to say:
a wide range of NGOs, especially those with an interest in issues such as

human rights and the environment, such as Amnesty International and Green-
peace, have worked to secure their own niches in international relations. . . .
Greenpeace has a greater influence on world policy than, say, the government
of Austria.8
Cooper’s thesis is compelling. Diplomacy need not be limited to recognized
states; international bodies such as the European Union and United Nations cer-
tainly participate in diplomacy, as do de facto administrations such as Hezbollah
or Hamas or even the Taliban and ISIL/Daesh which, while not universally rec-
ognized as legitimate governments, have or do control territory and play a role
on the world stage. Whether Greenpeace and Amnesty International fall into a
similar category is debatable, but the fact that they have global strategies, operate
across state boundaries and influence events is not.
For the purposes of this book, a simple definition is adopted. Diplomacy is
assumed to be a communications instrument used in power relationships to further
the interests of the international actors involved. Actors with particular relative
strengths will seek to use them; it would be counter-intuitive to think otherwise.
It is a logical deduction, therefore, that military force may be a niche which some
actors will seek to exploit for diplomatic purposes.
The diplomatic use of military force

The supposed raison d’être of military forces, war fighting, is just one extreme
manifestation of their utility. Joseph Nye describes a ‘spectrum of behaviour’
in international relations along which sit different types of power. Under ‘hard
power’, within which he tends to place military action, comes coercion and
inducement, while under ‘soft power’, which he defines as ‘getting others to want
the outcomes you want’,9 comes agenda setting and attraction. Initially a reader
may assume that military forces are absent in the exercise of soft power. However,
Nye is sufficiently astute to note that there is overlap.10 Addressing the role mili-
tary forces in particular, he states:
The military can also play an important role in the creation of soft power. In
addition to the aura of power that is generated by its hard power capabilities,
the military has a broad range of officer exchanges, joint training and assis-
tance programs with other countries in peacetime.11
Alongside Nye’s ‘spectrum of behaviour’, and closely associated with the widely
accepted concept of the ‘spectrum of conflict’,12 there is a corresponding spectrum
along which military force can be used to support political objectives. In opera-
tions other than war this spectrum includes such activities as coercion, deterrence,
reassurance, humanitarian relief, stabilization and peace support. In the absence
of war fighting, whether in total or more limited conflicts, it is the activities along
this spectrum which generally provide effective day-to-day employment for the
world’s armed forces. The American scholar Robert Art captures the essence of
this situation, particularly the ‘hard’ end, well:
Military power can be wielded not only forcefully but also ‘peacefully’.
[. . .] To use military power forcefully is to wage war; to use it peacefully
is to threaten war. Only when diplomacy has failed is war generally waged.
Mainly in the hope that war can be avoided are threats usually made. For
any given state, war is the exception, not the rule, in its relations with other
countries, because most of the time a given state is at peace, not war. Conse-
quently, states use their military power more frequently in the peaceful than
the forceful mode.13
Coercive diplomacy: deterrence, coercion and compellence

Notwithstanding Nye’s soft power thesis, Art directly links the peaceful role of
military power with the use of threat. From Sun Tzu through Machiavelli to the
present day, much has been written on the utility of threatened force and it is
important to distinguish between the positive and negative variants of this: coer-
cion and deterrence. The difference is perhaps summed up best by Gordon Craig
and Alexander George:
Whereas deterrence represents an effort to dissuade an opponent from under-

taking an action that he has not yet initiated, coercive diplomacy attempts to
reverse actions which have already been undertaken by the adversary.14
Both coercion and deterrence are methods by which interests may be pursued
without resort to all-out conflict. British Defence Doctrine has adopted very
similar definitions for the terms and emphasizes their positive and negative con-
notations by connecting coercion with the word persuade and deterrence with
the word dissuade.15 However, some commentators use coercion as an umbrella
term to cover both deterrence (the negative) and compellence (the positive) vari-
ants, and thus coercion and compellence can sometimes be read to mean the same
thing.16 Whether coercion is the opposite of deterrence or whether it describes
both deterrence and compellence is debatable, but the academic pursuit of any dif-
ference between them inevitably results in a concentration on the ends rather than
the ways and means of conflict resolution in an international relationship. At the
military level, the threat or use of force may be enacted in exactly the same way,
for example by the forward positioning of troops, whether it is meant to coerce/
compel or deter.
The main body of contemporary academic literature on coercion, deterrence
and compellence stems from the bipolar world of the last century. Deterrence,
particularly nuclear deterrence, most often comes to the fore. An influential work
of the period is Deterrence and Strategy by the French soldier-scholar Andre
Beaufre. Beaufre discusses the ‘laws of deterrence’ and defines the concept quite
simply: ‘The object of deterrence is to prevent an enemy power taking the deci-
sion to use armed force’.17 The effect Beaufre describes must be psychological,
requiring the recipient of the ‘threat’ to calculate risk, determine that the likeli-
hood of escalation is so high and the impact so unacceptable that the decision
to use armed force is never taken. Given the nuclear backdrop at the time of his
writing, it is unsurprising that Beaufre talks of ‘fear’ being engendered through
deterrence.18 Deterrence theory dominated politico-military strategy and major
power diplomacy for almost half a century through successive arms races, the
presumption of mutually assured destruction (MAD) and arms limitations talks.19
The theory is important and well documented, but for the purposes of this book
deterrence will be considered alongside coercion/compellence and the term coer-
cive diplomacy will be used to cover all.
Sir Lawrence Freedman has written that ‘the study of coercion in international
relations remains dominated by work undertaken in the United States in the Cold
War period and distorted through the preoccupation with deterrence’.20 If coer-
cion and deterrence are actually near-identical in means, then that criticism of
distortion could be a debatable point. However, Freedman does offer his own defi-
nition of coercion as ‘the deliberate and purposeful use of overt threat to influence
another’s strategic choice’.21 Freedman’s definition is significant because like
Beaufre’s deterrence it identifies coercion as a cognitive tool. As such it need not
necessarily threaten ‘war’ as Robert Art suggests; rather, it is about influencing
another’s choice. Logically, coercion need not even be the ‘overt’ act that Freed-
man contends; subtlety in international relations can be a powerful alternative
methodology. Furthermore, a threat does not need to be kept below the threshold
of force; limited physical action leaving the recipient with the understanding that
there could be ‘more to come’ can be a very effective strategy.
The work which laid the foundation of the Cold War study of coercive diplo-
macy was Thomas Schelling’s 1966 book Arms and Influence.22 A political econ-
omist inspired by game theory, Schelling laid down five theoretical conditions if a
coercive strategy was to succeed. He said the conflict must be zero-sum; the threat
made must be potent and convince the adversary that non-compliance would be
too costly; the threat must be credible (i.e. through a convincing combination
of will and capability); the coercer must assure the adversary that non-compliance
will not simply result in more demands; and, importantly, the adversary must have
time to comply.23
Schelling’s conceptual theory was further developed by Alexander George
who has been called ‘the foremost analyst of coercive diplomacy’.24 According to
George, the practical difficulty with the abstract theory of coercive diplomacy that
Schelling espoused is that it
assumes pure rationality on the part of the opponent – an ability to receive all
relevant information, evaluate it correctly, make proper judgments as to the
credibility and potency of the threat, and see that it is in his interest to accede
to the demand made on him.25
Such a rational actor does not exist in reality, of course, which makes predict-
ing the outcome of coercive diplomacy a most inaccurate science. Conversely,
some actors on the world stage who have been portrayed as irrational tyrants and
dictators appear to play the coercive diplomacy ‘game’ quite well; North Korea’s
ruling family springs to mind.
George used the term ‘complex interdependence’ to describe the modern glo-
balized world,26 and it is this myriad of linkages and relationships in concert with
fickle human behaviour which precludes any degree of certainty in advance of an
action. George, along with Gordon Craig, attempted to build on Schelling’s factors
by identifying particular conditions required for the success of coercive diplomacy.
To them the coercing power must create in the opponent’s mind a sense of urgency
for compliance with a demand, plus a belief that the coercer is more highly moti-
vated to achieve his or her stated demand than the coerced is to oppose it. Finally,
there must be a fear of unacceptable escalation if the demand is not accepted.27
Additionally, in his book The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, written in conjunc-
tion with William Simons, George gives 14 factors to be considered when judging
likely success: the global strategic environment; the type of provocation; the image
of war; whether the action is unilateral or part of a coalition; the isolation of the
adversary; the clarity of objective; the strength of motivation; the asymmetry of
motivation; a sense of urgency; strong leadership; domestic support; international
support; any fear of escalation; and the clarity of terms offered.28
That there are 14 factors is indicative of the complexity involved. By analyzing
these factors it can be seen that few are beyond the control of at least one of the
actors involved, either the coercer or coerced, and that the initiative generally lies
with the actor making the demand. According to realist tradition, relative strength
is the paramount consideration in an inter-state relationship and, in military terms,
this can be quite accurately determined. Art again:
It is more desirable to be militarily powerful than militarily weak. Militarily

strong states have greater clout in world politics than militarily weak ones.
Militarily strong states are less subject to the influence of other states than
militarily weak ones. Militarily powerful states can better offer protection
to other states, or more seriously threaten them, in order to influence their
behaviour than can militarily weak ones.29
The message is clear. At the ‘hard’ end of the spectrum strong military forces can be
used as a means of influence to further the interests of an actor on the world stage.
Preventive diplomacy: the military contribution

But what of the ‘soft’ end? Therein lies the phenomenon known as ‘defence diplo-
macy’. In essence, preventive defence diplomacy professes to further national
interests not through threat or the limited use of force but through outreach, inter-
national engagement and conflict prevention. It is achieved by the exchange of
attachés and other military personnel, by partnerships and coalitions, and by edu-
cation and training. George Robertson, the British Secretary of State for Defence
at the time of the Strategic Defence Review of 1998 neatly, if somewhat flip-
pantly, summed up the task: ‘Defence diplomacy is about the middle aged drink-
ing together instead of the young fighting each other’.30
Such diplomacy, however, is not merely social exchange. It requires resource
and planning, strategy and policy. It involves building relationships with an eye
to the future, building capacity in allies and friends and building on the influence
wrought through other instruments of policy. However, it can also be preventive,
assuring security for the user by attempting to shape the future behaviour of the
recipient. Martin Griffiths and Terry O’Callaghan have stated that the main focus
of this type of discourse, preventive diplomacy, is to identify and respond to brew-
ing conflicts in order to prevent the outbreak of violence. They go on to say that it
may take many forms ‘such as verbal diplomatic protests and denunciations,
imposing sanctions, active monitoring and verification of agreements, peacekeep-
ing, providing good offices and other forms of third party mediation’.31 However,
defence diplomacy is also about prevention at the very earliest stages; it is about
making friends, not just dealing with enemies. For a militarily powerful state with
a military employed predominantly in the ‘peaceful’ role, defence diplomacy has
the potential to overtake more formal diplomacy and become the principal form of
international relations in some areas. Joseph Nye makes this point well: ‘Indeed,
some observers worry that America’s five military regional commanders some-
times have more resources and better access in their regions that the American
ambassadors in those countries’.32 This form of informal diplomacy is, of course,
nothing new,33 but its formal adoption into policy as a means to achieve ends is
certainly a product of post-Cold War thinking. Defence diplomacy can be seen as
an attempt to synergize preventive diplomacy and military capability into a more
powerful and potent weapon to achieve national security.
The particular advantage of naval forces in diplomacy

