Naval War College Review Volume 65 Article 9 Number 4 Autumn 2012 “Decided Preponderance at Sea”: Naval Diplomacy in Strategic Thought Kevin Rowlands Royal Navy Follow this and additional works at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review Recommended Citation Rowlands, Kevin (2012) "“Decided Preponderance at Sea”: Naval Diplomacy in Strategic Thought," Naval War College Review: Vol. 65 : No. 4 , Article 9. Available at: https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/nwc-review/vol65/iss4/9 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Naval War College Review by an authorized editor of U.S. Naval War College Digital Commons. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Rowlands: “Decided Preponderance at Sea”: Naval Diplomacy in Strategic Thou “DECIDED PREPONDERANCE AT SEA” Naval Diplomacy in Strategic Thought Commander Kevin Rowlands, Royal Navy liver Cromwell famously declared that “a man-o’-war is the best ambas- O sador”; a twenty-first-century equivalent represents the U.S. Navy in posters and on T-shirts and sweatshirts as an aircraft carrier over the caption “90,000 tons of diplomacy.” Though the images may be different, the message is the same—yet “naval diplomacy” is not a readily understood term. From the coercion delivered by the gunboats of the Pax Britannica to the modern-day ex- ercise of soft power through hardware, interpretations of what constitutes naval diplomacy are wide-ranging. Strategists have undoubtedly long been aware of its existence, but over the centuries few have been moved to study or document it in any substantial way.