GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY, 1919-1991 Published by Macmillan in association with the International Institute for Strategic Studies STUDIES IN INTERNATIONAL SECURI'IY 18 NATIONS IN ARMS: The Theory and Practice of Territorial Defence Adam Roberts 20 THE EVOLUTION OF NUCLEAR STRATEGY (second edition) Lawrence Freedman 23 THE SOVIET UNION: The Incomplete Superpower Paul Dibb 24 ANTI-SUBMARINE WARFARE AND SUPERPOWER STRATEGIC STABILITY Donald C. Daniel 25 HEDLEY BULL ON ARMS CONTROL Hedley Bull 26 EUROPE IN THE WESTERN ALLIANCE: Towards a European Defence Entity? Jonathan Alford and Kenneth Hunt 28 THE DEFENCE OF WHITE POWER: South African Foreign Policy under Pressure Robert ScottJaster 29 PEACEKEEPING IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS Alan James 30 STRATEGIC DEFENCE DEPLOYMENT OPTIONS: Criteria and Evaluation Ivo H. Daalder AN INTRODUCTION TO STRATEGIC STUDIES: Military Technology and International Relations Barry Buzan MILITARY POWER IN EUROPE: Essays in Memory of Jonathan Alford Lawrence Freedman (editor) EUROl1f'.AN SECURITY AND FRANCE Franc;ois de Rose Series Standing Order If you would like to receive future titles in this series as they arc published, you can make usc of our standing order facility. To place a standing order please contact your bookseller or, in case of difficulty, write to us at the address below with your name and address and the name of the series. Please state with which title you wish to begin your standing order. (If you live outside the UK we may not have the rights for your area, in which case we will forward your order to the publisher concerned.) Standing Order ScJvicc, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, RG21 2XS, England Gunboat Diplomacy 1919-1991 Political Applications of Limited Naval Force Third Edition James Cable Foreword by Admiral of the Fleet Sir Julian Oswald, GCB First Sea Lord, 1989-1993 palgrave macmillan © James Cable 1971, 1981, 1994 Foreword © Julian Oswald 1994 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First edition ( Gunlxxtt Dipummcy) published by Chatto &: Windus 1971 Second edition ( Gunlxxtt Diplimary, 19I 9-I 979) published by Macmillan 1981 Reprinted 1985, 1986 Third edition (C..unboot Dipl.omt!.r.j, I9I9-I99I) published by Macmillan 1994 This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and sustained forest sources. Logging, pulping and manufacturing processes are expected to conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. Published by THE MACMILlAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-0-333-61680-2 ISBN 978-1-349-23415-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-23415-8 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. For Viveca, as always Also by James Cable GUNBOAT DIPLOMACY THE ROYAL NAVY AND THE SIEGE OF BILBAO BRITAIN'S NAVAL FUTURE DIPLOMACY AT SEA THE GENEVA CONFERENCE OF 1954 ON INDOCHINA POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS AND ISSUES IN BRITAIN NAVIES IN VIOLENT PEACE INTERVENTIONAT ABADAN: Plan Buccaneer As Grant Hugo BRITAIN IN TOMORROW'S WORLD APPEARANCE AND REALITY IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS Contents Foreword IX Introduction 1 1 Definitions 7 2 Principles and Precedents 15 I Definitive force: ALTMARK and PUEBLO 15 II Purposeful force: Corfu 33 III Purposeful force: the upper limit 42 IV Catalytic force: from the Baltic to Beirut 46 v Expressive force: DEUTSCHLAND to DEDALO 62 3 The Altered Environment 65 I Historical 65 II Technological 67 III Political 79 IV Conversely 90 4 Operations and Capacities 99 I Operations 100 II Capacities 116 5 In the Absence of the Soviet Union 128 6 The Future of Gunboat Diplomacy 140 Chronological Appendix: Seventy Years q[Gunboat Diplomacy 158 Notes and Riferences 214 Select Bibliography 233 Index 239 Vll Foreword Those who have known and admiredjames Cable's work in the past, and who have read both the first and second editions of Gunboat Diplomacy, might recall that while both volumes had a preface and an introduction, neither had a foreword. So the reader may justifiably wonder if a contribution in the form of a foreword is either necessary or justified. A foreword can have a variety of purposes: to outline the book, to explain its aims, or to introduce the writer. However, a different consideration occurs to me. By far the largest part of the book - the text, the refer­ ences, the bibliography, the introduction and the preface - comes from the pen of the author, and all of these inevitably reflect his characteristic modesty. It is only in the publisher's blurb on the dustjacket and in the