Robert Art correctly identifies that in general military forces are used more fre-
quently in the peaceful mode than the forceful, but he offers no quality judgement
as to their value as political instruments. The same is not true of naval strategists
who tend to be quick to point out the particular advantage of naval forces in diplo-
macy; to some it is the prime example of their utility. In the classic Cold War text
The Sea in Modern Strategy, for example, L. W. Martin stated:
The essential quality of a military navy is obviously its ultimate capacity to

engage and fight an enemy. Yet, for the greater portion of its existence, a navy is
not engaged in combat. During this time of peace, however, a navy by no means
fails to exert an influence upon international affairs. This effectiveness short of
war is difficult to characterize but is nevertheless pervasive and may well com-
prise the most significant benefit a nation derives from its naval instruments.34
Conventional wisdom ascribes a number of enduring ‘attributes’ to naval forces

which help to explain their relative lead over land and air forces as diplomatic
instruments. These attributes are reflected strongly and consistently in the aca-
demic literature,35 and expressed in similar ways in the naval doctrine of numer-
ous maritime states.36 They include such factors as flexibility of use, presence
without commitment and independence, all of which afford political leverage to
the employing power. Air forces may have the advantage of speed of reaction
within a given radius, assuming the availability of bases, but navalists argue that
they lack persistence. Land forces can provide a ‘human face’, but their time-
consuming and burdensome deployment inevitably carries significant political
risk on both the domestic and international stage. Naval forces, however, can
poise indefinitely, do not necessarily require access, basing or overflight rights,
can be either overt or ‘over the horizon’ and can arrive with a fanfare and depart
in silence or vice versa. The high seas, the global commons, provide a manoeu-
vre space that has traditionally been thought unavailable in other physical envi-
ronments. They offer respective governments a range of options across the full
spectrum of activity and are arguably the easiest and best military means of ‘soft’
influence through port visits, bilateral exercises and humanitarian assistance.
Remarkably however, these enduring attributes of navies have gone largely
unchallenged in the mainstream academic literature for several decades and their
relevance to the post-Cold War global order is therefore worthy of consideration –
a point returned to in Chapter 7. However, to set the scene here, the conven-
tional wisdom attributing certain enduring characteristics to naval forces will be
accepted, particularly for the period 1991–2015.
In short, the maritime domain offers international actors rich pickings for their
communicative endeavours. Maritime or naval diplomacy is therefore a niche that
many choose to exploit. It follows that a reasonable definition, and the one that
this book adopts, is that naval diplomacy is a subset of general diplomacy and a
means of communication by maritime actors, both state and non-state, in pursuit
of their interests.
Notes
1 United Nations. ‘The Vienna Contention on Diplomatic Relations 1961.’ http://
untreaty.un.org/ilc/texts/instruments/english/conventions/9_1_1961.pdf (accessed
6 March 2011).
2 Griffiths, Martin & O’Callaghan, Terry (Eds.). International Relations: The Key Con-
cepts. (Abingdon: Routledge, 2002), pp. 79–81.
3 Baylis, John, Smith, Steve & Owens, Patricia. Globalization of World Politics, 4th Ed.
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), p. 579.
4 Sharp, Paul. Diplomatic Theory of International Relations. (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2009), p. 186.
5 Nye, Joseph S. Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. (New York: Public
Affairs, 2004), p. 2.
6 Sharp, Diplomatic Theory, p. 75.
7 Ibid., pp. 1–3.
8 Cooper, Andrew F. Niche Diplomacy: Middle Powers after the Cold War. (Basing-
stoke: Macmillan, 1997).
9 Nye, Soft Power, p. 5.
10 Ibid., pp. 7–8.
11 Ibid., p. 116.
12 The spectrum of conflict is a widely accepted term, used throughout Western doc-
trine, meaning a full range of military activity from humanitarian assistance and peace
support to counter insurgency and major combat operations in war. See, for example,
Daniel Moran, ‘The View from Afloat.’ In Wirtz, James & Larsen, Jeffrey (Eds.). Naval
Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Operations: Stability from the Sea. (Abingdon: Rout-
ledge, 2009), p. 14.
13 Art, Robert. ‘The Fungibility of Force.’ In Art, Robert & Waltz, Kenneth (Eds.). The
Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics, 6th Ed. (Oxford: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2004), pp. 3–4.
14 Craig, Gordon A. & George, Alexander L. Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems
of Our Time, 3rd Ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 196.
15 United Kingdom. Ministry of Defence. British Defence Doctrine. (London: MOD,
1996), G.3/G.5.
16 Schelling, Thomas C. Arms and Influence (2008 Edition). (New Haven: Yale Univer-
sity Press, 2008), pp. 70–71. First published New Haven: Yale University Press, 1966.
Also, Till, Geoffrey. Seapower: A Guide for the Twenty-First Century, 2nd Ed. (Abing-
don: Routledge, 2009), pp. 265–275.
17 Beaufre, Andre. Deterrence and Strategy. (London: Faber & Faber, 1965), p. 24.
18 Ibid., p. 25.
19 Brown, Neville. The Geography of Human Conflict. (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic
Press, 2009), pp. 207–219.
20 Freedman, Lawrence (Ed.). Strategic Coercion: Concepts and Cases. (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998), p. 1.
21 Ibid., p. 3.
22 Jakobson, Peter Viggo. ‘The Strategy of Coercive Diplomacy: Refining Existing The-
ory to Post-Cold War Realities.’ In Freedman, Lawrence (Ed.). Strategic Coercion:
Concepts and Cases. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), pp. 64–65.
23 Schelling, Arms and Influence, pp. 3–5.
24 Jakobson, ‘The Strategy of Coercive Diplomacy’, p. 63.
25 George, Alexander L. ‘The Coercive Diplomacy.’ In Art, Robert & Waltz, Kenneth
(Eds.). The Use of Force: Military Power and International Politics, 6th Ed. (Oxford:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2004), p. 70.
26 Craig & George, Force and Statecraft, p. 290. The term ‘interdependence’ has become
common in the past decade; the UK’s first National Security Strategy, for example,
adopts it in its title. United Kingdom. Cabinet Office. The National Security Strategy
of the United Kingdom: Security in an Interdependent World. (London: The Stationery
Office, 2008).
27 Craig & George, Force and Statecraft, p. 197.
28 Jakobson, ‘The Strategy of Coercive Diplomacy’, p. 68.
29 Art, ‘The Fungibility of Force’, p. 7.
30 Quote attributed to George Robertson, quoted in: Powell, R. L. The Maritime Con-
tribution to Defence Diplomacy. Master’s Thesis. Joint Services Command and Staff
College, Bracknell, 2000. The thesis was written as a response to the SDR of 1998 and
the introduction of Defence Diplomacy as a UK Military Task.
31 Griffiths & O’Callaghan, International Relations, pp. 255–257.
32 Nye, Soft Power, p. 116.
33 Brent, R. P. Defence Diplomacy: Sound Bite or Sustainable Mission? Master’s Thesis.
Joint Services Command and Staff College, Bracknell, 1999, p. 20.
34 Martin, L. W. The Sea in Modern Strategy. (New York: Praeger, 1968), p. 133.
35 For example, in Till, Seapower, pp. 33–34; Ken Booth, Navies and Foreign Policy.
(London: Croom Helm, 1977), pp. 33–35.
36 UK doctrine, for example, lists access, mobility, versatility, sustained reach, resilience,
lift capacity, poise, resilience and leverage as attributes: United Kingdom. Develop-
ment, Concepts and Doctrine Centre. British Maritime Doctrine, 4th Ed. JDP 0–10.
(Shrivenham: DCDC, 2011), pp. 2–1 to 2–6. For other examples see: Australia. Royal
Australian Navy. Australian Maritime Doctrine 2010. (Canberra: Sea Power Centre,
2010); United States. Department of the Navy. A Cooperative Strategy for 21st Century
Seapower. (Washington, DC: DoN, 2007); Canada. National Defence Headquarters.
Leadmark: The Navy’s Strategy for 2020. (Ottawa: NDHQ, 2001); India. Ministry of
Defence. Freedom to use the Seas: India’s Maritime Military Strategy. (New Delhi:
Integrated Headquarters Ministry of Defence (Navy), 2007).
2 Theory through time
Naval diplomacy through the eyes of navalists

The classic naval texts of and about sea power are essentially Western and Atlan-
ticist in nature, reflecting the concentration of maritime supremacy first in Europe
and then in North America. Nonetheless, they offer generic principles which
are applicable globally. The most influential naval writer, the American Alfred
Thayer Mahan, whose works both endured and ‘travelled well’ to many and var-
ied corners of the globe, focused his thesis in The Influence of Sea Power upon
History primarily on navies at war. Looking particularly at the navies of England,
France and Holland in the age of sail, his work did not specifically mention naval
diplomacy. However, peppered throughout are examples and comments on the
utility of threat and limited force offered by navies. In fact, he did acknowledge
the importance of navies in peacetime, observing that the requirement for naval
strategy differs from a land-centric military strategy in that it is as necessary in
peace as it is in war.1
Detailed examination of Mahan’s work for reference to naval diplomacy
reveals two broad themes. In the 21st-century language of hard and soft power,
Mahan could be said to view navies both as instruments of coercive diplomacy
and as agents of national reputation or status. For instance, in the early sections of
his major work Mahan talks of ancient Rome during the time of the Carthaginian
wars, discussing how the Roman Fleet was positioned to ‘check’ Macedonia, an
ally of Hannibal, and was so successful that ‘not a soldier of the phalanx ever set
foot in Italy’.2 The principle employed by this threatening naval force was one of
prevention and deterrence that would be familiar to many of today’s practitioners
of sea power.
In a collection of articles published at the turn of the 20th century, Mahan
applied his own historical thesis to the events of the day. The Boxer Rebellion
against Western imperialism in China, for example, threatened free trade and
risked ‘the interest of the commercial nations and of maritime powers’.3 With-
out resorting to total war force was used extensively and an eight-nation alliance
mounted naval policing and stabilization expeditions along the Chinese coast and
inland into the major river systems, particularly the Yangtze, to quash the upris-
ing.4 Of course, one ‘positive’ aspect of this form of naval diplomacy, alliance and
coalition building, which was seen on the coasts and waterways of China did not
last. The eight nations involved were pitted against each other in the First World
War less than a decade and a half later.
Nonetheless, Mahan did espouse the political benefits of the ‘prestige’ that a
government might gain from having a powerful navy capable of worldwide, expe-
ditionary operations. This, of course, was at a time when navies were the most
powerful military forces in the world. He was a favourite of President Theodore
Roosevelt, himself a navalist, and undoubtedly influenced the decision to sail the
Great White Fleet in 1907.5 Mahan’s ‘prestige’, or the power of ‘attraction’ in the
more recent words of Joseph Nye, is all about image and perception, not neces-
sarily truth.
For Mahan, if naval ‘prestige’ was to be perceived to be of political utility to
government it needed not only to be widely recognized but also carefully targeted
by timely geographical presence. Though outlining his thesis in the context of the
colonial powers of 17th-century and 18th-century Europe there is unambiguous
read across to other ages, including our own. His point is that national security in
peacetime can be aided by a ‘decided preponderance at sea’.6
Like Mahan, Sir Julian Corbett’s focus was predominantly on war, but it is
equally possible to identify strands of thought related to naval diplomacy in his
works too. He was certainly cognizant of the diplomatic role of naval power: ‘the
first function of the fleet is to support or disrupt diplomatic effort’.7 However,
Corbett’s concept of ‘war’ was quite broad and he paraphrased Clausewitz in his
description of the spectrum of operations on land, drawing parallels to the mari-
time environment:
So he [Clausewitz] concludes there may be wars of all degrees of importance

and energy from a war of extermination down to the use of an army of obser-
vation. So also in the naval sphere there may be a life and death struggle for
maritime supremacy or hostilities which never rise beyond a blockade.8
There is no doubt that Corbett’s theories on both naval and commercial blockade,
and on the strategies of fleet-in-being and demonstration can be applied at differ-
ent points on the spectrum of naval operations, and hence be used as an integral
part of a diplomatic mission.
A near contemporary and ‘disciple’ of Corbett was the British admiral and
theorist Sir Herbert Richmond. ‘Sea power, in its full expression’, he wrote, ‘is a
form of national strength capable of giving weight to national policy’.9 Like his
antecedents, Richmond’s focus on war dominated his work, but his thoughts on
the peacetime utility of naval force can be found in the pages of his publications.
He attributed the expansion of the British Empire to naval power and saw it as a
means to achieve national greatness and, ultimately, peace:
All the greater naval nations assure the world that a great navy is the surest
guarantee of peace; that it gives security against war, and is therefore a highly
beneficial institution.10
Theory through time 19
Unlike Mahan and Corbett, Richmond also alerted his readers to other, non-
military, naval roles such as humanitarian relief, non-combatant evacuation and
peace enforcement, albeit under different terms.11 Each of these fit well into the
broad continuum of naval diplomacy. What is clear is that he thought, and wrote,
and taught about the relationship between force and diplomacy and the ways that
navies could be used as ‘instruments of statecraft’.
It is evident that the writers of the classic naval texts understood the utility of
naval forces in non-war situations, even if they did not always shine the torch
of their attention on it. Terminology may have changed, but ‘flying the flag’
and ‘prestige’, ‘gunboat diplomacy’ and ‘demonstration’ equate to soft and hard
power, defence and coercive diplomacy, respectively. However, writing at the end
of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century neither Mahan nor Corbett
nor Richmond could possibly place their work in the context of a pre-Cold War
world. As far as they were concerned they were recording for posterity the endur-
ing principles of maritime strategy. With the benefit of hindsight later historians
added a different perspective but the views of these writers have generally stood
the test of time. Sir Herbert Richmond may have seen the gathering storm of
World War II, but he could not have imagined that its aftermath would be so domi-
nated by a different political rivalry, yet his thoughts are equally applicable now
as they were then and as they were when he first captured them.
Multi-polarity in global affairs was often not as anarchic as might at first be
assumed; it was generally accompanied by one dominant power. From the 18th
century until at least the early 20th that dominant power was Great Britain, and the
Royal Navy effectively enjoyed command of the sea. Robert Keohane coined the
term ‘hegemonic stability theory’ to describe the situation in which a wider peace
is the result of the diplomacy, coercion and persuasion of the leading power;12
during the period of Britain’s dominance this was commonly referred to as the
Pax Britannica.
The role that the naval forces of a hegemonic power could play in maintaining
the world order was widely accepted:
throughout much of the nineteenth century, foreign expectations and fears

