Gunboat Diplomacy

"Gunboat diplomacy is difficult to define – a concept familiar to many yet amorphous in nature it defies a simple a priori definition. However, James Cable describes it as "the use or threat of limited naval force, otherwise than as an act of war, in order to secure advantage or to avert loss, either in furtherance of an international dispute or else against foreign nationals within the territory or the jurisdiction of their own state".

Thus gunboat diplomacy is a form of coercive diplomacy carried out in peacetime or in less than war situations and is intended to secure specific advantage from another state and forfeits its diplomatic character if it either contemplates the infliction of injury unrelated to obtaining that advantage or commits an otherwise act of war. Hence coercive, gunboat diplomacy is an alternative to war and if it leads to war then we must not only hold that it has failed, but hesitate to give the name gunboat diplomacy. The other important aspect of gunboat diplomacy is that it must be accompanied by political diplomacy since it is an extension of the same. If there is no accompanying political diplomacy, there can be no gunboat diplomacy."

Source: https://ciaotest.cc.columbia.edu/olj/sa/sa_feb01ghp01.html