foreword that anybody other than the author can pay tribute to the quality of james Cable's work. It seems to me that in a book as important as a new edition of Gunboat Diplomacy, it is perfectly proper to have an external assessment of the significance of the task, and of how well the author has discharged it. The third edition, like its predecessors, concentrates on the period since 1919, but in this edition the author takes us up to 1991; this new volume, therefore, comprehends the period of the recent and cataclysmic changes in international security relationships consequent upon the collapse of the former Soviet Union. In this edition, 'gunboat diplomacy' is described and explained not only in the twenty-year period from 1919 to 1939, but also in the post-Second World War period of the so-called Cold War and, most interestingly and importantly, in the post­ Cold War state we now enjoy in which international security constraints are very different, and far less predictable, than those which pertained a few years ago. The early years of this period of new world order are a particularly appropriate time to revisit the concept of gunboat diplomacy and test it against the new strategic realities. In essence, these changes reflect the end of the confrontational stale-mate of the Cold War and the removal of the previous virtually automatic veto by one super­ power or the other of almost any peacekeeping or other activity involving the deployment of armed forces. (Of course, there IX X Foreword were exceptions, and the UN operations in Korea in the 1950s are perhaps the most celebrated, but the non-use of the veto on that occasion is a different, and fascinating, story). Of course, even the power of veto did not prevent action being taken in a considerable number of cases, as indeed this new edition of Gunboat Diplomacy well illustrates, but it did constrain the super­ powers on many occasions, which might well have furnished additional examples of the use of gunboat diplomacy had conditions been different. The reader will appreciate that the veto is off both ways as it were, and we can now expect the Russians to consider the use of coercive force in ways that would not have been likely during the Cold War. Initially, this has already been evident in the deployment of Russian forces to counter insurrection within the borders of the former Soviet Union. Increasingly, we can expect to see these forces, not least the Russian Navy, playing their part in peacekeeping operations on the world scene. Additionally, because those Cold War constraints are lifted, we see many more situations developing in which the superpowers, or even medium powers, may feel that the use of force is both necessary and justified in the pursuit of peace. We have only to look at the former Yugoslavia. In the days of the Cold War it was a pleasant country ruled by Tito, a popular holiday destination. One could certainly not describe the former Yugoslavia in those terms now. In the words of the old saying, 'The eat's away, the mice do play.' Thus we see a world security scene in which the need for deterrence against, for example, general war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact with major hostilities - possibly even including the use of nuclear weapons - has all but disappeared, but where the number of lower-level, more limited (but still very damaging and potentially serious) disputes is increasing at a worrying rate. It is worth giving a few moments' thought to the nature of peacekeeping operations, because to an important extent this affects the way in which gunboat diplomacy may be employed. We must begin from the unarguable premise that man is a land animal (and often, not a very sociable, caring or pleasant one at that!). He is capable of falling out with his neighbour and even his erstwhile friend on grounds of race, religion, language, politics, creed, economics and a host of other issues. Differences of ethnicity, tribe and culture are quite enough to have him at Foreword XI his neighbour's throat. He will squabble, and quite possibly fight, over land, food, water, economic rights and much more. The list of conflicts, even since the end of the Second World War, seems almost endless. The death toll has been estimated at between 20 and 30 million people, a figure that dwarfs that of many of the major declared hostilities in history. Because man lives on land (although he is often highly dependent upon the sea), the extent to which he can be influenced by gunboat diplomacy will frequently be limited - although watery coun­ tries like Vietnam and Cambodia provide interesting excep­ tions.