about British power allowed Britain to get grudging unofficial recognition of
the Pax Britannica, the doctrine of the Royal Navy keeping the peace of the
sea for all to benefit.13
Some writers have labelled the British use of sea power during the Pax Britannica as
‘altruistic’,14 but this rather misses the point. Britain maintained her leading position
in the world through economic strength supported by military, and predominantly
naval, might. The use of British sea power during the period was very much directed
in the national interest and thus as an instrument of state power; it was all the more
effective for rarely having to resort to force. It communicated strength.
Detailed analysis of the instances of naval diplomacy in the two world wars
of the 20th century is beyond the scope of this book, but it is worth mentioning
one case which has become a classic of its type. The Altmark incident took place
in early 1940 when British naval forces under Captain Vian in HMS Cossack
intercepted a German auxiliary, the Altmark, transporting British prisoners of
war through Norwegian territorial waters. The case is interesting because of the
complexities of the tripartite situation. Britain and Germany were at war, but at
the time Norway remained neutral. Britain did not want to antagonize a neutral
state, especially one of such strategic importance, but had limited time to liberate
the prisoners if they were not to be lost for the remainder of the war. Germany
likewise professed to observe Norwegian neutrality yet were in breach of it by
transporting prisoners of war through its territorial waters. The eventual outcome,
after protests from Norway and the presence of Norwegian warships, was that
Cossack used limited force against Altmark and the prisoners were recovered. The
norms of naval diplomacy were well expressed in the orders to Vian from the First
Lord of the Admiralty, Winston Churchill: ‘Suggest to Norwegian destroyer that
honour is served by submitting to superior force’.15
Churchill’s words, quoted in James Cable’s seminal work Gunboat Diplomacy,
are significant. The act of naval diplomacy was not the limited force used between
the British and German protagonists but the leverage exerted on the Norwegians
to ensure non-interference, and it was the result of a clear power relationship.
Churchill, it could be surmised, would have been very comfortable with Cable’s
assertion that ‘gunboat diplomacy is traditionally a weapon employed by the
strong against the weak’.16
Connecting the ideas of pre-Cold War naval theorists, it is possible to build a
generic ‘classical’ model of naval diplomacy. Grouping the whole under Mahan’s
banner of ‘navies in peacetime’ offers a convenient starting point, though ‘peace-
time’ should probably be defined by what it is not (traditional war fighting) rather
than what it is (the range of actions up to and including the use of ‘limited’ force).
The use of the term ‘navies in peacetime’ would be almost certainly be recogniz-
able and acceptable to Mahan, Corbett, Richmond and others as a simple alterna-
tive to either ‘limited war’ or ‘statecraft’. Beneath this banner can be found three
major constituents of classical naval diplomacy.
Mahan’s ‘check’ can be directly equated with Corbett’s ‘demonstration’ and
Richmond’s ‘guarantor of peace’. Each of these terms or phrases suggests a situ-
ation in which a naval force, whether concentrated together to achieve a par-
ticular result or dispersed more widely to provide latent effect, supports grand
strategy by preventing total war. Similarly the military strategic benefits brought
by a ‘fleet-in-being’, that existential force which limits an adversary’s freedom of
action and decision-making, can be considered in the same way. Taken together
the first constituent part of classical naval diplomacy is deterrence; one reason
why a government might choose to maintain a navy is to deter aggression.
Mahan talked of ‘prestige’ and ‘flying the flag’ while Richmond promoted the
importance of navies in displaying ‘national greatness’. At the time that the clas-
sical writers shaped their theories, warships were the most complex pieces of
machinery on earth and truly effective navies were a tool only available to those
who could afford the expense. Like the ventures into space or the nuclear weap-
ons ‘club’ to follow, active participants in a naval ‘race’ were signalling their
Status
Navies in
Peaceme
Deterrence Amity
Figure 2.1 Interdependent classical naval diplomacy
economic strength and national prowess for the world to see. The second reason
for a government to invest in a powerful navy, therefore, was to claim status or
rank amongst competitor states.
Support to allies, the building of relationships, coalitions, partnerships and the
spread of goodwill are also significant factors in the established employment of
navies in peacetime. Mahan wrote at length about ‘co-operation’, emphasizing
state-to-state benefits. Less well known but equally valid are the non-military
roles described by Richmond which turn navies into agents of intervention able
influence perception and thereby affect a government’s wider national interests.
The third constituent of naval diplomacy is the naval force’s ability to deliver
harmony and friendship amongst states; this can be termed ‘amity’.
The three pillars of deterrence, status and amity, need not be mutually exclu-
sive. In fact they can be seen operating almost as a virtuous circle. By build-
ing alliances, aggression can be deterred. By being perceived as strong in battle,
friendships, whether real or of convenience, can be won. By balancing popularity
and fear a certain status can be achieved. By occupying high rank in the pecking
order of states, the more aggression is deterred and the more partnerships are
attracted. It might be more appropriate, therefore, to acknowledge this interde-
pendency and display the classical model differently. However it is displayed,
the pre-Cold War naval thinkers willingly admitted that there is a place for naval
power in international relations when not at war.
Into the Cold War

When the multipolar system gave way to the bipolar, two superpower world of
the Cold War, the political climate placed more stringent limits on the use of
force between the major blocs as the strategic focus turned to nuclear deterrence.
However, Sir James Cable bucked the trend and turned his attention onto a little-
studied aspect of naval strategy. Cable was instrumental in moving the under-
standing of naval diplomacy forward but, essentially, he was a Cold War writer.
Although the period of his analysis, reported over three editions of his major
book, ran from the end of the First World War to the early 1990s, it was inevitably
viewed through a prism of binary state-to-state relations. Coercive by definition,
his gunboat diplomacy was always ‘done’ by one side to another. It is telling that
Cable chronicled each of the incidents through the seven decades of his study in
terms of an ‘assailant’ and a ‘victim’. Yet, as the Altmark case demonstrates, the
reality can be far more complex. Binary it was not.
However, it must be borne in mind that the scrutiny given to naval diplomacy
during the Cold War was set in the context of a global politico-military atmo-
sphere of strategic deterrence. Emphasis was invariably placed on the coercive
element of sea power, not the ‘mere flag waving’ at the softer end of the spectrum
that Cable would go on to dismiss, and the attention tended to be limited to the
state actors involved. In the words of Cable, ‘gunboat diplomacy is something that
governments do to foreigners’.17
The robust language used by Cable, who was a professional diplomat, is an
enduring characteristic of his work. He believed that coercion was implicit in
most aspects of international relations and that if a government was willing to
‘reward friends and to punish enemies its wishes will at least receive careful
consideration’.18
The realist tradition also provided a framework for Cable’s explanation of coer-
cion at sea. To him, gunboat diplomacy could be categorized into four modes
which he discussed in descending order of effectiveness. Definitive force was
explained as the act or threat of force which possessed a definitive purpose appar-
ent to both sides. The intent of the employing force must be recognized as being
limited and must be considered tolerable, if not exactly palatable, by the recipient.
A tolerable result, he explained, would be one which in the eyes of the ‘victim’ is
more desirable than resort to war.19
Cable offered the Altmark incident as one example of definitive force; for
another he discussed the USS Pueblo incident of 1968.20 Pueblo was a surveil-
lance vessel operating off the coast of North Korea. She was approached and
eventually fired on by North Korean warships and, being unarmed, gave way
and was escorted into port. The ship’s company was held captive for 11 months
before being released. The use of force by North Korea was limited and definitive
in that it had a readily identifiable goal of ‘humiliating’ the United States and put-
ting an end to ‘spying’ on its coasts. Against the backdrop of the war in Vietnam,
the assailant’s calculation that the outcome was preferable to further escalation
and therefore tolerable in the eyes of the United States was proved correct.21 The
Pueblo incident will be returned to in Chapter 8.
Purposeful force, according to Cable, is less direct and less reliable than defini-
tive.22 He explained it as limited naval force applied to change the policy or char-
acter of a foreign government. In itself the force does not do anything, it acts to
induce the recipient to take a decision that would not otherwise have been taken.23
One example he used for purposeful force was that of the actions of the superpow-
ers in the Mediterranean during the Arab-Israeli October War of 1973. Israel was
a ‘client’ state of the United States while Egypt and Syria looked to the Soviet
Union for support. Following a Soviet threat to intervene on the Arab side, the US
Sixth Fleet was reinforced and concentrated to the south of Crete on high alert.
The Soviets responded with a series of provocative anti-carrier exercises which
included the training of weapons on the American ships but, ultimately, they did
not resort to combative intervention and the war ended.24
Catalytic force was described by Cable as when limited naval power ‘lends a
hand’ to act as a catalyst in a situation the direction of which has yet to be deter-
mined.25 Cable is rather ambiguous about the use of catalytic force and labels few
of the incidents in his chronological appendix as such. In essence, he explained it
as an act undertaken when there is an underlying feeling that ‘something is going
to happen’.26 Less effective than either definitive or purposeful force, it is more
likely to result in failure. The bombardment of targets in Beirut by USS New
Jersey in 1983 when peacekeeping forces were under threat ashore is cited as an
example,27 though this, and other cases, could be just as easily be placed in one or
other of Cable’s categories.
The final mode of Cable’s gunboat diplomacy, where warships are employed to
emphasize attitudes or to make a point, is expressive force which Cable dismissed
as ‘the last and least of the uses of limited naval force’ with vague and uncertain
results.28 Cable explained how the purposeful can descend into the expressive,
such as in the Beira patrol of the 1960s when the British attempted to prevent the
import of oil to Rhodesia,29 or it can be discrete and stand-alone.
The first edition of Gunboat Diplomacy was published in 1971 and was met
with positive praise which was still alive 35 years later. One writer offered the
opinion that Cable’s work ‘sharpened to a point the theory and experience of
“effectiveness short of war” and reminded navies of what they had been doing
rather than what they had been training for’.30
Cable’s work on naval diplomacy is certainly seminal and the extent to which
it influenced others in the study of the diplomacy at sea is perhaps best summed
up in the words written in his obituary in the Daily Telegraph in 2001: ‘Post-Cold
War naval thinking, especially in Britain and America, is replete with implicit and
explicit references to Cable’s ideas about the political influence of naval force’.31
Indeed, a review of the current doctrinal publications of maritime powers shows
this claim to be accurate.32 The American maritime vision paper, A Co-operative
Strategy for 21st Century Seapower, does not contain a direct reference to Cable but
it does discuss the concepts of deterrence at sea and forward presence with which
he would have been very familiar. When the US Center for Naval Analyses (CNA)
published a historiography of ‘capstone’ documents and books which shaped the
development of strategic thought, it expressly listed Cable’s work as important in
both the development of naval missions and as an influence on policy in the 1970s.33
Cable’s influence can also be traced in academia, from the Cold War period
when his ideas were first published through to the present day. He is referenced
in Edward Luttwak’s The Political Uses of Sea Power written in 1974,34 in the
1995 book Navies and Global Defence,35 and he can be found in the more recent
(2010) generalist textbook Strategy in the Contemporary World,36 amongst many
other acknowledgements. That Cable’s work can be traced through such wide and
varied publications with direct influence on naval tactics, operations and strategy
is of signal importance. His ideas manifestly set the standard, and though it carries
some shortcomings it regularly provides the starting point for consideration of
naval diplomacy. Later theorists may not have adopted all of Cable’s concepts, in
particular his classification of the various ‘modes’, but they have generally been
consistent with his approach to gunboat diplomacy as an action taken by one state
actor against another.
By his own admission, Cable’s model of naval diplomacy is hierarchical. The
categories of political influence which he identified (Definitive, Purposeful, Cata-
lytic and Expressive) are discussed in a descending order of efficacy, from the
‘fait accompli’ of definitive force37 to the ‘last and least’ of expressive.38 Dis-
playing this hierarchy diagrammatically would result in a simple tiering based
on effectiveness. Cable, however, does acknowledge that an action or incident
of naval or gunboat diplomacy may fall into two or more categories,39 and that
changing circumstances may mean that an action initially designed to fit one cat-
egory could migrate to another. This could open an accusation of weakness in
Cable’s theoretical approach; however, it could also reflect reality and the versa-
tility (planned or otherwise) of naval forces as instruments of statecraft. The tiers
in the diagram are therefore not discrete but show the possibility of movement up
and down through the various modes.
Finally, while Cable’s model would not span the full continuum of international
relations and is situated very much at the coercive, harder end of the spectrum
of behaviour, dismissing as it does the more benign applications of naval influ-
ence in preventive diplomacy, such as friendly port visits, the categories can be
positioned relative to each other on an axis from ‘soft’ to ‘hard’ power. From this
it may be deduced that, in modern parlance, Cable’s model suggests that the appli-
cation of hard naval power is more effective than soft.
If it is accepted that naval diplomacy is a subset of general diplomacy and
that diplomacy is a means of communication between international actors, then
Cable’s criteria for assessing the efficacy of action fits neatly into Schelling’s
and George’s conceptual theories on coercive strategies discussed in Chap-
ter 1. Accordingly, Cable’s model bases its judgement of success against the
original objective of the instigating party.40 As a rational actor the ‘assailant’
chooses to influence behaviour using naval force and the ‘victim’ responds in
either the predicted manner or, if the calculation is wrong, does not. Cable’s
views on the greater effectiveness of actions with clearly defined objectives
are therefore a logical progression of his argument. Vague or even long-term
incrementally approached objectives are, almost by definition, more difficult
to measure and therefore more likely to be viewed as failures, or at least not
clear successes. As a result of this perspective, the measurement of success
or failure of an action on third parties, allies, the international community
HIGHER
DEFINITIVE
PURPOSEFUL
EFFECTIVENESS
CATALYTIC
EXPRESSIVE
LOWER
SOFTER POWER HARDER
Figure 2.2 Cable’s four mode model
or domestic audiences does not feature in Cable’s work. As has been argued
earlier, his approach is binary.
To illustrate the point it is worth considering one of Cable’s own examples.
Though of course conceding that the end result was ‘war and defeat’, Gunboat
Diplomacy’s chronological appendix judges the original Argentinian seizure of
the Falkland Islands in 1982 as a success of limited naval force.41 The action is
deemed definitive, Argentina is judged the ‘assailant’ and Britain is categorized as
the ‘victim’. Considered against an original objective assumed to be sovereignty
of the islands held in Argentinian rather than British hands, the immediate result
was clearly successful. However, this in itself then poses the question of timescale
on measures of effectiveness: is the result to be judged without delay, or after a
month, a year, or following a ‘permanent’ change of situation? What is permanent
in international relations?
Cable is a useful starting point for the study of naval diplomacy in the Cold War,
but even then he insufficiently captured the complexities and possibilities of coer-
cive naval force; that he largely ignored the application of naval ‘soft power’ also
limits the appeal of his model for planners and practitioners in the 21st century.
East versus West

In the years following publication of the first edition of Gunboat Diplomacy
scholars from East and West responded with works of their own on the topic. The
most influential writings were those of Turner, Luttwak, Booth and Gorshkov,
which together shape what might be called the ‘Cold War’ model of naval
diplomacy.
In an influential article in 1974, Vice Admiral Stansfield Turner USN explained
what he saw as the US Navy’s four missions – strategic deterrence, sea control,
projection of power ashore and naval presence – which he claimed were the prod-
ucts of an evolutionary process.42 Though a reader might question Turner’s his-
torical analysis (he asserted that ‘the first and only mission of the earliest navies
was Sea Control’, and that ‘warning and coercion . . . [and] demonstrations of
goodwill effectively began in the nineteenth century’43), the codification of naval
presence as a core role was a seminal moment in the development of theory. How-
ever, that role was akin to ‘gunboat diplomacy’,44 and consisted of either deterrent
or coercive elements, which could be accomplished by either preventive (a show
of strength in peacetime) or reactive (responding to a crisis) deployments. The
targets were to be the Soviet Union or its allies or unaligned third states.45 The
potential for naval forces to contribute to alliance or capacity building, assistance
or co-operation was not mentioned by Turner.
Many commentators cite Turner’s 1974 article when considering the develop-
ment of naval diplomacy,46 but few discuss the real genesis of his ideas. In 1970,
on assuming the appointment of US Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo
Zumwalt initiated Project 60, a plan of action for his tenure which aimed to put
the US Navy at the highest feasible combat readiness in the face of the Soviet
threat.47 It was in Project 60 (admittedly drafted by Turner) that the naval mis-
sion of ‘overseas presence in peacetime’ was first revealed and its rationale was
directly linked to the ‘emergence of a strong, worldwide deployed Soviet Navy’.48
Today the Soviet naval presence in the Mediterranean is as great as ours; 10

years ago it was negligible. We devote fewer than 800 ship days a year to
limited parts of the Indian Ocean; the Soviets’ reach over that area has gone
from zero ship days to 2400 in the past 3 years.49
And:
All of a nation’s maritime capabilities bear on its influence around the world
and its ability to establish a peacetime presence at a point of choice. We need
not look hard to see how the Soviets have translated their naval presence into
diplomatic leverage. Their strength in the Arab world today is not entirely
attributable to the build up of their Mediterranean fleet, but it was surely an
important factor. The Soviets have, in a sense, successfully turned NATO’s
southern flank.50
Crucially, however, the espousal of naval presence was not simply as a counter to
a perceived threat. Project 60 was also set against the realities of 1970s financial
constraints, an unpopular war in Vietnam and a desire for allies to shoulder more
of the burden. For the latter the paper pointed out that ‘the commitment of even
our closest friends will depend on their assessment of our naval power, compared
with the Soviets’.51 American naval diplomacy of the 1970s, then, was to varying
degrees a reaction to an adversary, a means to encourage allies and an attempt to
keep budgets under control. We may draw many similarities to today.
Stansfield Turner provided a diagram to show how the four ‘interdependent
naval missions’ were configured (see Figure 2.3). Strategic deterrence was clearly
the bedrock of his vision and as would be expected of the dominant theory of the
time was based on the concept of nuclear deterrence and, in particular, on the abil-
ity to maintain an ‘assured second strike’ capability.52 This deterrence evidently
had a strong communicative base and could itself be placed under the naval dip-
lomatic umbrella as defined earlier. However, it is the naval presence mission,
which Turner defined as ‘the use of naval forces short of war to achieve political
objectives’,53 which demands the greatest analysis.
Turner framed his approach to naval presence on three levels. First, he offered
the opinion that its use would be to achieve one of two broad ‘objectives’: it could
‘deter actions inimical to the interests of the United States or its allies’ or it could
‘encourage actions that are in the interests of the United States or its allies’.54 The
latter objective could equally be termed coercion or compellence.
Second, Turner explained the ‘tactics’ by which these objectives might be
accomplished. ‘Preventive deployments’ were those peacetime global disposi-
tions which would be relevant to, and presumably targeted at, the areas in which
‘problems might arise’. They should not involve forces which were ‘markedly
inferior to some other naval force in the neighborhood’, and they should be able to
SEA CONTROL
STRATEGIC DETERRENCE
NAVAL PRESENCE
PROJECTION OF
POWER
Figure 2.3 Turner’s independent naval missions55

be reinforced if necessary.56 Turner did not explicitly provide examples of where
preventive deployments might be targeted but, given his work’s origins in Project
60, it could be deduced that the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean would be prior-
ity regions. ‘Reactive deployments’ were described by Turner as those made in
response to a crisis and which would need to possess ‘an immediately credible
threat and be prepared to have its bluff called’.57 Preventive and reactive deploy-
ment can be directly aligned with Luttwak’s latent and active suasion discussed
below. Of note, they do not specifically include deployments designed to build
amity or friendship amongst states.
Third, Turner outlined five basic ‘actions’ by and through which a naval pres-
ence force could achieve its aim: amphibious assault, air attack, bombardment,
blockade and exposure through reconnaissance.58 This objective-tactic-action
approach can be criticized for not including the fleet-in-being concept, protection
of trade, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief and for not acknowledging
the potential of submarines.59 However, it did break new ground by providing the
first framework to describe what naval diplomacy might do, rather than what had
been done in the past (that is, through historical analysis).
Turner’s naval presence mission may be represented diagrammatically in the
format below:
Blockade
Air aack Bombardment
Acons Exposure through

Amphibious
reconnaissance
assault
Naval
Presence
Objecves Taccs
Reacve
Deter deployment
Compel Prevenve
deployment
Figure 2.4 Turner’s naval presence mission

Edward Luttwak, an American military strategist, published The Political Uses of
Sea Power in 1974. The book, though short, ranges widely and debates the use of
armed forces in general before settling on naval power. Rather than be constrained
by concepts such as coercion and deterrence, Luttwak coined the term ‘suasion’ to
frame his arguments. Suasion, he wrote, is a ‘conveniently neutral term [. . .] whose
meaning suggests the indirectness of any political application of naval force’.60
However, the ‘political application of naval force’ need not be ‘indirect’ as
Luttwak states,61 but his point is accepted; ‘naval suasion’ is a more subtle phrase
than ‘gunboat diplomacy’, implying a degree of non-forceful influence rather
than physical action. In this respect it is perhaps more sophisticated than Turner’s
hard power description of the naval presence mission.
Acknowledging the imprecision of the term when applied to sea power, Luttwak
explained that suasion pertains to ‘other’s reactions, and not the actions, or intent,
of the deploying party’, a notable departure from Cable’s and Turner’s approach.
The assumption of rationality in the cognitive decision-making process of all par-
ties, articulated well in Alexander George’s works on coercive diplomacy, is also
acknowledged: ‘Because suasion can only operate through the filters of others’
perceptions, the exercise of suasion is inherently unpredictable in its results’.62
Under the umbrella of naval suasion Luttwak placed a spectrum of operations
from routine deployments to deliberate action. At what might be called the ‘softer’
end, where he situated routine deployments, navies could deliver local, conven-
tional deterrent or supportive functions. Luttwak labelled this end of the spectrum
‘latent suasion’ and it correlates well with Cable’s expressive force; later com-
mentators might also subsume it into wider preventive and ‘defence diplomacy’.
Deliberate action, the ‘active’ side of Luttwak’s spectrum corresponding to defini-
tive or purposeful force in Cable’s terminology, was further broken down into the
positive and negative elements of coercive diplomacy.
Like his contemporaries’ Luttwak’s work was very much a product of the Cold
War, quite obviously influenced by Cable and Schelling (both are acknowledged) but
it is less politically impartial than either of the earlier writers. Luttwak discussed dif-
ferences in perceptions of military strength between the Western and Eastern blocs
and US ‘self-denigration’, he criticized declining American influence in the Middle
East, and he identified increasing multi-polarity during 1970s détente.63 This is a con-
clusion which seems prescient if somewhat premature when read four decades later.
The reader of The Political Uses of Sea Power is assisted in understanding the
concept by Luttwak’s own diagrammatic representation:
Naval
Suasion
Latent Naval Acve Naval

Suasion Suasion
Deterrent Supporve Supporve Coercive
Figure 2.5 Luttwak’s typology of naval suasion64

As can be seen, Luttwak divided naval suasion into two broad fields, active and latent.
The former, he contended, existed when the deliberate exercise of naval suasion was
intended to elicit a given reaction from a specified party.65 This action-reaction rela-
tionship between parties, mechanistic but not as prescriptive as Cable’s ‘assailant’ and
‘victim’ model, has the benefit of acknowledging the existence of wider stakeholders.
The second category, latent suasion, is more interesting, constituting as it does
‘the undirected, and hence possibly unintended, reactions and consequences
evoked by naval deployments maintained on a routine basis’.66 It is also a rea-
sonable approximation of the effects desired of Turner’s preventive deployment
tactic. Viewed even more simplistically, active suasion is the deployment of naval
forces with a specific outcome in mind, whereas latent suasion is defined by both
the expected and unexpected outcomes gained from routine, day-to-day activity.
Another potential limitation of Luttwak’s model is that it discusses the political
application of naval force in a qualitative manner and does not adequately capture
the quantitative nature of practical sea power. On initial reading the categories
and subsets of naval suasion appear to be given equal weighting. Luttwak does
address this in a passing reference, stating that latent suasion is ‘the most general
(in terms of intensity) and geographically the most widespread form of deterrence’
but he does not weigh supportive suasion against coercive, nor the basics of latent
against active.67 The Luttwak model, despite his attempts in the final chapter of
The Political Uses of Sea Power to relate his thoughts to naval tactics, is essen-
tially a theoretical construct, as opposed to a discussion of practical experiences.
Ken Booth’s Navies and Foreign Policy, published in 1977, drew on Luttwak’s
ideas, which he acknowledged as ‘useful’ but went further in the development of
the topic.68
Booth became the architect of the best-known 20th-century theoretical con-
struct for the use of navies; his trinity of functions found its way into the official
doctrine of navies, particularly large navies, worldwide.69 In its most straightfor-
ward form the trinity explains how navies make use of the sea in military, policing
and diplomatic roles:
DIPLOMATIC ROLE POLICING ROLE

i) Negoaon from strength i) Coastguard responsibilies
THE USE OF
ii) Manipulaon ii) Naon-building
THE SEA
iii) Presge
MILITARY ROLE
i) Balance of power funcons
ii) Projecon of force funcons
Figure 2.6 Booth’s functions of navies70

The military and policing functions are not discussed at length here, but it is
worthy of note that there is a degree of overlap between the categories. Booth’s
military role, for instance, can be divided into both peacetime and wartime activi-
ties including those under the heading of a ‘balance of power’ function, which
Booth considered to be geopolitical or diplomatic tasks. Likewise, his policing
role includes a ‘nation-building’ function which, though Booth chose to restrict
‘mainly’ to territorial waters, can stretch onto the high seas and be used to fur-
ther national interest.71 This aspect of sea power was particularly important to
Booth as he claimed that for ‘over one-third of the world’s navies, coastguard and
nation-building responsibilities represent the extent of their functions (and ambi-
tions)’.72 In essence, Booth was acknowledging a different type of naval power,
one which grew bottom-up from the smaller navies, as opposed to the more com-
mon top-down perspectives of other writers who concentrated almost entirely on
the most powerful navies.
However, concentrating on Booth’s diplomatic role it can be seen that the author
considered naval diplomacy to have three basic elements. The first, negotiation
from strength, was the ‘political demonstration of naval force’ which required
‘presence’, including an ability to operate in the air and to project military power
ashore, as well as mastering the traditional naval environment, the sea.73 Booth’s
negotiation from strength entailed a number of supplementary objectives such as
the reassurance of allies, the improvement of bargaining positions and the ability
to affect the course of diplomatic negotiations.74 It fits well with Luttwak’s ‘sup-
portive’ function which spanned both active and latent suasion and can also be
considered an element in each of the three categories of the ‘classical’ model of
naval diplomacy discussed earlier.
Manipulation, the second of Booth’s diplomatic elements, is an extension of
the influence tactics of the first. Booth himself acknowledged the difficulties in
making a ‘clear distinction between the exercise of naval power and the exercise
of naval influence’ because of the ‘subtlety of the stages through which a warship
can be transformed from a platform for a dance-band and cavorting local dignitar-
ies, to a haven of refuge for nationals in distress, to a gun-platform for shore bom-
bardment’.75 However, this ‘subtlety’ can be navigated. Whereas Booth’s concept
of power and negotiation from strength tends towards the ‘status’ and ‘amity’ pil-
lars of classical thought, manipulation is more concerned with coercion. It is the
demonstration of naval power, the management of bargaining positions within an
alliance and the gaining of access to new countries.76
The third element of Booth’s diplomatic role is prestige. While prestige may
initially be considered a concept less prominent in the modern era than it was in
the days of imperialism, Booth is convincing of its relevance and devotes a whole
chapter of Navies and Foreign Policy to its discussion, describing it crudely as
‘the sex appeal of politics’.77 Importantly in the context of naval diplomacy, Booth
considered prestige as a factor both on the world stage, in common with the clas-
sical model derived from Mahan, Corbett and Richmond, and also domestically,
as a means of garnering support from the general public and for ‘oiling the wheels
of intra-governmental bargaining’.78 However, the management of self-image can
have ‘pitfalls’ as Booth points out: sex appeal can create ‘false expectations’, and
returning to the pejorative, ‘one man’s goodwill visit may well be another man’s
gunboat diplomacy’.79 Nonetheless, Booth did identify a ‘prestige race’ taking
place during the Cold War and stated that ‘prestige may be sufficient justifica-
tion for expenditure of resources’.80 Effectively, he claimed that the seeking of
prestige could be a rational strategy. Again, one might consider parallels in the
21st century.
Booth’s points were not lost on the architect of the Soviet Navy, Admiral
Sergei Gorshkov. Gorshkov suggested that Soviet naval growth after 1945
was managed in direct response to American naval advances and not simply
designed for the furtherance of Soviet foreign policy.81 However, he did use his
knowledge of Western maritime strategy to introduce a forward presence mis-
sion to a fleet which had traditionally concentrated on coastal defensive tactics.
He intuitively understood that the Navy could be extremely useful in operations
other than war:
Demonstrative actions by the navy in many cases have made it possible to

achieve political ends without resorting to armed struggle. . . . The navy has
always been an instrument of the policy of states, an important aid to diplo-
macy in peacetime.82
However, unlike Cable and Turner, Gorshkov’s notion of naval diplomacy was
not entirely adversary centred. In addition to its coercive potential he saw a role
of sea power as being a means of ‘holding in check’ allies in order to manage or
maintain power relationships,83 a concept clearly reminiscent of Mahan’s work.
He was particularly intrigued by the UK-US relationship and thought it ‘interest-
ing’ that the United States achieved its position of relative maritime pre-eminence
in the 20th century through close partnership with Britain, a position which Ger-
many had failed to reach through confrontation.84
Equally, Gorshkov was interested in amity and robustly promoted an ‘ambassa-
dorial’ role for the Soviet Navy,85 particularly for spreading influence in the Third
World and amongst existing ‘client’ states and non-aligned countries. And, mir-
roring pre-Cold War naval thinkers, he associated maritime strength with national
prestige.86
What is clear from Gorshkov’s work is that it was written primarily for a
domestic Russian audience. Indeed, in one critique a writer noted that three major
objectives were apparent: Gorshkov was attempting to justify the importance of
a navy to great power status, he was enlisting Communist Party support for the
Navy and he was explaining his theory to Soviet sailors.87 However, what is also
apparent is that his vision was largely reactive and followed developments in the
West. He saw NATO as ‘an alliance of maritime states, with powerful naval forces
occupying advantageous strategic positions in the World Ocean’,88 and he used
strong rhetoric to illustrate the threat he perceived. The true intention of Western
sea power in peacetime, he wrote, was ‘gun diplomacy’.89
Gorshkov used the term ‘local wars of imperialism’ to describe his interpreta-
tions of Western strategy and offered the opinion that naval forces were the most
suitable instruments of state military power because of their mobility, persistence,
independence and ability to be deployed or withdrawn at will.90 The attributes are
clearly recognizable and though Gorshkov used them in his analysis of NATO
strategy they are universal and equally applicable to his own forces. ‘Local wars
of imperialism’ was obviously a politically charged term but the sense was famil-
iar; the meaning can be directly equated to the ‘limited wars’ or ‘limited use of
naval power’ of Cable’s Gunboat Diplomacy.
At the end of the 1970s Bradford Dismukes and James McConnell of the US
Center for Naval Analyses published a study titled Soviet Naval Diplomacy.
Though Gorshkov had clearly been influenced by NATO practices, there was
predictably little open source material emanating from the East for Western
researchers to examine. ‘While researchers have produced a number of papers
and monographs on various aspects of the Soviet Union’s use of its navy in a
political role’, Dismukes and McConnell stated, ‘no comprehensive discussion
of Soviet naval diplomacy is available’.91 They attempted to remedy the situa-
tion, plotting trends in ‘showing the flag’, coercive diplomacy and superpower
confrontation. On the whole, they stated, the Soviet naval diplomacy of the
period was successful and played a greater relative role in overall strategy than
its American equivalent did.92 Gorshkov had watched, learned and improved
upon what he saw.
Combing the thoughts from East and West, a simple construct for a Cold War
model can be drawn with three pillars of naval diplomacy (Figure 2.7).
However, this model is too rudimentary to accurately reflect the complexities
of the height of the Cold War and should be developed further. If the three catego-
ries are assumed to be naval capabilities as opposed to specific naval missions,
that is the ability to coerce, to influence and to maintain alliances, and they are
assumed to be inter-related, then the model can be displayed differently. In the
context of the bipolar competition for dominance at the time, the central outcome
of the combined capabilities can be judged to be prestige or status.
Though few governments of the modern age would consciously admit to
national greatness being a goal it is irrational to dismiss it outright. Booth’s dis-
cussion of prestige is convincing because it is based in credible, accepted theory
and it deserves a place in the generic Cold War model. With hindsight, a ‘prestige
race’ between East and West in the Cold War is plain to see.93 An alternative
model could then be as shown in Figure 2.8.
Naval
Diplomacy
Non-coercive Support to
Coercion
Influence Alliances
Figure 2.7 Naval diplomacy in the Cold War: an initial model

Non-coercive
Coercive
Influence
Capability
Capability
Presge
Alliance
Capability
Figure 2.8 Prestige-focused naval diplomacy in the Cold War
Post-modernism in naval diplomacy

The immediate post-Cold War period from 1991 to 2015 was one of transforma-
tion and uncertainty in geopolitics. The collapse of the Warsaw Pact and the disso-
lution of the Soviet Union were the main catalysts for change but there were other
key milestones in social, political, economic and cultural spheres. The inexorable
rise of China and India, the financial crisis in Western capitalism, the embracing
of democratic peace theory and then the subsequent backlash of nationalist move-
ments, populism, insurgency and faith-spawned terrorism all played their part, as
did the ever-increasing commercial interactions, linkages and interdependencies
known as globalization.
If Cold War naval diplomacy was understood by practitioners and commenta-
tors to be a means to maintain bipolar balance through coercion, reassurance and
image management, then its immediate post-Cold War expression was not quite
so definitive. It was a period of change and for a time in the 1990s one of the
major blocs, the former Soviet Union, all but ceased naval activity on grounds
of affordability while the other sailed the world’s oceans unopposed.94 As the
remaining established navies continued to conduct ‘business as usual’ their pro-
fessional leadership and academia debated their place in the new world order. The
immediate post-Cold War quarter century was no longer just about gunboat diplo-
macy, but also about promoting ties and co-operation between like-minded actors.
The argument for naval diplomacy and forward presence appeared compel-
ling in the age of liberal intervention but it was too often limited by offerings
which focused on the naval forces of the West. Like other aspects of interna-
tional relations it suffered from the problem of Western or Euro-centricity.95 In
the early days of the aftermath of the Cold War virtually no attention was given to
the navies of the rising powers, a shortfall that has since begun to be addressed,
though not yet fully. The navies and coastguards of small, not yet ascendant pow-
ers remain largely ignored.
In 2007 the Indian Navy deployed a squadron of warships to Singapore, Yoko-
suka, Qingdao, Vladivostok, Manila and Ho Chi Minh City. The deployment was
a departure from previous Indian operating norms which, Geoffrey Till stated,
bore ‘more than a passing resemblance to the famous cruise of Theodore Roos-
evelt’s Great White Fleet before the First World War’. The deployment delivered
little in terms of specific exercises but was conducted ‘for general purposes of
greatness’. Specifically, there was undoubted rivalry between India and China in
the region and the deployment was the clear staking of a claim of regional pri-
macy by the Indians.96
Whether the Indian deployment was in reality any different to the naval activity
of the superpowers during the Cold War and a return to an older modus operandi
is uncertain. What is evident is that naval diplomacy was alive and well at the turn
of the 21st century and not just by the global hegemon. When questioning the
contemporary significance of naval diplomacy, many commentators came to the
same conclusion: that it can achieve tangible results.97
China achieved such a ‘tangible result’ in 2008 when it dispatched two destroy-
ers and a support ship to the Gulf of Aden for counter-piracy operations. The
deployment, though small by Western standards, demonstrated China’s ability to
operate credibly and self-sustain over a prolonged period which had previously
been assumed to be beyond its capability. Those People’s Liberation Army (Navy)
Naval Expeditionary Task Force deployments to the Middle East have continued.
The period of globalization and rapid geopolitical transformation from a bipo-
lar through unipolar to multipolar world saw a significant change in the number
and type of maritime actors. One proponent of naval power noted the change at
state level and reported an increase in the number of navies by
about two-thirds . . . in the past 50 years. The count is somewhat imprecise

because many states maintain forces with maritime functions such as polic-
ing, customs enforcement, and a broad array of coast guard operations that
are not organized as navies.98
On their varying utility as instruments of power, he added that offshore presence

may no longer be ‘visible’ but that it was certainly still ‘tangible’:
A coastal state might not be able to see ships cruising off its coasts, but it will
‘feel’ them. A widely dispersed presence mission by an ocean-going navy
can serve as a warning to adversaries, an indication of support to allies, and a
demonstration of resolve that cannot be ignored by neutrals.99
Non-state actors engaging in communicative action at sea to elicit responses

from other parties have already been mentioned. Michele Flournoy and Shawn
Brimley drew attention to what they termed ‘the contested commons’ in a 2009
US Naval Institute Proceedings article, highlighting Hezbollah’s and al-Qaeda’s
maritime tactics and stating that ‘there is a consensus that rising states and non-
state powers, combined with continued globalization, will put great pressure on
the international system as a whole’.100 The ‘international system’ is made up of
vested interests concerned with the maintenance of the status quo. Another Pro-
ceedings writer, Michael Quigley, turned attention back to those vested interests
in the same issue:
In May 2008 the Navy re-established the U.S. Fourth Fleet which had been
dormant for nearly sixty years, thereby raising the profile of naval operations
in the Caribbean and Latin America. [. . . This] high profile way to assert
U.S. naval authority and underscore the strategic, diplomatic and political
importance of Latin America. [. . .] The signal is being sent not only to Ven-
ezuela’s Hugo Chavez but also to other leaders in the region who are hostile
to the US.101
The explicit reference to a ‘signal being sent’ reaffirms the role of naval diplo-
macy as a means of communication.
According to Geoffrey Till, the ‘post-modern’ world in which we now live
requires post-modern navies, which he defines as those belonging to states
moulded for the information economy rather than the industrial and who embrace
a cooperative world system of openness and mutual dependence.102 Till argues
that in a world very different to the bipolar system of the Cold War, post-modern
navies would by necessity require different strategies and he presents them with
four key missions: sea control, expeditionary operations, good order at sea and the
maintenance of a maritime consensus. The first two, he claims, are adaptations of
traditional roles; the latter two are new.103
A logical deduction from Till’s reinterpretation of the maritime military envi-
ronment is that naval diplomacy should receive a similar re-evaluation. Very
much in keeping with Western strategic thought in the immediate post-Cold War
period, Till’s naval diplomacy effectively meant and required forward presence.
Presence, he stated, is more than merely a navy in existence or a fleet-in-being,
it is a strategy of having vessels forward deployed ‘and handy for whatever may
turn up in areas of concern’.104 This fundamental requirement of Till’s model may
also be its main weakness. If it is to be based on anything more than the pure luck
of being in the right place at the right time, presence in the way that he defines it
requires quantity and is therefore effectively limited to larger navies able to field a
high number of platforms if it is to be exercised on a global or even multi-regional
scale.
From presence, with its implications for force composition, readiness and
deployment routines, came three ‘components’ of naval diplomacy. When Till
published an early version of his sea power theory in the Journal of Strategic
Studies in 1994, the components he identified were coercion, alliance or coali-
tion building and international maritime assistance;105 collectively, they were not
dissimilar to the ‘Cold War’ model. A decade later, however, he had changed his
position and the ‘international maritime assistance’ component had been removed,
its place being taken by ‘picture building’.106
Till’s work has made him one of the key figures of early 21st-century naval
thought. One writer remarked in 2008 that he was ‘prescient with regard to the
USN’s new pre-occupation with building maritime security networks, leaving one
to ponder the influence of Till’s work within the USN hierarchy’.107 That obser-
vation was penned as part of a critique of Admiral Mike Mullen’s concept, the
‘1,000-ship navy’.
Mullen, who went on to become the US chairman of the joint chiefs, was chief
of naval operations when he launched the idea of the 1,000-ship navy in a speech
at the US Naval War College in 2005. In the speech Mullen told his audience that
changes in the world meant that there was a need for ‘a new image of sea power’
for which he drew a picture of a partnership, not just between navies, but with ‘the
DEA, or the FBI, or the Customs and Border Control agencies of any number of
other nations, not just our own’.108 Mullen was effectively calling for collabora-
tion among maritime stakeholders to better combat the uncertainties of the age.
The importance of the global war on terrorism in the forging of Mullen’s con-
cept is plain to see in an article published just two months after his speech was
delivered. Writing in the USNI Proceedings journal, John Morgan and Charles
Martoglio, two USN flag officers and Mullen acolytes, reminded readers of the
challenges faced after the al-Qaeda attacks of 11 September 2001 and called for a
‘combination of national, international and private-industry cooperation’ at sea.109
The article was not coincidental. It applauded Mullen’s speech and clearly aimed
to take the debate to the next level. In it can be found the roots of a ‘Mullen model’
for naval diplomacy and the authors identify two objectives within the ‘overarch-
ing goal of the 1000-ship navy’: they are ‘increasing maritime domain awareness’
and ‘posturing assets to respond to crises or emergencies’.110 The first, which
they describe as gaining the ‘knowledge of anything at sea that affects a nation’s
security, safety, economics or its environment’, can be equated with Till’s ‘picture
building’.111 The second, posturing, may just as accurately be termed forward
naval presence.
The Mullen model may use familiar concepts but it places them in an unfamil-
iar configuration. Where Till places ‘presence’ at the pinnacle of his hierarchy
of naval diplomacy with coalition building as a supporting pillar, Morgan and
Martoglio (for Mullen) reverse the arrangement. The model also places greatest
emphasis on the softer end of the power spectrum in an attempt to attract support
from less ‘aggressive’ stakeholders and ignores the harder effects of coercion and
war fighting. Paradoxically, this was opposite to the position of the US Navy 30
years earlier as articulated by Stansfield Turner.
The concepts of hard, soft and smart power devised by Joseph Nye after the
Cold War have been subject to continued debate. Some commentators have
equated ‘soft’ with non-military power and ‘hard’ with military alone, making the
two effectively mutually exclusive. However, the original meaning of soft power
has ‘been distorted, misused and – in extreme cases – abused’.112 Clearly this was
not Joseph Nye’s intention, and since the initial publication of his ideas in 2004
H S
A O
R Command Coerce Threat Pay Sancon Frame Persuade Aract Co-opt F
D T
Figure 2.9 Nye’s spectrum of power behaviours
he has unambiguously stated that not only can military resources contribute to soft
power they are most effective when used under a smart power construct.113
Nye portrayed power as the ability to realize ‘behavioural outcomes’ in others
and identified three means by which any desired end could be reached: it could
be through coercion, reward or attraction.114 From these three basic modes he
derived a spectrum of behaviours which stretched from the ‘tangibles’ of hard
power, such as money and force, to the ‘intangibles’ of ideas, values and culture
which constitute soft power.115
By examining Nye’s spectrum the contribution of militaries can begin to be
understood. They are obviously vital at the hard end where their war-fighting
capabilities are brought to bear, but they offer more. Nye explained that even
under an objectionable dictatorship military prowess and ‘myths of invincibility’
might ‘attract others to join the bandwagon’.116 In other words, hard power can be
attractive. Of note, Nye used a naval example to make his point that a single ele-
ment of power need not be limited in application to a single point on the spectrum:
Naval forces can be used to win battles (hard power) or win hearts and minds
(soft power) depending on what the target and what the issues are.117
Nye’s ideas have certainly resonated within the defence and security community
and the role of the military in soft and smart power has received significant atten-
tion since the concepts were published, among both politicians and practitioners.
Nye identified four ‘modalities’ of military power in The Future of Power but
only one, fighting, fits into the realm of pure hard power. The other three, coer-
cive diplomacy, the protection afforded by alliances, and the assistance offered
by aid and training tend towards the ‘soft’.118 Again, to illustrate his point, Nye
used naval examples. He described the deployment of ships as a ‘classic example
of coercive diplomacy’, he highlighted the dispatch of a US warship to the Baltic
during a major Russian exercise in 2009 as a case of support and assistance to a
nervous ally (Latvia), and he applauded the publication of the US Co-operative
Strategy for Twenty-First Century Sea Power for its forthright message of inter-
national partnering and mutual trust.119 In short, the smart power concept which
Nye produced calls for substantial military and naval involvement.
More recently Christian Le Mière took another step towards updating the con-
cept of naval diplomacy with his book Maritime Diplomacy in the 21st Century.
In it he acknowledged the rather limited ‘gunboat’ or coercive methods beloved
by previous writers and then introduced two additional classifications of his
subject: cooperative and persuasive maritime diplomacy.120 The first, as the name
suggests, requires willing participants on all sides and covers such missions and
tasks as joint exercises and operations, goodwill visits and even humanitarian
assistance and disaster relief. The second, persuasive, is something rather more
nebulous, covering presence and prestige but falling short of out-and-out threat-
ening behaviour. Together coercion, co-operation and persuasion make the whole,
and the whole, Le Mière says, is the use of maritime assets in the management of
international relations.121
Maritime Diplomacy is an important contribution to the debate on sea power in
operations other than war, but it too relies on the assumption of state-centrism and
two party ‘action-reaction’ relationships that held back previous theories. Indeed,
Le Mière leans heavily on game theory to illustrate his points, where player A and
player B do things to achieve the best outcome for themselves. The reality, as the
author tries to point out, is much more complex with a potential stakeholder mix
of military, paramilitary, commercial and NGO actors on the stage.122
Le Mière aids the reader by showing certain ‘properties’ as pentagons in a
series of diagrams referring to specific incidents in his analysis. The efficacy of
the properties can be plotted against a subjective scale. Figure 2.10 shows a non-
specific example of an event assessed as highly pre-emptive, broadly symmetri-
cal, non-kinetic, and possibly vague but sustainable.
The ‘properties’ diagram could be a valuable tool for post-event analysis. There
are clearly subjective assessments to be made about Le Mière’s choice of property
(he does not include context, legitimacy or cost, for example) but the diagram
Kinec Effect
Symmetry Explicitness
Pre-empon Sustainment
Figure 2.10 Le Mière’s properties of maritime diplomacy visualised123

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The Project Gutenberg eBook of A year
among the trees
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eBook.
Title: A year among the trees

or, the woods and by-ways of New England
Author: Wilson Flagg
Release date: January 9, 2024 [eBook #72670]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Educational Publishing Company,

1881
Credits: Richard Tonsing, Emmanuel Ackerman, Steve Mattern,

and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A YEAR AMONG

THE TREES ***
Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is
granted to the public domain.
A Year among the Trees;
OR,
THE WOODS AND BY-WAYS OF NEW
ENGLAND.
By WILSON FLAGG,
AUTHOR OF “STUDIES IN THE FIELD AND FOREST,” “A YEAR WITH THE
BIRDS,” “HALCYON DAYS,” ETC.
The temples of the gods made desolate,

They leave the earth to curses born of art;
Degenerate man resumes the bow and quiver,
And beauty sleeps until another dawn.
BOSTON:
EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.
1890.
COPYRIGHT, 1881,
BY ESTES AND LAURIAT.
BOSTON.
COPYRIGHT, 1889,
BY EDUCATIONAL PUBLISHING CO.,
BOSTON.
INDEX.
A.
Ailantus 267
Alder Alnus serrulata 265
American Elm 74
American Wayfaring-Tree Viburnum lentago 185
Andromeda 209
Animals of the Primitive Forest 12
Apple-Tree Pyrus malus 70
Arbor-Vitæ Thuya occidentalis 299
Arrow-Wood Viburnum dentatum 187
Ash Fraxinus Americana 8
Ash, Mountain 86
Aspen, large Populus tripida 257
Aspen, small Populus tremuloides 258
Autumn Woods 188
Azalea 18
B.
Balsam Fir Abies balsamea 288
Barberry Berberis communis 48
Bayberry Myrica cerifera 178
Beach-Plum Prunus maritima 72
Bearberry Arbutus uva-urs 143
Beech-Tree Fagus Americanus 145
Benzoin Laurus benzoin 135
Bittersweet Celastrus scandens 151
Blackberry Rubus procumbens 152
Black Birch Betula lenta 237
Black Poplar Populus nigra 247
Black Spruce Abies nigra 291
Black Walnut Juglans nigra 164
Buckthorn Rhamnus catharticus 270
Burning-Bushes 269
Butternut Juglans cinerea 163
Button-bush Cephalanthus occidentalis 172
Buttonwood 174
C.
Canada Poplar Populus candicans 246
Canadian Rhodora 19
Catalpa 41
Ceanothus 49
Checkerberry Gaultheria procumbens 143
Cherry, Black Prunus Virginiana 81
Cherry, Choke Prunus serotina 82
Chestnut Castanea vesca 154
Chokeberry Mespilus arbutifolia 85
Clethra Clethra alnifolia 173
Clipped Hedge-rows 136
Cornel 200
Cornel, Blue-berried Cornus circinata 201
Cornel, Dwarf Cornus Canadensis 202
Cornel, Florida Cornus Florida 201
Cornel, Purple-berried Cornus alternifolia 200
Cornel, White-berried Cornus alba 200
Cypress, Northern Cupressus thuyoides 293
Cypress, Southern Taxodium distichum 294
D.
Dark Plains 223
Dewberry Rubus sempervirens 152
Dogwood Rhus vernix 204
Dutch Myrtle Myrica gale 178
E.
Eglantine Rosa micrantha 218
Elder Sambucus Canadensis 206
Elm, American Ulmus Americanus 74
Elm, English Ulmus campestris 80
Elm, White Ulmus Americanus 74
F.
Fir Picea 288
Flowering Dogwood 200
Flowering Raspberry Rubus odoratus 152
Foliage 51
Forms and Expressions of Trees 42
G.
Glycine Glycine apios 150
Grapevine Vitis labrusca 152
Ground Laurel Epigea repens 142
Guelder Rose Viburnum opulus 186
H.
Hardhack Spiræa tomentosa 114
Hawthorn Cratægus oxyacantha 115
Hazel, Beaked Corylus rostrata 172
Hazel, Common Corylus Americana 171
Heath Erica 208
Hemlock Abies Canadensis 279
Hickory 156
Hickory, Bitternut Carya amara 157
Hickory, Fignut Carya ficiformis 157
Hickory, Shellbark Carya squamosa 157
Hickory, White Carya alba 157
Hobblebush Viburnum lantanoides 186
Holly Ilex opaca 113
Honey Locust Gleditschia 108
Hop Hornbeam Ostrya Virginica 61
Hornbeam Carpinus Americana 60
Horse-Chestnut Æsculus 40
I.
Indian Summer 240
Insecurity of our Forests 63
J.
Jersey Tea Ceanothus Americana 49
Juniper Juniperus Virginiana 297
K.
Kalmia 96
L.
Lambkill Kalmia angustifolia 98
Larch Larix Americana 277
Laurel Laurus 134
Laurel, Low 98
Laurel, Mountain 96
Lilac Syringa 47
Lime Tilia Americana 93
Linden-Tree 93
Locust Robinia pseudacacia 106
Lombardy Poplar Populus fastigiata 254
M.
Magnolia Magnolia glauca 105
Maple Acer 220
Meadow-Sweet Spiræa alba 114
Mespilus, Snowy 84
Missouri Currant Ribes aureum 49
Motions of Trees 100
Mountain Ash Sorbus Americana 86
Mountain Laurel Kalmia latifolia 96
Mountain Maple Acer montana 221
Myrtle Myrtus 177
N.
Northern Cypress Cupressus thuyoides 293
Norway Spruce Abies excelsa 291
O.
Oak 121
Oak, Black Quercus tinctoria 133
Oak, Red Quercus rubra 131
Oak, Scarlet Quercus coccinea 132
Oak, Scrub Quercus ilicifolia 132
Oak, Swamp Quercus bicolor 130
Oak, White Quercus alba 129
Orchard Trees 69
P.
Peach-Tree Amygdalus 73
Pear-Tree Pyrus 71
Pine, Pitch Pinus rigidus 305
Pine, White Pinus strobus 301
Pine Woods 282
Plane-Tree Platanus occidentalis 174
Plum-Tree Prunus 72
Plumgranate Prunus Americana 72
Poison Ivy Rhus radicans 150
Poplar Populus 245
Primitive Forest, The 1
Privet Ligustrum vulgare 270
Q.
Quince-Tree Pyrus cydonia 72
R.
Red Birch Betula rubra 239
Red Maple Acer rubrum 228
Red Osier Cornus circinata 201
Relations of Trees to the Atmosphere 109
Relations of Trees to Birds and Insects 233
Relations of Trees to Poetry and Fable 260
Relations of Trees to Salubrity 212
Relations of Trees to Soil 181
Relations of Trees to Temperature 159
Relations of Trees to Water 88
Rhodora Rhodora Canadensis 19
River Maple Acer 222
River Poplar Populus rivalis 248
Rock Maple Acer saccharinum 221
Rose Rosa 217
Rotation and Distribution 25
Rustic Lane and Woodside 148
S.
Sassafras Laurus sassafras 134
Snow-ball Tree 186
Snowy Mespilus Mespilus Canadensis 84
Sounds from Trees 249
Southern Cypress 294
Spindle-Tree Euonymus 269
Spiræa 114
Spruce Abies 290
Spruce, Black Abies nigra 291
Spruce, Norway Abies excelsa 291
Spruce, White Abies alba 290
Strawberry-Tree Euonymus 269
Sugar Maple Acer saccharinum 221
Sumach, Poison Rhus vernix 204
Sumach, Poison Ivy Rhus radicans 152
Sumach, Smooth Rhus glabrum 204
Sumach, Velvet Rhus typhinum 204
Summer Wood-scenery 117
Swamp Honeysuckle Azalea viscosa 18
Swamp Rose Rosa Caroliniana 218
Sweetbrier Rosa micrantha 218
Sweet-Fern Comptonia asplenifolia 179
Sweet-gale 178
Synopsis of Autumn Tints 197
T.
Trees as Electric Agents 137
Trees for Shade and Salubrity 212
Trees in Assemblages 125
Tulip-Tree Liriodendron tulipifera 104
Tupelo Nyssa villosa 58
V.
Vernal Wood-scenery 35
Viburnum, Arrow-Wood V. dentatum 187
Viburnum, Hobblebush V. lantanoides 186
Viburnum, Maple-leaved V. acerifolium 186
Viburnum, Wayfaring-Tree V. lentago 185
Virginia Creeper Ampelopsis 149
Virgin’s Bower Clematis 153
W.
Weeping Willow Salix Babylonica 32
Western Plane Platanus occidentalis 174
White Birch Betula alba 230
White Pine Pinus strobus 301
White Spruce Abies alba 290
Whortleberry Pasture 165
Whortleberries and Huckleberries 170
Willow 21
Willow, Swamp Salix eriocephala 22
Willow, Yellow Salix vitellina 24
Winter Wood-scenery 271
Witch-Hazel 266
Woody Nightshade Solanum dulcamara 150
Y.
Yellow Birch Betula excelsa 238
Yew Taxus Canadensis 300
PREFACE.
The matter contained in this volume is taken wholly from “The

Woods and By-Ways of New England,” omitting all that is published
in Volume I., and which has no special reference to trees. This
volume, beside the particular description of species, treats of the
value and beauty of trees and forests, of their climatic influence as
purifiers of the atmosphere, of their relations to water, to electricity,
to temperature, to the soil, to shade and salubrity, to birds and
insects, to ornament, and to poetry and fable.
THE WOODS.
A YEAR AMONG THE TREES;
OR,
THE WOODS AND BY-WAYS OF NEW

ENGLAND.
THE PRIMITIVE FOREST.
When the Pilgrim first landed on the coast of America, the most
remarkable feature of its scenery that drew his attention, next to the
absence of towns and villages, was an almost universal forest. A few
openings were to be seen near the rivers,—immense peat-meadows
covered with wild bushes and gramineous plants, interspersed with
little wooded islets, and bordered on all sides by a rugged, silent, and
dreary desert of woods. Partial clearings had likewise been made by
the Indians for their rude hamlets, and some spaces had been
opened by fire. But the greater part of the country was darkened by
an umbrageous mass of trees and shrubbery, in whose gloomy
shades were ever present dangers and bewilderment for the traveller.
In these solitudes the axe of the woodman had never been heard, and
the forest for thousands of years had been subject only to the
spontaneous action of natural causes. To men who had been
accustomed to the open and cultivated plains of Europe, this waste of
woods, those hills without prospect, that pathless wilderness, and its
inhabitants as savage as the aspect of the country, must have seemed
equally sublime and terrible.
But when the colonists had cut roads through this desert, planted
landmarks over the country, built houses upon its clearings, opened
the hill-tops to a view of the surrounding prospect, and cheered the
solitude by some gleams of civilization, then came the naturalist and
the man of science to survey the aspect and productions of this new
world. And when they made their first excursions over its rugged
hills and through its wooded vales, we can easily imagine their
transports at the sight of its peculiar scenery. How must the early
botanist have exulted over this grand assemblage of plants, that bore
resemblance to those of Europe only as the wild Indian resembles the
fair-haired Saxon! Everywhere some rare herb put forth flowers at
his feet, and trees of magnificent height and slender proportions
intercepted his progress by their crowded numbers. The wood was so
generally uninterrupted, that it was difficult to find a summit from
which he could obtain a lookout of any considerable extent; but
occasional natural openings exposed floral scenes that must have
seemed like the work of enchantment. In the wet meadows were
deep beds of moss of the finest verdure, which had seldom been
disturbed by man or brute. On the uplands were vast fields of the
checkerberry plant, social, like the European heath, and loaded half
the year with its spicy scarlet fruit. Every valley presented some
unknown vegetation to his sight, and every tangled path led him into
a new scene of beauties and wonders. It must have seemed to him,
when traversing this strange wilderness, that he had entered upon a
new earth, in which nature had imitated, without repeating, the
productions of his native East.
Along the level parts of New England and the adjacent country,
wherever the rivers were languid in their course, and partially
inundated their banks in the spring, were frequent natural meadows,
not covered by trees,—the homes of the robin and the bobolink
before the white man had opened to them new fields for their
subsistence. In the borders of these openings, the woods in early
summer were filled with a sweet and novel minstrelsy, contrasting
delightfully with the silence of the deeper forest. The notes of the
birds were wild variations of those which were familiar to the Pilgrim
in his native land, and inspired him with delight amidst the all-
prevailing sadness of woods that presented on the one hand scenes
both grand and beautiful, and teemed on the other with horrors
which only the pioneer of the desert could describe.
The whole continent, at the time of its discovery, from the coast to
the Great American Desert, was one vast hunting-ground, where the
nomadic inhabitants obtained their subsistence from the chase of
countless herds of deer and buffalo. At this period the climate had
not been modified by the operations of man upon the forest. It was
less variable than now, and the temperature corresponded more
definitely with the degrees of latitude. The winter was a season of
more invariable cold, less interrupted by thaws. In New England and
the other Northern States, snow fell in the early part of December,
and lay on the ground until April, when the spring opened suddenly,
and was not followed by those vicissitudes that mark the season at
the present era. Such was the true forest climate. May-day came
garlanded with flowers, lighted with sunshine, and breathing the
odors of a true spring. It was then easy to foretell what the next
season would be from its character the preceding years. Autumn was
not then, as we have often seen it, extended into winter. The limits of
each season were more precisely defined. The continent was annually
visited by the Indian summer, that came, without fail, immediately
after the fall of the leaf and the first hard frosts of November. This
short season of mild and serene weather, the halcyon period of
autumn, has disappeared with the primitive forest.
The original circumstances of the country have been entirely
revolutionized. The American climate is now in that transition state
which has been caused by opening the space to the winds from all
quarters by operations which have not yet been carried to their
extreme limit. These changes of the surface have probably increased
the mean annual temperature of the whole country by permitting the
direct rays of the sun to act upon a wider area, while they have
multiplied those eccentricities of climate that balk our weather
calculations at all seasons. There are still in many parts of the
country large tracts of wood which have not been greatly disturbed.
From the observation of these, and from descriptions by different
writers of the last century, we may form a pretty fair estimate of the
character and aspect of the forest before it was invaded by civilized
man.
During this primitive condition of the country, the forest, having
been left for centuries entirely to nature, would have formed a very
intelligible geological chart. If we could have taken an extensive view
of the New England forest, before any considerable inroads had been
made by the early settlers, from an elevated stand on the coast, we
should have beheld a dense and almost universal covering of trees.
From this stand we might also trace the geological character of the
soil, and its different degrees of fertility, dryness, and moisture, by
the predominance of certain species and the absence of others. The
undulations upon this vast ocean of foliage would come from the
elevations and depressions of the ground; for the varying heights of
the different assemblages of species upon the same level could hardly
be perceived by a distant view. The lowest parts of this wooded
region were at that period covered very generally with a crowded
growth of the northern cypress, or white cedar. These evergreen
swamps would constitute the darkest ground of the picture. The deep
alluvial tracts would be known by the deciduous character of their
woods and their lighter and brighter verdure, and the dry, sandy and
diluvial plains and the gravelly hills and eminences by their white
birches and tremulous poplars, their stunted pitch-pines and
dwarfish junipers. For a century past the woods have been cleared
mostly from the alluvial tracts; and the oaks, the hickories, the
chestnuts, and other hard-wood trees, the primitive occupants of the
rich and deep soils, have been succeeded in great measure by trees of
softer wood, that originally grew on inferior land. The wooded aspect
of the country cannot any longer be considered, as formerly, a good
geological chart, except in some parts of Maine and the adjoining
British Provinces.
One of the conditions most remarkable in a primitive forest is the
universal dampness of the ground. The second growth of timber,
especially if the surface were entirely cleared, stands upon a drier
foundation. This greater dryness is caused by the absence of those
vast accumulations of vegetable débris that rested on the ground
before it was disturbed. A greater evaporation also takes place under
the second growth, because the trees are of inferior size and stand
more widely apart. Another character of a primitive forest is the
crowded assemblage of trees and their undergrowth, causing great
difficulty in traversing it. Innumerable straggling vines, many of
them covered with thorns, like the green-brier, intercept our way.
Immense trunks of trees, prostrated by hurricanes, lie in our path,
and beds of moss of extreme thickness cover a great part of the
surface, saturated with moisture. The trees are also covered with
mosses, generated by the shade and dampness; and woody vines, like
the climbing fern, the poison ivy, and the ampelopsis, fastened upon
their trunks and trailing from their branches, make the wood in
many places like the interior of a grotto. Above all, the traveller
would notice the absence of those pleasant wood-paths that intersect
all our familiar woods, and would find his way only by observing
those natural appearances that serve as a compass to the Indian and
the forester.
In primitive woods there is but a small proportion of perfectly
formed trees; and these occur only in such places as permit some
individuals to stand in an isolated position, and spread out their
arms to their full capacity. When rambling in a wood we take note of
several conditions which are favorable to this full expansion of their
forms. On the borders of a lake, a prairie, or an open moor, or of an
extensive quarry that projects above the soil, the trees will extend
their branches into the opening; but as they are crowded on their
inner side, they are only half developed. This expansion, however, is
on the side that is exposed to view; hence the incomparable beauty of
a wood on the borders of a lake or pond, on the banks of a river as
viewed from the water, and on the circumference of a densely
wooded islet.
Fissures and cavities are frequent in large rocks not covered with
soil, allowing solitary trees which have taken root in them to acquire
their full proportions. In such places, and on eminences that rise
suddenly above the forest level, with precipitous sides, overtopping
the surrounding woods, we find individual trees possessing the
character of standards, like those we see by roadsides and in open
fields. But perfectly formed trees can only be produced in openings
and on isolated elevations such as I have described; and it is evident
that these favorable circumstances must be rare. The trees in a forest
are like those human beings who from their infancy have been
confined in the workshops of a crowded manufacturing town, and
who become closely assimilated and lose those marks of individual
character by which they would be distinguished if they had been
reared in a state of freedom and in the open country.
The primitive forest, in spite of its dampness, has always been
subject to fires in dry seasons, which have sometimes extended over
immense tracts of country. These fires were the dread of the early
settlers, and countless lives have been destroyed by their flames
often overwhelming entire villages. At the present time the causes of
fire in the woods are very numerous; but before they were exposed to
artificial sources of ignition it may have arisen from spontaneous
combustion, caused by large accumulations of fermenting
substances, or from lightning, or from the accidental friction of the
trunks of half-prostrated trees crossing each other, and moved by a
high wind. The forests in every part of the world have been subject to
conflagrations; and there seems to be no other means that could be
used by nature for removing old and worn-out forests, which contain
more combustible materials than any young woods. The burned
tracts in America are called barrens by the inhabitants; and as the
vegetation on the surface is often entirely destroyed, the spontaneous
renewal of it would display the gradual method of nature in restoring
the forest. The successions of plants, from the beautiful crimson
fireweed, through all the gradations of tender herbs, prickly bushes,
and brambles, to shrubs and trees of inferior stature, until all, if the
soil be deep and fertile, are supplanted by oaks, chestnuts, hickories,
and other hard-wood trees, are as regular and determinable as the
courses of the planets or the orders of the seasons.
THE ASH.
It is interesting to note the changes that take place from one

season to another in the comparative beauty of certain trees. The
Ash, for example, during the early part of October, is one of the most
beautiful trees of the forest, exceeded only by the maple in variety of
tinting. In summer, too, but few trees surpass it in quality of foliage,
disposed in flowing irregular masses, light and airy, but not thin,
though allowing the branches to be traced through it, even to their
extremities. It has a well-rounded head, neither so regular as to be
formal, nor so broken as to detract from its peculiar grace. When
standing with other trees in midsummer, in the border of a wood, or
mingled with the standards by the roadside, the Ash would be sure to
attract admiration. But no sooner have the leaves fallen from its
branches than it takes rank below almost all other trees, presenting a
stiff, blunt, and awkward spray, and an entire want of that elegance it
affects at other seasons.
The Ash is a favorite in Europe, though deficient there in autumnal
tints. It is a tree of the first magnitude, and has been styled in
classical poetry the Venus of the forest, from the general beauty of its
proportions and flowing robes. The English, however, complain of
the Ash, on account of its tardy leafing in the spring and its
premature denudation in the autumn. “Its leaf,” says Gilpin, “is
much tenderer than that of the oak, and sooner receives impression
from the winds and frost. Instead of contributing its tint, therefore,
in the wane of the year, among the many colored offspring of the
woods, it shrinks from the blast, drops its leaf, and in each scene
where it predominates leaves wide blanks of desolate boughs amid
foliage yet fresh and verdant. Before its decay we sometimes see its
leaf tinged with a fine yellow, well contrasted with the neighboring
greens. But this is one of nature’s casual beauties. Much oftener its
leaf decays in a dark, muddy, unpleasing tint.”
The Ash is remarkable for a certain trimness and regularity of
proportion, and it seldom displays any of those breaks so
conspicuous in the outlines of the hickory, which in many points it
resembles. The trunk rises to more than an average height before it is
subdivided; but we do not see the central shaft above this
subdivision, as in the poplar and the fir. Lateral branches seldom
shoot from the trunk, save, as I have sometimes observed, a sort of
bushy growth, surrounding it a little below the angles made by the
lower branches. It is called in Europe “the painters’ tree.” But George
Barnard, alluding to this fact, remarks: “Unlike the oak, the Ash does
not increase in picturesqueness with old age. The foliage becomes
rare and meagre, and its branches, instead of hanging loosely, often
start away in disagreeable forms.”
North America contains a greater number of species of the genus
Fraxinus than any other part of the globe. But three of these only are
common in New England,—the white, the red, and the black Ash.
The first is the most frequent both in the forest and by the roadsides,
the most beautiful, and the most valuable for its timber. All the
species have pinnate and opposite leaves, and opposite branches in
all the recent growth; but as the tree increases in size, one of the two
invariably becomes abortive, so that we perceive this opposite
character only in the spray. The leaflets are mostly in sevens, not so
large nor so unequal as in the similar foliage of the hickory.
The white and the red Ash have so nearly the same external
characters, that it requires some study to distinguish them. They do
not differ in their ramification, nor in their autumnal hues. The black
Ash may be readily identified by the leaves, which are sessile, and
like those of the elder; also by the dark bluish color of the buds and
newly formed branches, and the slenderness of its proportions. It
seldom attains a great height or size, and is chiefly confined to
swamps and muddy soils. The wood of this species is remarkable for
strength and elasticity. The remarks of George Barnard respecting
the localities of the Ash in Europe will apply to the American species:
“Though seen everywhere, its favorite haunt is the mountain stream,
where its branches hang gracefully over the water, adding much
beauty to the scene. It is to be met with in every romantic glen and
glade, now clinging with half-covered roots to a steep, overhanging
cliff, and breaking with its light, elegant foliage the otherwise too
abrupt line, or with its soft warm green relieving the monotonous
coloring of the rocks or the sombre gray of some old ruin.”
There are some remarkable superstitions and traditionary notions
connected with the Ash-tree. The idea that it is offensive, and even
fatal, to serpents, is not of modern origin, though not a rustic laborer
can be found who would not consider an Ash-tree planted before his
house as a charm against their intrusion. According to Pliny, if a
serpent be surrounded on one side by fire and on the other by a
barricade of the leaves and branches of the Ash-tree, he will escape
through the fire, rather than through its fatal boughs. It is related in
the Edda that man was first created from the wood of this tree, and it
is not improbable that this superstition has some connection with
the fable of Adam and Eve, and through this with the supposed
antipathy of the serpent for the Ash-tree.
There is a saying in Great Britain, that, if the Ash puts forth its
leaves before the oak, the following summer will be wet; but if the
leafing of the oak precedes that of the Ash, it will be dry. I am not
aware that any such maxim has obtained credence in the United
States.
ANIMALS OF THE PRIMITIVE FOREST.
European travellers in this country frequently allude to the

American forest as remarkable for its solitude and deficiency of
animal life. Captain Hardy remarks that a foreigner is struck with
surprise, when rambling through the bush, at the scarcity of birds,
rabbits, and hares, and is astonished when in the deepest recesses of
the wild country he sees but little increase of their numbers. When
paddling his canoe through lake and river, he will startle but few
pairs of exceedingly timid waterfowl where in Europe they swarm in
multitudes. This scarcity of animals, I would remark, is not peculiar
to the American wilderness. The same fact has been observed in
extensive forests both in Europe and Asia; and in proportion as the
traveller penetrates into their interiors he finds a smaller number of
animals of almost every species. Birds, insects, and quadrupeds will
multiply, like human beings, in a certain ratio with the progress of
agriculture, so long as there remains a sufficiency of wild wood to
afford them a refuge and a home. They use the forest chiefly for
shelter, and the open grounds for forage; the woods are their house,
the meadows their farm.
I had an opportunity for observing these facts very early in life,
when making a pedestrian tour through several of the States. I
commenced my journey in autumn, and being alone, I was led to
take note of many things which, had any one accompanied me,
would have escaped my observation. After passing a few weeks of the
winter in Nashville, I directed my course through Tennessee and
Virginia, and was often led through extensive ranges of forest. I
never saw birds in any part of the United States so numerous as in
the woods adjoining the city of Nashville, which was surrounded with
immense cornfields and cotton plantations. But while walking
through the country I could not help observing the scarcity of birds
and small quadrupeds in the woods whenever I was at a long
distance from any village or habitation. Sometimes night would draw
near before I had reached a hamlet or farm-house, where I might
take lodging. On such occasions the silence of the woods increased
my anxiety, which was immediately relieved upon hearing the
cardinal or the mocking-bird, whose cheerful notes always indicated
my approach to cultivated fields and farms.
That this scarcity of animal life is not peculiar to the American
forest we have the testimony of St. Pierre, who says of the singing
birds: “It is very remarkable that all over the globe they discover an
instinct which attracts them to the habitations of man. If there be but
a single hut in the forest, all the singing birds of the vicinity come
and settle round it. Nay, they are not to be found except in places
which are inhabited. I have travelled more than six hundred leagues
through the forests of Russia, but never met with small birds except
in the neighborhood of villages. On making the tour of fortified
places in Russian Finland with the general officers of the corps of
engineers with which I served, we travelled sometimes at the rate of
twenty leagues a day without seeing on the road either village or bird.
But when we perceived the sparrows fluttering about, we concluded
we must be near some inhabited place. In this indication we were
never once deceived.”
It may be remarked, however, that birds and quadrupeds do not
seek the company of man when they congregate near his habitations.
They are attracted by the increased amount of all their means of
subsistence that follows the cultivation of the land. The granivorous
birds, no less than the insect-feeders, are benefited by the extension
of agriculture. Even if no cereal grains were raised, the cultivated
fields would supply them, in the product of weeds alone, more
sustenance than a hundred times the same area in forest. Before
there were any settlements of white men in this country, birds and
small quadrupeds must have congregated chiefly about the wooded
borders of prairies, on the banks of rivers, in fens and cranberry
meadows, and around the villages of the red man. Their numbers
over the whole continent were probably much smaller than at the
present time, notwithstanding the merciless destruction of them by
gunners and trappers.
There are but few tribes of animals that may be supposed to thrive
only in the wild forest; and even these, if unmolested by man, would
always find a better subsistence in a half-cultivated country
abounding in woods of sufficient extent to afford them shelter and a
nursery for their young, than in a continuous wilderness. Beasts of
prey, however, are destroyed by man in the vicinity of all his
settlements, to protect himself and his property from their attacks,
and game-birds and animals of the chase are recklessly hunted both
for profit and amusement. In Europe the clearing of the original
forest was so gradual that the wild animals multiplied more rapidly
with the progress of agriculture. Civilization advanced so slowly, and
the arts made such tardy and gradual progress, that all species
enjoyed considerable immunity from man. The game-birds and
animals of the chase were not only preserved in forests attached to
princely estates, but they were also protected by game-laws at a time
when such laws were less needful because so few of the peasantry
were accustomed to the use of the gun. While the royal forests
yielded these creatures a shelter and abode, the cultivated lands near
their bounds afforded them subsistence; and they must have
multiplied more rapidly in proportion to the increase of human
population than in America after its settlement, where very different
circumstances and events were witnessed.
America was colonized and occupied by civilized people, and the
forests were swept away with a rapidity unprecedented in the history
of man. Every pioneer was a hunter provided with guns and
ammunition; every male member of his family over seven years of
age was a gunner and a trapper. The sparse inhabitants of the forest,
which if unmolested, as in the early period of European civilization,
would have multiplied in proportion to their increased means of
subsistence, have been, on the contrary, shot by the gunner, insnared
by the trapper, and wantonly destroyed by boys for amusement, until
some species have been nearly exterminated. Instead of increasing in
a ratio with the supplies of their natural food, many tribes of them
are now more scarce than they were in the primitive forest. The small
birds alone, whose prolific habits and diminutive size were their
protection, have greatly multiplied.
But even if birds and quadrupeds were unmolested by man, there
are some tribes that would prefer to reside in the deep wood, while
others would fix their abode in orchards and gardens. The wild
pigeon has not been favored in any respect by the clearing of the
forest. The food of this species is abundantly supplied in the wilds of
nature in the product of beechen woods, hazel copses, groves of the
chinquapin oak, and of the shores of lakes and arms of the sea
covered with Canada rice and the maritime pea-vine. Their immense
powers of flight enable them to transport themselves to new feeding-
grounds after any present stock is exhausted, and to wing their way
over hundreds of miles between their different repasts. This cannot
be said of the grouse, the turkey, and the partridge, whose feeble
powers of flight confine them to a narrow extent of territory; and
these birds must have been frequently robbed of their farinaceous
stores by flocks of wild pigeons during their itinerant foraging.
There are many species of birds which we associate with the wild
wood because they breed and find shelter there, but if we watched
their habits we should learn that even these solitary birds make the
cultivated grounds their principal feeding-places. Such are the quail,
the partridge, and very many of our game-birds. The quail and the
partridge are omnivorous, but, like our common poultry, are more
eager to seize a grub or an insect than a grain of corn. A potato-field
is hardly less valuable to a flock of quails than a field of corn, and
affords more sustenance to the snipe and the woodcock than any
other grounds. But these birds, as well as others, have diminished as
those natural advantages have increased that should promote their
multiplication.
Even our sylvias and thrushes, the most timid of all the winged
tribe, birds hardly ever seen except in lonely woods, multiply with
the clearing of the country and the increased abundance of their
insect food. The vesper thrushes, that shun the presence of man, and
will become silent in their musical evening if the rustling of the
bushes indicates the approach of a human footstep, are more
numerous in the woods of Cambridge than in any other part of the
country. These are chiefly of maple, filled with underbrush, and
afford the birds a harbor and a shelter, while the adjoining fields, in a
state of the highest tillage, supply them plentifully with their natural
food, consisting of worms and the larvæ of insects.

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The diplomatic use of military force

Coercive diplomacy: deterrence, coercion and compellence

Whereas deterrence represents an effort to dissuade an opponent from under-

It is more desirable to be militarily powerful than militarily weak. Militarily

Preventive diplomacy: the military contribution

The particular advantage of naval forces in diplomacy

The essential quality of a military navy is obviously its ultimate capacity to

Conventional wisdom ascribes a number of enduring ‘attributes’ to naval forces

Naval diplomacy through the eyes of navalists

So he [Clausewitz] concludes there may be wars of all degrees of importance

throughout much of the nineteenth century, foreign expectations and fears

Figure 2.1 Interdependent classical naval diplomacy

Into the Cold War

SOFTER POWER HARDER

Figure 2.2 Cable’s four mode model

East versus West

Today the Soviet naval presence in the Mediterranean is as great as ours; 10

Figure 2.3 Turner’s independent naval missions55

Air aack Bombardment

Acons Exposure through